M.2 or Two SSDs?

[Inception9269]

For a good while I've been wanting to upgrade my ssd on my pc (i currently have an A-data 128gb ssd) and I've been wanting to upgrade to something better and faster. (i know there isn't a huge performance difference just for gaming, but it's something I want)

 

I was wanting to get two ssds for raid 0, however my motherboard (http://us.msi.com/product/mb/Z97-GAMING-7.html) supports M.2 ssds, so I was considering getting one of those. I was wondering which would have better performance, two ssds or one M.2?

 

The ssds I was looking at were two 250gb samsung 850 evo-series, http://pcpartpicker.com/part/samsung-internal-hard-drive-mz75e250bam

and the M.2 was also a 500gb samsung 850 evo http://pcpartpicker.com/part/samsung-internal-hard-drive-mzn5e500bw

 

The two ssds would cost about $200 together, which is about the same price as the M.2 and they would both have the same capacity.

 

So I was wondering which is the better route?

[Tagiau]

the m.2 will take up less space. Allowing for more mass storage.

[1Scotty1]

There is no difference, the M.2 is SATA III, so the speeds would be the same as a regular SSD... but if you RAID the two normal SSDs you would have better speeds

[Inception9269]

the m.2 will take up less space. Allowing for more mass storage.

 

True, although i have a fractal design arc xl, so I have a ton of space already, also I'd have the ssds mounted behind mobo tray.

[Grrizz]

There is no difference, the M.2 is SATA III, so the speeds would be the same as a regular SSD... but if you RAID the two normal SSDs you would have better speeds

The M.2 on that board is through a PCIe2.0 x2 connection.

[1Scotty1]

The M.2 on that board is through a PCIe2.0 x2 connection.

But that 850 EVO is SATA III

[Inception9269]

There is no difference, the M.2 is SATA III, so the speeds would be the same as a regular SSD... but if you RAID the two normal SSDs you would have better speeds

 

if that is the case then I probably would go for two ssds.

 

Although I am trying to figure out how I would set everything up. Would i install the two ssds while I still have my main one and then create raid in bios and then copy my entire ssd to them in normal windows? after that's done would i be able to then just change the drive letter for the raid to C and then change the boot drive to them in bios? I'm not sure how that all would work since my pc would be on for me to transfer everything over and change the drive letter for the C drive, and wasn't sure if that would cause problems doing that while my pc is running

[Grrizz]

But that 850 EVO is SATA III

Ahhh good point

[Inception9269]

The M.2 on that board is through a PCIe2.0 x2 connection.

 

What if I were to have it run through a pci-e adapter?

[Grrizz]

What if I were to have it run through a pci-e adapter?

It doesn't matter as @1Scotty1 pointed out the 850 EVO drives themselves use a SATAIII interface so they wont go any faster than that, you would have to find a M.2 drive with a PCIe interface.

[Inception9269]

It doesn't matter as @1Scotty1 pointed out the 850 EVO drives themselves use a SATAIII interface so they wont go any faster than that, you would have to find a M.2 drive with a PCIe interface.

 

Do you know of any that you would recommend?

[Grrizz]

Do you know of any that you would recommend?

Samsung do one, I cant remember the model, it doesn't fit in the normal nomenclature something like MP920??? SM951 and I think the Kingston one is the HyperX Predator.

[Inception9269]

Samsung do one, I cant remember the model, it doesn't fit in the normal nomenclature something like MP920??? SM951 and I think the Kingston one is the HyperX Predator.

 

I watched some videos from jayztwocents and tek syndicate, they did videos on the Plextor M6e being able to use pci-e. Although one thing tek syndicate mentioned is that it doesn't show up in the bios. how all would I go about making it the boot drive, if possible?

[Grrizz]

I watched some videos from jayztwocents and tek syndicate, they did videos on the Plextor M6e being able to use pci-e. Although one thing tek syndicate mentioned is that it doesn't show up in the bios. how all would I go about making it the boot drive, if possible?

IDK TBH, it could be as simple as a BIOS update or it might require some hardware compatibility.

[Inception9269]

IDK TBH, it could be as simple as a BIOS update or it might require some hardware compatibility.

 

I might just go with 2 ssds since that seems the simpler route.

[Captain_WD]

For a good while I've been wanting to upgrade my ssd on my pc (i currently have an A-data 128gb ssd) and I've been wanting to upgrade to something better and faster. (i know there isn't a huge performance difference just for gaming, but it's something I want)

 

I was wanting to get two ssds for raid 0, however my motherboard (http://us.msi.com/product/mb/Z97-GAMING-7.html) supports M.2 ssds, so I was considering getting one of those. I was wondering which would have better performance, two ssds or one M.2?

 

The ssds I was looking at were two 250gb samsung 850 evo-series, http://pcpartpicker.com/part/samsung-internal-hard-drive-mz75e250bam

and the M.2 was also a 500gb samsung 850 evo http://pcpartpicker.com/part/samsung-internal-hard-drive-mzn5e500bw

 

The two ssds would cost about $200 together, which is about the same price as the M.2 and they would both have the same capacity.

 

So I was wondering which is the better route?

 

Hey Inception9269,

 

The M.2 that your motherboard supports uses the SATA3 (6GB/s) interface just like the regular SATA SSDs so there would be little to none difference, based on the specific SSDs that you are looking at (around 500MB/s read/write speed).

RAID0 would give you great speed increases but offers no redundancy whatsoever and increases the risk of data loss as if either of the drives fails, you'd lose all data on the whole array.   

 

It's up to you if you'd like the two SSDs with the better speed but higher risk of data loss or the single one and lower speed, but safer for your data.

 

Captain_WD.

[Inception9269]

 

Hey Inception9269,

 

The M.2 that your motherboard supports uses the SATA3 (6GB/s) interface just like the regular SATA SSDs so there would be little to none difference, based on the specific SSDs that you are looking at (around 500MB/s read/write speed).

RAID0 would give you great speed increases but offers no redundancy whatsoever and increases the risk of data loss as if either of the drives fails, you'd lose all data on the whole array.   

 

It's up to you if you'd like the two SSDs with the better speed but higher risk of data loss or the single one and lower speed, but safer for your data.

 

Captain_WD.

 

 

People make it sound like SSDs are completely unstable. Guys like Linus in almost every ssd video where he mentions ssds dying he always makes it sound like it could happen tomorrow. I've seen people who've had the same ssds for years with no issues.

[1Scotty1]

People make it sound like SSDs are completely unstable. Guys like Linus in almost every ssd video where he mentions ssds dying he always makes it sound like it could happen tomorrow. I've seen people who've had the same ssds for years with no issues.

 

I can relate to this - I have had my Kingston HyperX 3K SSD for 2,5 years now, and recently I started noticing much slower boot times - from 5-10 (normal) to 30+ seconds... and that was during windows loading screen... CrystalDiskInfo shows nothing, but for safety I am thinking of buying another SSD and quickly cloning it before I lose my OS and programs

[Captain_WD]

People make it sound like SSDs are completely unstable. Guys like Linus in almost every ssd video where he mentions ssds dying he always makes it sound like it could happen tomorrow. I've seen people who've had the same ssds for years with no issues.

 

Increased chance does not mean that the drive will fail or that there's a high probability of this happening. And still we can see people who have their drives fail for different reasons after several months of usage or even days. SSDs and HDDs are mechanical and electronic units and failures do happen for one reason or another and you can't know if yours will last long or not for sure. It's better to be safe than sorry IMHO and this is why people use RAID for redundancy. People have their HDDs working for 8 and more years and that does not mean that some drives don't fail after one year of usage, causing major and important data losses. 

It's just a safety factor that I'd take into consideration when forming my storage pool with different drives. I'd consider how important my data is and then see if the risk of it being gone is justified by the increased speed or not. Nothing more.

 

Captain_WD.

[Grrizz]

Quite simply unless you move very large files back and forth regularly every day you essentially gain nothing by having a RAID0 array on a decent SSD (going from ~500MB/s to ~1GB/s) and even then you would only benefit if your source, destination and transfer path could maintain those speeds, on the flip side with RAID0 you double the chance of loosing all your data due to failure, its still a low chance but for most people gaining nothing to double the chance of failure isn't a good trade off.

A very general rule of thumb for electronic devices is a 5% or less failure rate within a products lifespan is acceptable some things could be as high as 15% (not great IMO) while some far lower but even at 1% that's 1 in 100 and for high volume items like SSDs that not all that uncommon.

[Inception9269]

Quite simply unless you move very large files back and forth regularly every day you essentially gain nothing by having a RAID0 array on a decent SSD (going from ~500MB/s to ~1GB/s) and even then you would only benefit if your source, destination and transfer path could maintain those speeds, on the flip side with RAID0 you double the chance of loosing all your data due to failure, its still a low chance but for most people gaining nothing to double the chance of failure isn't a good trade off.

A very general rule of thumb for electronic devices is a 5% or less failure rate within a products lifespan is acceptable some things could be as high as 15% (not great IMO) while some far lower but even at 1% that's 1 in 100 and for high volume items like SSDs that not all that uncommon.

 

Perhaps. Main reason why I'm interested in upgrading is simply due to SSDs being a lot more cost friendly and affordable, the prices being really low compared to over a year ago.

 

What I might do is buy two 250-500gb ssds and do raid 1