Best M.2 SSD?

[Amer]

I remember Sabrent being the best but what’s the best out rn? Money isn’t an issue.

 

 

so far what I’ve seen on google is that WD, Samsung Pro and Sabrent are really good

[RONOTHAN##]

What are you planning on doing with the drive, since that actually has more of an impact than the brand of drive you're planning on using. If you need a butt ton of IOPS, you pretty much have to go Optane. If you just need a boatload of throughput, The 980 Pro, SN850, and Rocket 4 Plus will all pretty much perform within margin of error of each other, with performance difference more coming down to drive to drive rather than model to model. It would probably make more sense to actually go for one of the new Gen 5 SSDs if you need that much throughput and price isn't an issue. If you're just gonna be using it as an OS drive, it would actually make more sense to go for a Gen 3 drive like the 970 Evo Plus, Crucial P5 or SN750 since they're better tuned for both throughput and IOPS than Optane and Gen 4 drives, making them a more balanced pick. Again, all those drives will perform very similarly to each other, and just going for whichever is cheaper or who you trust the warranty service of more instead of relying on performance. 

[Amer]

26 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

What are you planning on doing with the drive, since that actually has more of an impact than the brand of drive you're planning on using. If you need a butt ton of IOPS, you pretty much have to go Optane. If you just need a boatload of throughput, The 980 Pro, SN850, and Rocket 4 Plus will all pretty much perform within margin of error of each other, with performance difference more coming down to drive to drive rather than model to model. It would probably make more sense to actually go for one of the new Gen 5 SSDs if you need that much throughput and price isn't an issue. If you're just gonna be using it as an OS drive, it would actually make more sense to go for a Gen 3 drive like the 970 Evo Plus, Crucial P5 or SN750 since they're better tuned for both throughput and IOPS than Optane and Gen 4 drives, making them a more balanced pick. Again, all those drives will perform very similarly to each other, and just going for whichever is cheaper or who you trust the warranty service of more instead of relying on performance. 

Well I won’t use anything heavy related I just want my OS and games to open really quickly lol just my OCD

[RONOTHAN##]

Just now, Amer said:

Well I won’t use anything heavy related I just want my OS and games to open really quickly lol just my OCD

Yeah, any of those Gen 3 SSD will be just fine for that. Most games don't actually benefit from an SSD anyway, and only launch a second or two faster on an SSD compared to a 5400 RPM hard drive. For an OS drive, the high end Gen 3 drives are the best option. 

[dizmo]

Just now, RONOTHAN## said:

Yeah, any of those Gen 3 SSD will be just fine for that. Most games don't actually benefit from an SSD anyway, and only launch a second or two faster on an SSD compared to a 5400 RPM hard drive. For an OS drive, the high end Gen 3 drives are the best option. 

Haha, what? That couldn't be more incorrect. SSDs are considerably faster at loading games.

[RONOTHAN##]

2 minutes ago, dizmo said:

Haha, what? That couldn't be more incorrect. SSDs are considerably faster at loading games.

I've tested it. Most of the games I've tried launched in very similar amounts of time whether they were on an SSD or a HDD (given that the OS is not on the same drive).

[dizmo]

1 minute ago, RONOTHAN## said:

I've tested it. Most of the games I've tried launched in very similar amounts of time whether they were on an SSD or a HDD (given that the OS is not on the same drive).

So has Hardware Unboxed. Tend to believe their results more. Also there's numerous other tests on YT that show similar results to HWU.

[An0maly_76]

To settle the arugment, SSDs and M.2s are much faster loading games. However, there's little point in getting anything beyond a 3,000-3,500 Mbps rating because anything faster generally won't seem any faster to YOU, and will run hot under heavy use. In my new 5900X build, I actually had ordered a WD Black SN850 because of its insane speed rating, but sent it back when I found that they can hit 100F under heavy use. Heat sink or no, that's not something I want screwed to my motherboard, and you shouldn't either. Besides, I needed a motherboard with better VMR cooling, and returning the SN850 for an SN570, and the Asus Prime B550M-K for the Asus Tuf B550 Plus, the price differences complimented each other nicely. It cost me nothing to do it at the end of the day. No point in paying extra for storage speed that won't make a difference, especially if it can drive temperatures up.

Of course, that was with the uncertainty of how the rest of my system was going to cool. I needn't have worried -- it idles 29C-39C, never topping 66C. But I also have a case designed for optimum cooling and six fans not counting the monster Scythe Mugen 5 CPU cooler, so perhaps I would have been just fine with it. But not every case supplements the cooling system's performance that well, and having seen gaming videos with SSD comparison including the WD Black SN850, I think the best bang for the buck out there for price vs performance is the WD Blue SN570.

 

The Black SN750 / SN770 are faster, but I doubt it's noticeable, and they are much more expensive. The Blue SN550 / SN570, by comparison, aren't much more expensive for about 33% faster read / write speed. That being said, seem to be a lot of folks out there that like the Samsung 980, but I feel the WD Blue SN570 is a better value. I just haven't seen the quality in Samsung products, they always seem to start overheating or something stupid in the long term.

 

On my previous rig, boot time was reduced somewhere around 57%, and it was night and day difference loading and running games -- like trading a Honda Civic DX for a Dodge Challenger SRT-8. Spinning rust isn't dead, but it's not optimum for primary storage and boot anymore.

Edited March 14, 2022 by An0maly_76
Revised, more info