Real World Performance Differences Between SSDs

[levi_athan1701]

Good day,

 

In terms of solid state drives, is there any noticeable real world performance differences between the various models that exist and would it justify the price differences? 

 

For example, Samsung has their Pro, Evo, and Plus versions etc.  The read and write speeds differ by only a few hundred megabytes respectively depending on the model.  I have only ever used Crucial MX 500 drives and so I'm wondering how others would perform, especially M.2 NVM-E drives.

 

Any advice is greatly appreciated  

 

Regards,

leviathan1701

[Guest]

It’s more than performance. You must also consider endurance, long term read/writes, etc. drives may have similar speeds on paper, but that’s often the fastest burst speed, not the sustained speeds. 

 

Edit: Not meant to be a complete answer. I’m sure more knowledgeable people will step in with specifics. 

[Jurrunio]

14 minutes ago, leviathan1701 said:

In terms of solid state drives, is there any noticeable real world performance differences between the various models that exist and would it justify the price differences? 

As long as they carry DRAM cache (improves latency), not really for a daily user. NVMe drives can help if you're a video editor who frequently import and move around huge files, but otherwise extremely fast drives dont really help.

 

15 minutes ago, leviathan1701 said:

For example, Samsung has their Pro, Evo, and Plus versions etc

Pro = MLC, Evo = TLC, Qvo = QLC. Performance dont differ that much imo, what does matter is their endurance rating. Best value is the Qvo (if other brands excluded, which is really wrong), simply replacing SSDs more frequently is cheaper than buying a more expensive one in the first place, though that also means more work in moving stuff around when they eventually spit out errors (though wont be a short time even for QLC for normal use).

[NunoLava1998]

In terms of user usability, snapiness:

A400->SSD: Mediocre jump.

SSD->mediocre NVMe: No jump.

SSD->high end NVMe: No jump.

SSD->very high end NVMe: Small jump; but you very likely can't tell the difference.

SSD->Optane 3D XPoint SSD: Small jump; but you very likely can't tell the difference.

In terms of installing applications:

A400->SSD: Mediocre jump.

SSD->Mediocre NVMe: Okay jump

SSD->High end NVMe: Good jump

SSD->Very high end NVMe: Pretty big jump

SSD->Optane 3D XPoint SSD: Pretty, pretty big jump

In terms of endurance:

A400->SSD: Good jump.

SSD->Normal NVMe: No jump

SSD->High end NVMe: Pretty big jump

SSD->Optane 3D XPoint SSD: Very big jump

SSD->Optane DC P4800X: The Crucial BX500 480GB offers an endurance rating of 120TBW. The 970 Pro 512GB offers an endurance rating of 600 TBW. The Optane DC P4800X 375GB offers an endurance rating of 41,000TBW, at a smaller capacity.

[Ankerson]

1 hour ago, leviathan1701 said:

Good day,

 

In terms of solid state drives, is there any noticeable real world performance differences between the various models that exist and would it justify the price differences? 

 

For example, Samsung has their Pro, Evo, and Plus versions etc.  The read and write speeds differ by only a few hundred megabytes respectively depending on the model.  I have only ever used Crucial MX 500 drives and so I'm wondering how others would perform, especially M.2 NVM-E drives.

 

Any advice is greatly appreciated  

 

Regards,

leviathan1701

The Plus is the newest vers of the 970 EVO.

 

As far as SSD's go Samsung is considered to be the best all around with the Crucial MX 500 drives to be goo also, not sure about their NVME drives though.

 

I have all Samsung SSD's in my systems, I run NVME drives as the main boot drive with the 2.5" SSDs for everything else, games, storage etc.

 

With the pricing the way it is now there is no reason NOT to get the higher rated SSD's.

[Firewrath9]

1 hour ago, NunoLava1998 said:

In terms of user usability, snapiness:

A400->SSD: Mediocre jump.

SSD->mediocre NVMe: No jump.

SSD->high end NVMe: No jump.

SSD->very high end NVMe: Small jump; but you very likely can't tell the difference.

SSD->Optane 3D XPoint SSD: Small jump; but you very likely can't tell the difference.

In terms of installing applications:

A400->SSD: Mediocre jump.

SSD->Mediocre NVMe: Okay jump

SSD->High end NVMe: Good jump

SSD->Very high end NVMe: Pretty big jump

SSD->Optane 3D XPoint SSD: Pretty, pretty big jump

In terms of endurance:

A400->SSD: Good jump.

SSD->Normal NVMe: No jump

SSD->High end NVMe: Pretty big jump

SSD->Optane 3D XPoint SSD: Very big jump

SSD->Optane DC P4800X: The Crucial BX500 480GB offers an endurance rating of 120TBW. The 970 Pro 512GB offers an endurance rating of 600 TBW. The Optane DC P4800X 375GB offers an endurance rating of 41,000TBW, at a smaller capacity.

btw, ssds will degreade realllly reallly slowly.

My 80GB SSD from like 5 years ago still runs, no bad sectors, albeit slowly. Modern SSDs will last even longer

Optane does not help much in installing applications, ditto with NVMe. First of all, installing applications is mainly limited by your web/interconnect. a low end NVMe. (think PCIe 2x) will be bottlenecked by a 10Gbe connection. Also, max sequential for optane is usually close to a regular NVMe, as they are all limited by the PCIe 4x connection.

 

I timed the diff between my WD Black (3d 64L TLC + dram) vs my inland 480gb dramless sata, 3 second diff in large game launches, or ~5-10%.

thats un-noticeable, and if you really care about 3 seconds, then sure.

[NunoLava1998]

1 minute ago, Firewrath9 said:

Optane does not help much in installing applications, ditto with NVMe. First of all, installing applications is mainly limited by your web/interconnect. a low end NVMe. (think PCIe 2x) will be bottlenecked by a 10Gbe connection. Also, max sequential for optane is usually close to a regular NVMe, as they are all limited by the PCIe 4x connection.

Correct; although I'm talking about offline installers.

Program installers take heavy use of 4K and sequential. Optane is really only good for insane 4K, sequential (when they make a PCIe 4.0 compatible one) and endurance