SATA SSD vs M.2 NVME SSD

[Firestrike]

Hello everybody

So I just realised I had an M.2 slot in my motherboard, and I was wondering if it was worth buying an M.2 SSD instead of a SATA one

What do you think ?

Thanks

[ZetZet]

Yes. It is. M.2 ssd's are faster. 

[EcoBoost]

Yes. It is. M.2 ssd's are faster. 

"M.2 SSDs" aren't necessarily faster. Many of the lower-end ones often run on the exact same SATA 3 6gbps interface and therefore speeds.

[ZetZet]

"M.2 SSDs" aren't necessarily faster. Many of the lower-end ones often run on the exact same SATA 3 6gbps interface and therefore speeds.

well, yes. But he asked about NVMe, those are generally faster. 

[EcoBoost]

Hello everybody

So I just realised I had an M.2 slot in my motherboard, and I was wondering if it was worth buying an M.2 SSD instead of a SATA one

What do you think ?

Thanks

Depends what SSD specifically. Just because an SSD is an M.2 version doesn't necessarily mean that it'll be faster than it's 2.5" SATA equivalent, and just because your board has an M.2 slot doesn't necessarily mean it'll support NVME drives natively.

[EcoBoost]

well, yes. But he asked about NVMe, those are generally faster. 

True, but NVMe should be treated separately from M.2, because "M.2" covers a really broad range of SSDs 

[KemoKa]

Rethink this - your M.2 likely does not support PCIe Gen3 because it's on a consumer motherboard. All the PCIe lanes go to the graphics card slots. If you want an NVMe SSD, you need to plug it directly into a PCIe slot that's at least a Gen3, and the BIOS has to support the standard, afaik. Most modern ones do, but if you had an older motherboard, you would likely need to update the BIOS to one that supports NVMe.

But I'm fairly sure that your M.2 slot is not 32Gb/s.

[Firestrike]

So this (https://pcpartpicker.com/part/samsung-internal-hard-drive-mzv5p256bw) over this (https://pcpartpicker.com/part/samsung-internal-hard-drive-mz7pd256bw) ?

[KemoKa]

So this (https://pcpartpicker.com/part/samsung-internal-hard-drive-mzv5p256bw) over this (https://pcpartpicker.com/part/samsung-internal-hard-drive-mz7pd256bw) ?

I'd go for the SATA SSD because, as I said, your motherboard likely doesn't support the 950 Pro, which is a PCIe Gen3 M.2 drive. Even if it were supported by your board's slot, I wouldn't get it because it wouldn't operate at normal speeds.

 

A normal SATA SSD should more than suffice for your needs.