M.2 or NVMe?

[AhmedIlyas]

I am curious.

 

Say for example I have 2x2TB SSD configured at RAID0. All is really fast etc..

 

But, I know that NVMe would be even faster.

 

Which one would you chose and why?

 

How is the lifetime/quality of NVMe compared to SSD?

 

The only issue I see is that you wouldn't have as many expandable slots for NVMe as you would for SATA connections. 

But NVMe really makes sense for it to be used for either as boot or high frequency of writes (i.e video rendering).

 

Thoughts?

[AndreiArgeanu]

So it's NVME vs SATA? The longevity of the drive isn't determined by it's speed or the type of connections it uses, but is determined by the type of memory used in the SSD. There are like 6 different types of memory, some cheaper, some less commonly used etc and they are LC, MLC, TLC, QLC and PLC

[AhmedIlyas]

True. True.

[Moonzy]

At some point I would start looking at ram disk if I really want the speed

 

Because raid 0 is not something i would personally do

 

But for your question, if you need raw bandwidth, nvme is the way to go, though make sure they get adequately cooled

 

Yes you can have limited number of nvme drives due to pcie lanes available. But if your work requires such bandwidth, you're probably on HEDT anyways

 

1 nvme for active projects, sata for mass storage, and hard disk for archiving would be neat would be the sweet spot for most people on consumer platform I would think.

[AhmedIlyas]

That's indeed a good point @Moonzy.

 

And this is another problem too... the fact that we need to add more cooling from out of the box for having something running 24x7 for instance, even at idle to ensure things don't get burned out or throttled sooner.

[RadiatingLight]

You can get PCIe expansion cards with 4 M.2 slots if you really want.

 

It's important to know that M.2 is just a slot, and it can support either SATA or NVME.

NVME has faster reads/writes, but unless you really need that raw throughput, SATA is totally fine.

 

Regarding SSD cooling, most SSDs are fine cooling themselves under normal loads. If you're hitting them hard, you probably want to consider some of those tiny stick-on heatsinks, or just pointing a fan at the SSD. It's not a monumental issue.

[KangUsapEmenq]

I honestly woulda really depends of what my usage of the PC itself.

I'd get a fast-enough NVME with RAID0 if I need enough speed, but when I wouldn't care if I lose the data anyway, like using it as the main game drive for a diskless internet cafe server so it won't hog too much.

 

But single NVME (or SATA, as I use right now) woulda be enough anyway for a daily usage like game and boot drive. RAID0 won't feel so much useful (and worth, since we're burning 2 drives than 1) if the difference are not that big, anyway.

 

4 minutes ago, AhmedIlyas said:

That's indeed a good point @Moonzy.

 

And this is another problem too... the fact that we need to add more cooling from out of the box for having something running 24x7 for instance, even at idle to ensure things don't get burned out or throttled sooner.

 

Well, good room intake/exhaust setup woulda be nice anyway, right, if you plan to get a server running 24/7 like that, even in the smallest case possible.

Sometimes my SSD woulda just touching 42-44 degrees while I'm gaming (with a laptop) and it actually kinda made me scared lol