Best brand (& perhaps model) of 4Tb SSD NVMe M.2 brand for Ubuntu 22.04 compatibility

[xznyang]

Hi there,


I have bought an Asus laptop (i7 with 16Gb) that comes with Windows 11 installed in a 1Tb SSD (NVMe M.2) and I want to install Ubuntu for a dual-boot setup. Since the motherboard has space for a second SSD (NVMe M.2), my plan is to buy a 4Tb model to put there and install Ubuntu 22.04.

However, because I have owned and worked with multiple laptops using multiple versions of Ubuntu in the last years, I am well aware of the many SSD firmware compatibility issues that may raise problems under Ubuntu (the canonical example being Suspension / Hibernation). Therefore, I am here just to ask your opinions on which brand / models of SSD have had, in your experience, the best firmware support / compatibility for installing Ubuntu in a laptop.

Many thanks!

[MAFoElffen]

I have never gone wrong with Samsung SSD's and NVMe's. You pay a bit more, but they have proven their worth to me again and again. I look for sales on them at Amazon.

Note:

In my laptop:

mafoelffen@Mikes-ThinkPad-T520:~/Scripts$ lsblk -e7 -o model | sed '/^$/d'
MODEL
Samsung SSD 870 QVO 2TB
Samsung SSD 870 QVO 2TB
Dogfish SSD 2TB

The first is in the traditional HDD slot. The second is in a SATA drive caddy that replaced the optical drive. The third is an mSATA card in the slot that used to have WWAN card. I couldn't find an mSATA made by Samsung and larger than 1TB...

[1fallen]

I just have to second that:

lsblk -e7 -o model | sed '/^$/d'
MODEL
Sabrent
SN570 500GB
Ultra
STORAGE DEVICE
STORAGE DEVICE
PNY CS2311 1TB SSD
Samsung SSD 980 PRO 1TB

I've had an opportunity to use multiple SSD's and by far the Samsung smokes them all.

[MAFoElffen]

To add to that:

My Workstation:

mafoelffen@msi-ubuntu:~$ lsblk -e7 -o model | sed '/^$/d'
MODEL
WDC WD40EZAZ-00S
Samsung SSD 870
WDC WD40EZRZ-22G
WDC WD40EZAZ-00S
ST5000DM000-1FK1
HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GH24LS70
Samsung SSD 990 PRO 2TB
Samsung SSD 990 PRO 2TB
Samsung SSD 980 PRO 2TB
PCIe SSD
PCIe SSD

and my Server

mafoelffen@Mikes-B460M:~$ lsblk -e7 -o model | sed '/^$/d'
MODEL
Samsung SSD 870 EVO 2TB
Samsung SSD 870 EVO 2TB
Samsung SSD 870 EVO 2TB
Crucial_CT512MX100SSD1
Samsung SSD 870 EVO 2TB
Samsung SSD 870 EVO 2TB
Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus 2TB
WD Blue SN570 1TB
Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus 2TB
Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus 2TB
Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus 2TB
Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus 2TB
Samsung SSD 970 EVO 2TB

[xznyang]

Thanks for your replies, they were indeed helpful and encouraging for me to invest a bit more on a Samsung. Out of curiosity, in your laptops have you ever tried either or both:

1- using Suspend / Hibernate?
2- having Ubuntu installed alongside Windows?

[oldfred]

I do not think I had a choice of brands with my Dell laptop.
But hibernation is not recommended. With SSD, you boot almost as fast from cold boot. And often hibernation has issues.
Linux is not Windows which needs hibernation/fast startup, fast boot in UEFI (which once configured you can use with Ubuntu) and SSD to seem like it is booting faster.

My Dell was dual boot Windows 11 and Ubuntu 22.04. When Dell put new motherboard in, I think they forgot to reset motherboard for Windows Product key. Could not repair using any Windows tools. Only fix was a Dell total recovery which made system just like when purchased. Lost Windows changes & all of my Kubuntu install. But Linux install was a copy of desktop so no issue.
Also have copy of desktop on external SSD which I also have used with new Dell and very old 2006 Toshiba (BIOS only).

I have only purchased Samsumg & like them. Internal drive & two external SSD in adapters. Two are NVMe & one is older SATA SSD.
One feature of Samsung is that you can download a bootable ISO and update firmware. Its Windows software does not work with Linux, But I prefer ISO anyway.

[xznyang]

I do not think I had a choice of brands with my Dell laptop.
But hibernation is not recommended. With SSD, you boot almost as fast from cold boot. And often hibernation has issues.
Linux is not Windows which needs hibernation/fast startup, fast boot in UEFI (which once configured you can use with Ubuntu) and SSD to seem like it is booting faster.

My Dell was dual boot Windows 11 and Ubuntu 22.04. When Dell put new motherboard in, I think they forgot to reset motherboard for Windows Product key. Could not repair using any Windows tools. Only fix was a Dell total recovery which made system just like when purchased. Lost Windows changes & all of my Kubuntu install. But Linux install was a copy of desktop so no issue.
Also have copy of desktop on external SSD which I also have used with new Dell and very old 2006 Toshiba (BIOS only).

I have only purchased Samsumg & like them. Internal drive & two external SSD in adapters. Two are NVMe & one is older SATA SSD.
One feature of Samsung is that you can download a bootable ISO and update firmware. Its Windows software does not work with Linux, But I prefer ISO anyway.

Thanks for your input. About Hibernation, I strongly disagree with that common take - Hibernation is helpful not when one wants the boot to happen faster, but when one has lots of things in RAM memory that are time-consuming to put there again (in my case, very time consuming statistical analyses). But that is actually a bit out of topics - your comments on the SSDs were *vert* helpful and I appreciate them! In particular, knowing that firmware in Samsung SSDs can be somewhat easily updated is a gigantic plus for me.

[1fallen]

I still agree with oldfred, but it's your choice after all, >>>all we can do offer our wisest suggestions.

More info on wear and tear :https://www.howtogeek.com/885752/is-...-for-your-ssd/

[xznyang]

I still agree with oldfred, but it's your choice after all, >>>all we can do offer our wisest suggestions.

More info on wear and tear :https://www.howtogeek.com/885752/is-...-for-your-ssd/

I am appreciative of your willingness to help, but have you read the link you sent? It concludes:

In short, if you like using the hibernate function on your PC, keep using it and don't even think twice about it. The level of wear and tear on an SSD created by writing the hibernation file to the disk every day (or even multiple times per day) is so small that it's inconsequential over the lifespan of the disk." Which is the conclusion of other articles and analyses too.

Also, with all due respect it's not a matter of agreeing or disagreeing. We are not talking about theoreticals, concepts or hypotheses. It's a matter of different use cases and of cost-benefit analyses. I am well aware of the eventual costs of using Hibernation (wear and tear is minimal, like your link claims; but hibernating and waking up consumes consirably more energy and battery than booting) - but also of its benefits in some special cases that are *always* disregarded as if a cost analyses would be enough, instead of a cost-benefit analysis.

Let me be clearer for future reference of those who find this conversation in the future. For the vast majority of users, indeed hibernating to SSD is not a necessity and they are better served by the really fast boots of current laptops (mine, for instance, boots in about 12 seconds). In fact, by definition nowadays fast boot will be faster than waking up from hibernation (due to RAM read/write bottlenecks). But some people, including many Statisticians and Data Scientists (like me), require hibernating for practical work. It's not a preference:

1- It's simply impracticable to save all work across open software (I am talking about 60+Gb of RAM worth of work in the RAM memory), close all open software, then later reopen the software, make load their respective stuff again to RAM and make sure they are at the stage left last time. Naively, someone could think those take the same amount of time because it's just putting stuff out/into RAM anyways. It's not. Opening software and apps, getting them to be at the analyses stage where they were before and than loading the data that was in RAM again to RAM takes much longer. Believe me, I do this for a living - it takes dramatically longer than hibernating / waking-up.

2- What should one do if their statistical models running for hours didn't finish running before one needs to turn-off the laptop? Just stop the model and start again next time the models that take hours to run just because booting is fast?

But please, don't take that as me being rude or ungrateful for your help - I just think it's important for us all to realize that not everybody's usage is the same. And everything is a cost-benefit analysis, not only a cost analysis.

Again, I sincerely appreciate your and others' concern and willingness to help. And in fact the replies were extremely helpful. Today morning I acquired a SAMSUNG 990 PRO SSD 4TB PCIe 4.0 M.2, installed Ubuntu 23, updated the SSD firmware and after upgrading the kernel to last stable mainline (6.7.2), which has tons of hardware compatibility corrections, both Suspending and Hibernating are working flawlessly!

[1fallen]

Well in that usage then I stand corrected....and no I don't look at it like your being rude or ungrateful.

We all have differences in how we see and view our own set-ups, I and I mean just "me" don't want the needless extra wear and tear.
But I can see where your usage it would be something I might consider. And that drive is a very rugged and built for longevity.

And I see your are very capable of making a sound decision.
Best Regards