M.2 or 2.5" ssd?

[TheNewbiestONewbs]

I'm saving up a little money ($200 to $300) for a solid state drive. I heard about M.2 but I haven't quite researched enough to know anything about them. I;m using this drive for  my OS and maybe 3 or 4 games if they fit. That is my next upgrade that I want to get in before I'm off to college.

[Daniel1]

I would go with an M.2 Samsung 960 Evo 500GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive which is about $249usd.

[TheNewbiestONewbs]

Just now, Dan1 said:

I would go with an M.2 Samsung 960 Evo 500GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive which is about $249usd.

What does M.2 offer over a regular 2.5" ssd?

[manikyath]

M.2 is usually faster and more expensive (exceptions apply.)

 

the downside of M.2 is you need a mobo with an M.2 slot, and especially the faster ones REALLY like to get toasty, that said when they do thermal throttle they are still faster than their sata counterparts.

[Daniel1]

Just now, TheNewbiestONewbs said:

What does M.2 offer over a regular 2.5" ssd?

 

[VVoltor]

In benchmarks the m.2 PCIE drives are a lot faster then regular SSDs. However, in real world performance, the difference is negligible. Unless you want to use one as a scratch disk or something.

They can get quite hot, and usually are a bit more expensive. I'd go for a regular 2.5" SSD from a trusted brand like Samsung. For games an old Hard Disk Drive will still be fine, the only difference is slightly faster loading times.

[Daniel1]

If you don't got a m.2 slot on your motherboard go with the Samsung 850 EVO 1TB for $324.99usd.

 

[TheNewbiestONewbs]

My motherboard does use the pcie 3.0 x4. How hot do they get? If they get too hot I would want to invest in more fans and then get the M.2. On average they will not light themselves right?

[Your_Typical_Noob]

I think you should go with a samsung 850 pro 250 gb. so you would still have the money and m.2 slot to install intel optane. but this depends on if you have a kabylake processor or not. 

[TheNewbiestONewbs]

Just now, Your_Typical_Noob said:

I think you should go with a samsung 850 pro 250 gb. so you would still have the money and m.2 slot to install intel optane. but this depends on if you have a kabylake processor or not. 

I could install a kabylake cpu but I'll stick with my I5-6600 for now.

[dizmo]

Depends what you mean.

A lot of people mistake m.2 for PCIe or NVME, when really it also has support for SATA. M.2 is a form factor, not an interface type.

I'd get an m.2 drive, definitely. They're often the same, if not only a few dollars more (or in some cases less), and you don't have to mess around with extra cabling.

I wouldn't, however, get a PCIe or NVME drive if you just do things like browsing, gaming, general use, small video edits, etc. You won't really see a huge benefit, and for the same price you can get a much larger drive (depending on the capacities you're thinking about getting).

 

None of my PCs have ran HDDs, they've all ran SSDs, and in the future they'll all run a single m.2.

 

12 minutes ago, manikyath said:

M.2 is usually faster and more expensive (exceptions apply.)

 

the downside of M.2 is you need a mobo with an M.2 slot, and especially the faster ones REALLY like to get toasty, that said when they do thermal throttle they are still faster than their sata counterparts.

They're usually the same...they both run on SATA (unless he's looking at PCIe or NVMe). Also, a lot of them are cheaper than the 2.5" equivalent due to the lower production cost.

[manikyath]

Just now, dizmo said:

They're usually the same...they both run on SATA (unless he's looking at PCIe or NVMe). Also, a lot of them are cheaper than the 2.5" equivalent due to the lower production cost.

msata -- M.2

[dizmo]

Just now, manikyath said:

msata -- M.2

Msata is usually a larger drive, twice as wide as m.2. They're really a 2.5" SSD stripped out of its shell

[TheNewbiestONewbs]

Thank you for all your feedback! I have a good bit to research now. Thanks again for the suggestions.