Resonably priced M.2 1TB drive for gaming?

[Ragingsilver]

Hi guys,

I'm new here, I recently got my self a new custom PC (See specs in profile). I got the 970 EVO for the OS and programs and whilst I could just put my old gaming SSD from my old PC into the new one, I thought why not see if I can get another M.2 instead?  I'm not looking for the highest speed, more bang for buck and reliability.

 

I'm currently eyeing up the following:

- WD Blue 3D NAND SSD M.2 SATA - 1 TB

- Crucial MX500 - 1TB

- Samsung 860 EVO M.2 - 1TB

 

I'm very new to m.2 as my old PC was 8yrs old with SATA2 as it's fastest port :P.  My new mobo supposedly supports 2x m.2 drives (Possibly 3?) but in the pictures to the above mentioned drives, the pins on the end look different. Will they all work or do I need to match the current 970 drive type?

 

Thanks in advance for any help

[5x5]

Those drivers are all SATA. Do you want SATA or NVMe? M.2 is just a form factor and doesn't mean anything.

[Skiiwee29]

Those drives listed are just Sata drives on the m.2 form factor, which for gaming is 1000000% adequate. The Crucial drive is a good drive and is also the cheapest of the 3 and would be my choice. 

[5x5]

Anyhow, SATA is plenty speed for mass storage. Get the cheapest TLC drive with a decent controller. WD Blue, MX500, SanDisk SSD Plus and etc.

[Ragingsilver]

11 minutes ago, 5x5 said:

Those drivers are all SATA. Do you want SATA or NVMe? M.2 is just a form factor and doesn't mean anything.

So in short, SATA will still do around 500MB/s and NVMe will do the 3000 MB/s speeds?

Guess I have to look around for NVMe then?

[Skiiwee29]

2 minutes ago, Ragingsilver said:

So in short, SATA will still do around 500MB/s and NVMe will do the 3000 MB/s speeds?

Guess I have to look around for NVMe then?

Yes, but Sata SSDs for gaming are still all you need. You wont really notice any difference in load times, install times etc between NVMe and Sata based SSDs

[berberries]

1 minute ago, Ragingsilver said:

So in short, SATA will still do around 500MB/s and NVMe will do the 3000 MB/s speeds?

Guess I have to look around for NVMe then?

yes sata will do about that speed MAX and NVMe about 3000+ MAX but most of them fall in the 1000-2000 range.

 

For just a mass storage and game drive, NVMe is completely unnecessary and you'll be just fine with a SATA M.2 SSD like a Samsung 860 EVO or Crucial MX500, Sandisk SSD Plus etc

[5x5]

4 minutes ago, Ragingsilver said:

So in short, SATA will still do around 500MB/s and NVMe will do the 3000 MB/s speeds?

Guess I have to look around for NVMe then?

No, NVMe is not worth it. Much more heat and more expensive for no tangible gains. Get a SATA drive

..

 

 

[Ragingsilver]

This hurts my brain, I think I'll just get a regular 2.5" SSD in 1TB form lol

 

This ok?

- Samsung 860 QVO 1TB

[5x5]

1 minute ago, Ragingsilver said:

This hurts my brain, I think I'll just get a regular 2.5" SSD in 1TB form lol

 

This ok?

- Samsung 860 QVO 1TB

He'll no. The QVo is QLC junk. Do NOT buy QLC SSDs. Get a WD Blue or MX500

[WereCatf]

8 minutes ago, 5x5 said:

No, NVMe is not worth it. Much more heat and more expensive for no tangible gains. Get a SATA drive

I just ordered the 1TB Intel 660p NVMe-drive the other day and it's actually cheaper than a 1TB SATA-drive over here. Seemed like a no-brainer to me: I get somewhat faster speed and lots of space without breaking the bank.

[5x5]

2 minutes ago, WereCatf said:

I just ordered the 1TB Intel 660p NVMe-drive the other day and it's actually cheaper than a 1TB SATA-drive over here. Seemed like a no-brainer to me: I get somewhat faster speed and lots of space without breaking the bank.

It's cheap because it uses cheap QLC nand, a cheap controller and has no cooling (meaning it runs hot). There is a good reason I advocate against the 660p. It's junk.

[WereCatf]

4 minutes ago, 5x5 said:

It's cheap because it uses cheap QLC nand, a cheap controller and has no cooling (meaning it runs hot). There is a good reason I advocate against the 660p. It's junk.

No, it's not. It's pretty much perfect for e.g. games, since after a game has been installed, it's almost solely a read-only operation and these drives perform perfectly well when read from.

 

QLC's write-speed only becomes a problem if you're writing a whole lot of data on it in one go and its write-endurance only becomes a problem if you're constantly writing to it. Alas, again, for games and such, that is totally not an issue.

 

As for cooling: I have not seen any proper review complain about its cooling.

[5x5]

Yes, 60-80GB games constantly being deleted and installed - totally not going to wear out the NAND and make the controller shit itself. Yep, not like 80GB is a lot of data. Seriously... people need to stop recommending cheap garbage just because it's cheap and they made the mistake of buying it

[Ragingsilver]

14 minutes ago, 5x5 said:

He'll no. The QVo is QLC junk. Do NOT buy QLC SSDs. Get a WD Blue or MX500

Thanks for your help!  I think I've settled on this:

- WD Blue 1TB SSD SATA 3

 

unless the Samsung 860 EVO SSD SATA3 is also good?

[5x5]

Just now, Ragingsilver said:

Thanks for your help!  I think I've settled on this:

- WD Blue 1TB SSD SATA 3

 

unless the Samsung 860 EVO is also good?

The TLC-based one is good. The QVO is crap

[5x5]

1 minute ago, Ragingsilver said:

Thanks for your help!  I think I've settled on this:

- WD Blue 1TB SSD SATA 3

 

unless the Samsung 860 EVO SSD SATA3 is also good?

And yes, WD Blue is good. Enjoy

[WereCatf]

1 minute ago, 5x5 said:

Yes, 60-80GB games constantly being deleted and installed - totally not going to wear out the NAND and make the controller shit itself. Yep, not like 80GB is a lot of data. Seriously... people need to stop recommending cheap garbage just because it's cheap and they made the mistake of buying it

It's a 1TB drive -- why would there be a need to be constantly deleting and installing games? That's a complete garbage argument, a strawman. As for 80GB being a lot of data? Only if you're copying stuff from a faster source. When installing a game? Most people do not have fast enough Internet-connections to saturate the drive's capabilities. Once the drive's cache is full, its write-speed drops to around 110MB/s, which is about gigabit-speeds; how many people have faster Internet-connections than that? Almost no one? Yeah, then it's again not an issue.

[5x5]

1 minute ago, WereCatf said:

It's a 1TB drive -- why would there be a need to be constantly deleting and installing games? That's a complete garbage argument, a strawman. As for 80GB being a lot of data? Only if you're copying stuff from a faster source. When installing a game? Most people do not have fast enough Internet-connections to saturate the drive's capabilities. Once the drive's cache is full, its write-speed drops to around 110MB/s, which is about gigabit-speeds; how many people have faster Internet-connections than that? Almost no one? Yeah, then it's again not an issue.

Gigabit internet is becoming common in 2019 - most people have 100-500MB/s speeds. So your argument is moot.

 

Also, a 1TB SSD only has room for 15-20 games assuming a game size of 40-50GB. Then what? Oh I know, you start deleting and installing and wearing out the cheap QLC junk

[WereCatf]

Just now, 5x5 said:

Gigabit internet is becoming common in 2019 - most people have 100-500MB/s speeds. So your argument is moot.

500MB/s would be 4 gigabits, mate. Most people do not have anywhere NEAR that. Most people don't have that even in their local network, as most peoples' local networks only go up to one gigabit. You're speaking out of your ass now.

[porina]

7 minutes ago, 5x5 said:

Also, a 1TB SSD only has room for 15-20 games assuming a game size of 40-50GB. Then what? Oh I know, you start deleting and installing and wearing out the cheap QLC junk

660p is rated at 0.1DWPD. The 1TB model is good for over 100GB writes per day, every day, for 5 years. Endurance is not a problem for a game drive.

[Origami Cactus]

12 minutes ago, 5x5 said:

Gigabit internet is becoming common in 2019 - most people have 100-500MB/s speeds. So your argument is moot.

 

Also, a 1TB SSD only has room for 15-20 games assuming a game size of 40-50GB. Then what? Oh I know, you start deleting and installing and wearing out the cheap QLC junk

I use the 2tb 660p for a game drive and it is completely fine. It is nice to have 1800mb/s reads, and that is what games need.

The durability is OK too, you don't install a 200gb game every day for 5 years straight.

[WereCatf]

12 minutes ago, 5x5 said:

Also, a 1TB SSD only has room for 15-20 games assuming a game size of 40-50GB. Then what? Oh I know, you start deleting and installing and wearing out the cheap QLC junk

I forgot to address this in addition to you claiming absolute bullshit about the Internet-connections people have: the 1TB 660p has a reported endurance of 200TBW. I have a Samsung SSD that I have used as my main drive for three years now, with no effort at trying to reduce the amount of data written to it or anything, and in three years I've still only achieved 15TBW written. That means I could use the 660p just like I've used my current one for 40 years straight. 40 years. With it being mostly used for games and such, ie. seeing nowhere near as much data written to it as my current SSD, it'll last even longer than that.

[WereCatf]

6 minutes ago, Origami Cactus said:

The durability is OK too, you don't install a 200gb game every day for 5 years straight.

Even if you did, that'd amount to only about 357TBW. The 2TB 660p has a listed rating of 400TBW, so you still wouldn't even reach its endurance-rating!