M.2 SSD questions

[Bleedingyamato]

Are M.2 SSDs worth using vs. a standard sata 3 SSD?

 

I thought I'd heard from someone on the LTT forums that m.2 SSDs get very hot.  

 

Is is heat a problem with these things?

 

Are there any benefits of drawbacks I should be aware of?

 

 

Last thing, pretty sure I know the answer to this but I'll ask just to be safe, if my Gigabyte Z170X Gaming 7 has M keyed m.2 slots I can also use B+M keyed SSDs like this right?

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/SanDisk-SD8SN8U-128G-1122-X400-M-2-128GB-Internal-SSD-/201667915031?hash=item2ef4582d17:g:P4oAAOSwFe5X2CpS

 

In case this is helpful: http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=5481#ov

[Enderman]

1) there are two types of M.2 SSDs, sata and PCIe, sata is the same speeds as a regular SSD while PCIe is faster.

 

2) the 950 gets really hot, other M.2 SSDs not as much but you want to make sure they get good airflow

 

3) a regular sata SSD is already more than enough speed, so unless you are a content creator or do data analysis or something that requires 3000MBps speeds M.2 will just be a waste of money.

Also maybe you need M.2 because of space constraints, that's another possibility.

[ARikozuM]

1 minute ago, Bleedingyamato said:

Are M.2 SSDs worth using vs. a standard sata 3 SSD?

If you don't have room or want a cleaner build an M.2 is a good choice.

 

I thought I'd heard from someone on the LTT forums that m.2 SSDs get very hot.  

Is is heat a problem with these things?

Only during intense writing. Otherwise heat isn't an issue.

 

Are there any benefits of drawbacks I should be aware of?

 

 

Last thing, pretty sure I know the answer to this but I'll ask just to be safe, if my Gigabyte Z170X Gaming 7 has M keyed m.2 slots I can also use B+M keyed SSDs like this right?

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/SanDisk-SD8SN8U-128G-1122-X400-M-2-128GB-Internal-SSD-/201667915031?hash=item2ef4582d17:g:P4oAAOSwFe5X2CpS

 

In case this is helpful: http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=5481#ov

See above.

[Bleedingyamato]

5 minutes ago, Enderman said:

1) there are two types of M.2 SSDs, sata and PCIe, sata is the same speeds as a regular SSD while PCIe is faster.

 

2) the 950 gets really hot, other M.2 SSDs not as much but you want to make sure they get good airflow

 

3) a regular sata SSD is already more than enough speed, so unless you are a content creator or do data analysis or something that requires 3000MBps speeds M.2 will just be a waste of money.

Also maybe you need M.2 because of space constraints, that's another possibility.

How do I tell if an m.2 SSD is PCIE or not?  The one in that eBay link doesn't say.

 

Does PCIE require an adapter card or anything?  Or does it just plug into the m.2 port on the motherboard same as a sata m.2?

 

 

I don't really have to worry about space but I might if I'd ever get a longer graphics card than my Gigabyte G1 Gaming GTX 1070.  There's just barely enough room for it to fit without having to remove the top drive cage in my phantom 240 case.

 

Right now I was mainly considering it because I saw these cheap 128GB Sandisk SSDs on eBay.  They want less for them the same size sata SSD cost me at Best Buy last spring.

[Bleedingyamato]

19 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

See above.

Perhaps sticking with a sata SSD would be better if I don't currently need to worry about space in my case.

[Zyndo]

The new intel 600p (256GB, 512GB, and 1TB) NVME drive has similar price and better performance compared to some of the other high end SATA drives (especially when it comes to sequential reads). It also scales very well with size, with the 1TB drive being a fair bit faster than something like an 850 EVO (don't get the 128GB model as its small size makes it a bit slower than an 850 EVO).

 

As far as M.2 drives being hot... yes. they can sometimes be quite warm. a good way to counter this (especially since your board has 2x M.2 slots) is to purchase two M.2 SSD's of half the capacity you want and put them in RAID 0. You will get increased performance (up to about 3.5GBps), and since each M.2 is doing half the work as a single one would be, they end up lasting longer and have lower temps. RAID has its own work and you need to set it up, but its worth looking into if you're worried about your temps. (and you only need to really worry about those when you have seriously high performance drives like a 950 PRO in areas where airflow is weak. You could always buy some small cheap heatsinks and stick them on to reduce their temps if you wish).

2 minutes ago, Bleedingyamato said:

Perhaps sticking with a sata SSD would be better if I don't currently need to worry about space in my case.

NVME isn't for everyone. for the vast majority of people you can stick with SATA drives and be totally fine. But its worth checking out the 600p as it will have better read speeds (ideal for loading game levels) and a similar price compared to other higher end SATA drives like an 850 EVO.

[JHY]

I'm currently using m.2 ssd as my boot device, and I not having any heat problem, and my ssd is same as yours. x400 128gb.. I've touched the ssd as soon as I turned off my pc, and it's just warm. So I see no heat problems, but there's an issue. My mobo couldn't detect ssd with default setting, so you might have to contact msi support. I've contacted asus, because I have asus mobo.

[Enderman]

21 minutes ago, Bleedingyamato said:

How do I tell if an m.2 SSD is PCIE or not?  The one in that eBay link doesn't say.

 

Does PCIE require an adapter card or anything?  Or does it just plug into the m.2 port on the motherboard same as a sata m.2?

 

 

I don't really have to worry about space but I might if I'd ever get a longer graphics card than my Gigabyte G1 Gaming GTX 1070.  There's just barely enough room for it to fit without having to remove the top drive cage in my phantom 240 case.

 

Right now I was mainly considering it because I saw these cheap 128GB Sandisk SSDs on eBay.  They want less for them the same size sata SSD cost me at Best Buy last spring.

Yes they both fit in an M.2 slot but a sata M.2 wont work in a PCIe M.2 and vice versa, so you NEED to make sure both the SSD and the motherboard are the same type of M.2.

 

19 minutes ago, Bleedingyamato said:

Perhaps sticking with a sata SSD would be better if I don't currently need to worry about space in my case.

I would stick with a regular SSD and buy from a really good brand like samsung or intel for reliability.

[Zyndo]

3 minutes ago, Enderman said:

Yes they both fit in an M.2 slot but a sata M.2 wont work in a PCIe M.2 and vice versa, so you NEED to make sure both the SSD and the motherboard are the same type of M.2.

His motherboard M.2 ports are both SATA and PCIe compatible so hes good.

http://ca.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=5481&kw=GA-Z170X-Gaming 71.0#ov

[ARikozuM]

26 minutes ago, Zyndo said:

The new intel 600p (256GB, 512GB, and 1TB) NVME drive has similar price and better performance compared to some of the other high end SATA drives (especially when it comes to sequential reads). It also scales very well with size, with the 1TB drive being a fair bit faster than something like an 850 EVO (don't get the 128GB model as its small size makes it a bit slower than an 850 EVO).

 

As far as M.2 drives being hot... yes. they can sometimes be quite warm. a good way to counter this (especially since your board has 2x M.2 slots) is to purchase two M.2 SSD's of half the capacity you want and put them in RAID 0. You will get increased performance (up to about 3.5GBps), and since each M.2 is doing half the work as a single one would be, they end up lasting longer and have lower temps. RAID has its own work and you need to set it up, but its worth looking into if you're worried about your temps. (and you only need to really worry about those when you have seriously high performance drives like a 950 PRO in areas where airflow is weak. You could always buy some small cheap heatsinks and stick them on to reduce their temps if you wish).

NVME isn't for everyone. for the vast majority of people you can stick with SATA drives and be totally fine. But its worth checking out the 600p as it will have better read speeds (ideal for loading game levels) and a similar price compared to other higher end SATA drives like an 850 EVO.

That'll harm the drives.

 

The heat issues are only on the high-end of the PCIe M.2's.

11 minutes ago, Enderman said:

Yes they both fit in an M.2 slot but a sata M.2 wont work in a PCIe M.2 and vice versa, so you NEED to make sure both the SSD and the motherboard are the same type of M.2.

 

I would stick with a regular SSD and buy from a really good brand like samsung or intel for reliability.

The boards have native support for SATA with PCIe needing support from the chipset and maker.

[Zyndo]

11 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

That'll harm the drives.

Heatsinks are going to harm a m.2 drive...? in what way? There are dozens of thermal pads located all over the place on motherboards, GPU's, Memory, and other PC components. How is dropping a few of those onto a m.2 drive going to harm anything? I work at an ISP and on our radio boards we buy we stick on some cheap heatsinks on a few of the on board chips (with thermal adhesive spray) for some passive cooling action and have never ever had a problem with them ever, other than they operate a bit cooler of course

I'm not saying you're wrong.... but i can't see how it would be any different? and yes I said that heat is only an issue on something like a 950 pro, i was just offering a suggestion case he was worried about it. Not to mention some sleek black heatsink(s) could improve the aesthetic of the often ugly M.2 drives lol.

[Enderman]

12 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

That'll harm the drives.

No, putting heatsinks on those M.2s that heat up a lot is great.

There's a reason the intel NVME SSDs have a huge heatsink on them.

 

There is 0 damage done.

Thermal tape or adhesive works great.

[Zyndo]

2 minutes ago, Enderman said:

snip

lol why the pic change

[Enderman]

Just now, Zyndo said:

lol why the pic change

The other guy attached the heatsink with o rings which is really weird and awkward and probably the only person on earth to do it that way...

LOL

[Zyndo]

7 minutes ago, Enderman said:

The other guy attached the heatsink with o rings which is really weird and awkward and probably the only person on earth to do it that way...

LOL

yea i was looking at that. wondered what the heck that was for. THAT method of installation might actually cause damage

[ARikozuM]

NVMe M.2's are designed to withstand that heat. Best thing to do would be to let the airflow take care of it if there's only one drive.

 

 

[Bleedingyamato]

13 hours ago, Zyndo said:

The new intel 600p (256GB, 512GB, and 1TB) NVME drive has similar price and better performance compared to some of the other high end SATA drives (especially when it comes to sequential reads). It also scales very well with size, with the 1TB drive being a fair bit faster than something like an 850 EVO (don't get the 128GB model as its small size makes it a bit slower than an 850 EVO).

 

As far as M.2 drives being hot... yes. they can sometimes be quite warm. a good way to counter this (especially since your board has 2x M.2 slots) is to purchase two M.2 SSD's of half the capacity you want and put them in RAID 0. You will get increased performance (up to about 3.5GBps), and since each M.2 is doing half the work as a single one would be, they end up lasting longer and have lower temps. RAID has its own work and you need to set it up, but its worth looking into if you're worried about your temps. (and you only need to really worry about those when you have seriously high performance drives like a 950 PRO in areas where airflow is weak. You could always buy some small cheap heatsinks and stick them on to reduce their temps if you wish).

NVME isn't for everyone. for the vast majority of people you can stick with SATA drives and be totally fine. But its worth checking out the 600p as it will have better read speeds (ideal for loading game levels) and a similar price compared to other higher end SATA drives like an 850 EVO.

Thank you for the suggestion.  I'll have to keep those in mind.  Right now I might wait or consider swapping my 120GB Sandisk SSD for a larger one if I feel like it.

 

I was mostly considering getting an M.2 because I saw the cheap one on eBay.  But now that I think about it I'd rather wait on that until I felt like paying for one of those nice Intel or Samsung M.2 SSDs.

 

Currently my main spending focus is gathering parts for a build I'm doing for a friend.

 

Btw is Sandisk a good brand for SSDs?  

 

I think I've heard Samsung is one of if not the best SSD brand.  From what you've said Intel is good but idk what other brands are good for SSDs.

 

 

 

[Bleedingyamato]

13 hours ago, Enderman said:

Yes they both fit in an M.2 slot but a sata M.2 wont work in a PCIe M.2 and vice versa, so you NEED to make sure both the SSD and the motherboard are the same type of M.2.

 

I would stick with a regular SSD and buy from a really good brand like samsung or intel for reliability.

 

13 hours ago, Zyndo said:

His motherboard M.2 ports are both SATA and PCIe compatible so hes good.

http://ca.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=5481&kw=GA-Z170X-Gaming 71.0#ov

The reason I asked was that I thought I'd seen some sort of PCIE card that you put an M.2 PCIE SSD on.

 

Not sure if that was intended for boards without built-in m.2 ports or to actually allow the use of PCIE m.2 SSDs or simply to add extra m.2 ports.

[Bleedingyamato]

2 hours ago, ARikozuM said:

NVMe M.2's are designed to withstand that heat. Best thing to do would be to let the airflow take care of it if there's only one drive.

 

 

Airflow might be a concern for me.  Currently my build has the specs you can see on my profile page.  You'll see that I only have the 2 case fans that originally came with the computer when I'd bought it as a prebuilt.

 

I doubt these are the highest airflow fans ever so it's possible my case doesn't have the optimal airflow setup.

 

I just haven't figured out some decent fans to add that aren't too loud.  I hate too much noise from a computer so I've been hesitant to add fans that would make my computer louder. 

[Zyndo]

10 minutes ago, Bleedingyamato said:

Airflow might be a concern for me.  Currently my build has the specs you can see on my profile page.  You'll see that I only have the 2 case fans that originally came with the computer when I'd bought it as a prebuilt.

 

I doubt these are the highest airflow fans ever so it's possible my case doesn't have the optimal airflow setup.

 

I just haven't figured out some decent fans to add that aren't too loud.  I hate too much noise from a computer so I've been hesitant to add fans that would make my computer louder. 

I would recommend just getting the intel 600p then if all you're looking for is game storage. its sequential read (the speed at which you can load game levels and rooms and whatnot) is about 3x that of a normal high end SSD for about the same price as a normal high end SSD (a couple dollars more, but its close enough). the high sequential write times, and IOPS of something like the samsung 950 pro are not going to really be relevant to your workload. you're gonna spend a ton of money on something that won't make any difference. Like I said before if you were looking to get like 500GB of SSD storage for games, you could always just get two 600P at 256GB and put them in RAID 0. This would yield speeds close to a single 512GB 950 pro (600px2 would probably be a bit faster in sequential reads, and a slower in the other areas but, as a gamer, sequential read is pretty much the only stat you need to worry about). I would not recommend putting 2x128GB 600ps together, as that particular size of that particular M.2 drive is quite slow compared to its larger brothers. also having 2 will drastically lower the heat each of them produce (not that you need to worry about heat all that much on a 600p) You also could just have a single 512GB 600p if you don't want to worry about the hassle of a RAID setup.


Here are prices of the 600P m.2 vs a high performance SATA m.2. You can also compare the performance levels on the newegg page as they usually have pretty accurate stats. Turns out in US the prices at a little different from those in Canada, so the 600p is a bit more expensive than the 850 EVO, but its still a good investment over the 850 IMO considering how much faster it is:

 

500-512GB range

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167412&cm_re=intel_600p-_-20-167-412-_-Product

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16820147399

 

1TB Range (newegg doesn't have it so you're going to have to shop elsewhere for one)

http://ark.intel.com/products/94926/Intel-SSD-600p-Series-1_0TB-M_2-80mm-PCIe-3_0-x4-3D1-TLC

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16820147567

 

As you can see, the 600P is quite a bit faster than the 850 EVO, and not really all that much more expensive. The only big problem is that you have a nice looking white setup going on in your case and if you choose one of these M.2's you're gonna have a big green stick on your motherboard... so be prepared for that

[Enderman]

1 hour ago, Bleedingyamato said:

 

The reason I asked was that I thought I'd seen some sort of PCIE card that you put an M.2 PCIE SSD on.

 

Not sure if that was intended for boards without built-in m.2 ports or to actually allow the use of PCIE m.2 SSDs or simply to add extra m.2 ports.

Yeah it's called a M.2 to PCIe adapter.

[ARikozuM]

1 hour ago, Bleedingyamato said:

Airflow might be a concern for me.  Currently my build has the specs you can see on my profile page.  You'll see that I only have the 2 case fans that originally came with the computer when I'd bought it as a prebuilt.

 

I doubt these are the highest airflow fans ever so it's possible my case doesn't have the optimal airflow setup.

 

I just haven't figured out some decent fans to add that aren't too loud.  I hate too much noise from a computer so I've been hesitant to add fans that would make my computer louder. 

Airflow from any fan is enough as you'll be reading more than writing. Getting a single large M.2 is better than RAIDing 2 smaller drives. Downloading a game isn't a heavy write IMO. 

@Zyndo is offering very good advice and I agree on nearly every point he makes.

[Zyndo]

1 minute ago, ARikozuM said:

Airflow from any fan is enough as you'll be reading more than writing. Getting a single large M.2 is better than RAIDing 2 smaller drives. Downloading a game isn't a heavy write IMO. 

@Zyndo is offering very good advice and I agree on nearly every point he makes.

what makes you think that a single large M.2 is better than RAID 0 2 smaller ones? the only complaint you could make is information security, as if 1 drive fails you lose the information on both drives. But when you put SSD's in RAID 0 you significantly increase their lifespan (less heat and half the writes). its better in literally every other way and price is pretty much the same in most cases.

[Bleedingyamato]

1 hour ago, Zyndo said:

what makes you think that a single large M.2 is better than RAID 0 2 smaller ones? the only complaint you could make is information security, as if 1 drive fails you lose the information on both drives. But when you put SSD's in RAID 0 you significantly increase their lifespan (less heat and half the writes). its better in literally every other way and price is pretty much the same in most cases.

If I'd get one It looks like it'd save me a little money to get 1 512GB vs. 2 256GB.  

 

So lifespan vs. initial cost seems to be the big issue.  

 

Question: so the 600P is faster than a standard sata SSD but how does it compare to a 850 pro?

[Bleedingyamato]

1 hour ago, ARikozuM said:

Airflow from any fan is enough as you'll be reading more than writing. Getting a single large M.2 is better than RAIDing 2 smaller drives. Downloading a game isn't a heavy write IMO. 

@Zyndo is offering very good advice and I agree on nearly every point he makes.

That's good to hear.  Wouldn't want anything to overheat.  ?