M.2 or SSD?

[christoskyr]

For 130-150€ is it better to buy a 240 GB m.2 drive (thinking about either Patriot Hellfire M.2 240GB or Samsung 960 EVO M.2 250GB) or a 480GB SATA ssd? I don't see why an m.2 would be a better solution as it is much faster

 

Thank you for your time

[ProjectBox153]

Can you even utilize an M.2 drive in your system? And by the way, M.2 is an SSD format, not something other than an SSD.

[genexis_x]

M.2 is a form factor
M.2 comes with either SATA or NVMe interface

For most users, NVMe SSD is a waste of money as there's no significant speed gains

[christoskyr]

1 minute ago, Jamiec1130 said:

Can you even utilize an M.2 drive in your system? And by the way, M.2 is an SSD format, not something other than an SSD.

By utilize, you mean whether my motherboard has an m.2 slot?

[Imbellis]

3 minutes ago, christoskyr said:

For 130-150€ is it better to buy a 240 GB m.2 drive (thinking about either Patriot Hellfire M.2 240GB or Samsung 960 EVO NVMe M.2 250GB) or a 480GB ssd? I don't see why an m.2 would be a better solution as it is much faster

 

Thank you for your time

SSDs come in two different "form factors"

These include 2.5", 3.5", NVMe and m.2.

[genexis_x]

3 minutes ago, christoskyr said:

By utilize, you mean whether my motherboard has an m.2 slot?

Yes
Also whether it supports NVMe interface or not (but like I said above, there's little reason to get NVMe SSD)

[genexis_x]

3 minutes ago, Imbellis said:

NVMe

This is not a form factor

[Bananasplit_00]

m.2 and SATA is what you mean, but the SATA drive will be much better value unless you are doing 4K video work or something

[Imbellis]

As for which of those two listed are better - I'd  The Patriot Hellfire m.2 gets a score of 10357, while the 960 EVO gets a score of 13172.

 

So the 960 EVO wins by a healthy margin.

[TheGlenlivet]

Buy the bigger 2.5 incher.  The speeds the M.2 offers aren't noticeable for gaming or other tasks like that.  They only really come into play for moving BIG files around.

[genexis_x]

3 minutes ago, Bananasplit_00 said:

m.2 and SATA is what you mean, but the SATA drive will be much better value unless you are doing 4K video work or something

Or, too much money to spend

[genexis_x]

2 minutes ago, Imbellis said:

As for which of those two listed are better - I'd  The Patriot Hellfire m.2 gets a score of 10357, while the 960 EVO gets a score of 13172.

 

So the 960 EVO wins by a healthy margin.

In real world, normal usage, you won't notice any significant difference

[Colexd]

m.2 is a form factor.

ssd is well... an ssd.

For almost everyone, a normal 2.5" ssd will suffice. (gaming, booting windows)

The faster speeds of pcie ssd's are only significant when using it for video editing large files at higher resolution like 4k.

[Imbellis]

2 minutes ago, ZM Fong said:

This is not a form factor

I thought NVMe were storage cards that ran through PCIe slots.

[manikyath]

buy the 480 gig SSD, you'll notice the extra space more than the neglible real-world speed difference between joe average sata SSD and a top end M.2 SSD.

[christoskyr]

So if I'm not moving big files all the time and editing videos, and what I'm using my pc is gaming, a sata ssd is the better choice?

If I'm running multiple programs at the same time, is it better to have an m.2 or a sata ssd?

[Mira Yurizaki]

4 minutes ago, Imbellis said:

I thought NVMe were storage cards that ran through PCIe slots.

NVMe is a communication protocol that uses PCIe as the physical communication link.

 

1 minute ago, christoskyr said:

So if I'm not moving big files all the time and editing videos, and what I'm using my pc is gaming, a sata ssd is the better choice?

If I'm running multiple programs at the same time, is it better to have an m.2 or a sata ssd?

SATA SSDs come in a 2.5" drive or M.2 form factor.

 

I recommend 2.5" drives because M.2 slots are often inconveniently placed where the cards will get hot.

[christoskyr]

Also any suggestions about a good 480gb sata ssd?

[ReThorb_]

Just get a 480gb ssd for that money, dont bother with nvme

[genexis_x]

1 minute ago, christoskyr said:

Also any suggestions about a good 480gb sata ssd?

Samsung 850 EVO 500GB

Crucial MX300 525GB

SK Hynix SL308 500GB

[christoskyr]

Just now, ZM Fong said:

Samsung 850 EVO 500GB

Crucial MX300 525GB

SK Hynix SL308 500GB

Where did you look up the ssd scores?

[Imbellis]

2 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

~Snip ~

NVMe is a communication protocol that uses PCIe as the physical communication link.

 

So would the "form factor" be PCI-e?

[genexis_x]

1 minute ago, christoskyr said:

Where did you look up the ssd scores?

Google

BTW I'm not just looking at scores, things like random read/write, speed consistency sometimes are more important

Edited August 30, 2017 by ZM Fong

[jarmenti]

no the form factor would be m.2 followed by the size in millimeters etc 2280 being 80 mm for example!

[Mira Yurizaki]

2 minutes ago, Imbellis said:

So would the "form factor" be PCI-e?

No. PCIe is the communication link. That's like saying Ethernet or Wi-Fi is a form factor.

 

A form factor is the shape of the physical piece of hardware.