M.2 x SATA

[Taja]

I want to know the real difference between a high speed m.2 and a simple SATA ssd.

 

Difference in OS boot times (from turning on to desktop) and game loads.

 

If you tested it, say what OS/game and both times.

 

Ex: Windows 10 boot - X seconds on SATA and Y seconds on m.2

[Shiv78]

M.2 is just a connector type, many m.2 SSDs are still running over SATA. Only NVMe M.2 SSDs are actually significantly faster than their 2.5" SATA counterparts.

[GlassBomb]

The general point of NVMe drives isn't to boot up, and load games faster.

 

It's about making your whole system more responsive.

[RadiatingLight]

1 minute ago, GlassBomb said:

The general point of NVMe drives isn't to boot up, and load games faster.

 

It's about making your whole system more responsive.

which would include startup time....

so it's not the whole point of NVME, but it is one of the points

[m0k]

m.2 is a form factor

sata is a protocol

Nvme is a protocol

[Mira Yurizaki]

While I haven't sat down with a stop watch, I don't notice any real appreciable difference in load times between an NVMe drive and a SATA drive. Nor do I notice any real appreciable difference in response times for the most part.

 

Unless you're doing something that demands large data requests from the drive, SATA SSDs are about as far as one should go.

[GlassBomb]

2 minutes ago, RadiatingLight said:

which would include startup time....

so it's not the whole point of NVME, but it is one of the points

Boot, and loading times will be fast regardless if you are using a normal SATA SSD, or one that uses NVMe though.

 

That's why I say that the main reason is to make your system as a whole more responsive.

[RadiatingLight]

2 minutes ago, GlassBomb said:

Boot, and loading times will be fast regardless if you are using a normal SATA SSD, or one that uses NVMe though.

 

That's why I say that the main reason is to make your system as a whole more responsive.

but they will both be FASTER when using an NVME drive. that's the whole point of NVME

[Mira Yurizaki]

12 minutes ago, RadiatingLight said:

but they will both be FASTER when using an NVME drive. that's the whole point of NVME

I'd argue that it's only "technically" faster, but not practically faster.

 

While I haven't seen anything recent regarding loading on storage media, I found this article that shows what's going for storage drives for a variety of games: http://www.pcgamer.com/game-performance-using-different-storage-media/

 

The NVMe and SATA SSD curves almost line up most of the time.

 

EDIT: Found something else: http://techreport.com/review/29221/samsung-950-pro-512gb-ssd-reviewed/4

 

Also this:

If RAM disks show almost no performance improvement, NVMe certainly won't either.

Edited February 1, 2017 by M.Yurizaki
Added another link regarding performance of NVMe vs SATA

[GlassBomb]

10 minutes ago, RadiatingLight said:

but they will both be FASTER when using an NVME drive. that's the whole point of NVME

Yes, the NVMe drive will of course be faster. But what I'm saying is that all of the software isn't always able to use the increase in speed. That's why the IOPS are more important than the actual speeds the drives are able to achieve.

[RadiatingLight]

4 hours ago, GlassBomb said:

Yes, the NVMe drive will of course be faster. But what I'm saying is that all of the software isn't always able to use the increase in speed. That's why the IOPS are more important than the actual speeds the drives are able to achieve.

Sure, but NVME as a standard has less overhead, so latency is usually better. OFC the best SATA SSD is better than the worst NVME SSD

[Taja]

Ok, I know m.2 is just a connection. I should have been more clear, but I tought it was obvious I was talking about m.2 nvme versus sata ahci.

 

And nobody answered what I was asking, which is the load time difference.

[Qwweb]

18 hours ago, mok said:

sata is a protocol

Nvme is a protocol

Advanced Host Controller Interface is a protocol

Non Volatile Memory Host Controller Interface Specification (NVMHCI or NVMe) is a protocol

SATA and M.2 are the physical bus interfaces

12 minutes ago, Taja said:

And nobody answered what I was asking, which is the load time difference.

Load time differences are minimal in operations like loading games and the OS (around 0.5 seconds for Windows 10). The benefit of NVMe drives comes when transferring extremely large files as that time slowly adds up to make a significant difference. Some people claim that a NVMe SSD makes loading more fluid, but this is something that can be attributed to the placebo effect as when people spend large amounts of money on something they expect it to provide some sort of advantage over something similar that is cheaper. The primary benefit that I can think of other than marginally faster load times would be the benefit of not having to route cables from a SATA SSD to the motherboard.

[Taja]

2 hours ago, Qwweb said:

Advanced Host Controller Interface is a protocol

Non Volatile Memory Host Controller Interface Specification (NVMHCI or NVMe) is a protocol

SATA and M.2 are the physical bus interfaces

Load time differences are minimal in operations like loading games and the OS (around 0.5 seconds for Windows 10). The benefit of NVMe drives comes when transferring extremely large files as that time slowly adds up to make a significant difference. Some people claim that a NVMe SSD makes loading more fluid, but this is something that can be attributed to the placebo effect as when people spend large amounts of money on something they expect it to provide some sort of advantage over something similar that is cheaper. The primary benefit that I can think of other than marginally faster load times would be the benefit of not having to route cables from a SATA SSD to the motherboard.

Thanks for the answear. I herd something similar, I just wanted a few numbers for comparison, but I kinda knew it is not meant for the normal user