M.2 vs SSD

[Z-Gaming]

Hello LTT Community,

Right now I am running a 850 Pro 128GB for my OS and 1 or 2 games, and a 2TB WD C.Black for everything else. Is it worth it buying a M.2 SSD and move my OS and the games I play the most over and keep my SSD for every other game, or will I not notice a big difference? I don't have problem with space, as I always uninstall and reinstall games I want to play from Steam.

Thanks a lot

Edit: I meant NVME... no idea why M.2 came to my mind... I'm just tired

[79wjd]

You won't notice a big difference.

[newcbomb]

M.2 SSD's have the same speed as SATA SSD's because they use the sata bus. However, NVME drives, such as the 960 Pro/Evo will give you a huge bump. Up to 50% faster, since they use PCI-E instead. But your motherboard must support it.

[Princess Luna]

M.2 only makes sense if you literally can not fit the 2,5 SSD inside the case, if you can go with it, mainstream usage does not benefit from nVME and normal M.2 is identical to SATA3.

[79wjd]

5 minutes ago, newcbomb said:

M.2 SSD's have the same speed as SATA SSD's because they use the sata bus. However, NVME drives, such as the 960 Pro/Evo will give you a huge bump. Up to 50% faster, since they use PCI-E instead. But your motherboard must support it.

An M.2 SSD can be either AHCI (and use the SATA bus (500MB/s~, or use the PCIE bus and reach 1-1.5GB/s~) or it can be NVME (and will currently top out around 3-4GB/s). 

[Z-Gaming]

2 minutes ago, newcbomb said:

M.2 SSD's have the same speed as SATA SSD's because they use the sata bus. However, NVME drives, such as the 960 Pro/Evo will give you a huge bump. Up to 50% faster, since they use PCI-E instead. But your motherboard must support it.

That's what i meant. I am too tired atm and my mind just shut off. I meant the 960 series vs the 850. Anyway, you answered my question, so i thank you (my MOBO is the Asus VIII Hero, which i believe does support NVME)

 

[newcbomb]

4 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

An M.2 SSD can be either AHCI (use the SATA/PCIE bus) or NVME. 

Yes, but since he didnt specify thats why i said that. From my experience people tie m.2 and mSATA together. 

 

3 minutes ago, Z-Gaming said:

That's what i meant. I am too tired atm and my mind just shut off. I meant the 960 series vs the 850. Anyway, you answered my question, so i thank you (my MOBO is the Asus VIII Hero, which i believe does support NVME)

 

Yep, the 960 vs 850 is a huge difference. 960 has around 1500 to 2000MB/s read and write. The 850 has around 400-500MB/s read and write. 

[knightslugger]

6 minutes ago, Princess Cadence said:

M.2 only makes sense if you literally can not fit the 2,5 SSD inside the case, if you can go with it, mainstream usage does not benefit from nVME and normal M.2 is identical to SATA3.

...minus all the uggers cables.

[79wjd]

2 minutes ago, knightslugger said:

...minus all the uggers cables.

Someone should learn to cable manage better. (although that's honestly the reason I'd want to upgrade to M.2 :S) 

[knightslugger]

Just now, djdwosk97 said:

Someone should learn to cable manage better.

I do cable manage.

 

by removing them.

[Princess Luna]

1 minute ago, knightslugger said:

...minus all the uggers cables.

Oh please, cables are pretty when well organized :3

[Z-Gaming]

One more question. I had heard that a 256GB Drive is better that a 250GB one... i don't remember the reason right now, but i wanted to know if that is a myth or a fact. @Princess Cadence @knightslugger @newcbomb

[Princess Luna]

2 minutes ago, Z-Gaming said:

.

I'm not the right person to ask, I always tell people to get the SanDisk G26 because it's usually cheaper and just as good out of personal experience, Crucial MX300 is fine too.

[knightslugger]

250's are 256's that account for the overprovisioning that most SSDs have.

[DocSwag]

7 hours ago, newcbomb said:

Yep, the 960 vs 850 is a huge difference. 960 has around 1500 to 2000MB/s read and write. The 850 has around 400-500MB/s read and write. 

1. Those are peak numbers. Under sustained reads and writes the speeds will drop down significantly

2. Those are sequential numbers, whereas what matters more for day to day is random reads and writes

3. Not everything can benefit from those faster speeds.

 

While on paper the 960 seems way better, that's not necessarily true.

 

https://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1981?vs=1977

 

If you look here, it's only in the light and burst tests where the 960 actually wins. When it comes to all the sustained tests, the two perform very similarly.

 

Plus, if you look at actual boot times and app launch times, there's virtually no difference between even a 960 pro and a decent SATA ssd

https://techreport.com/review/30813/samsung-960-pro-2tb-ssd-reviewed/5

 

@Z-Gaming, getting an NVME SSD is a waste of money if you are only using it for storing apps and games. Just get a cheaper SATA ssd instead, and save yourself some money.

 

 

[robotsalad]

2 hours ago, DocSwag said:

1. Those are peak numbers. Under sustained reads and writes the speeds will drop down significantly

2. Those are sequential numbers, whereas what matters more for day to day is random reads and writes

3. Not everything can benefit from those faster speeds.

 

While on paper the 960 seems way better, that's not necessarily true.

 

https://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1981?vs=1977

 

If you look here, it's only in the light and burst tests where the 960 actually wins. When it comes to all the sustained tests, the two perform very similarly.

 

Plus, if you look at actual boot times and app launch times, there's virtually no difference between even a 960 pro and a decent SATA ssd

https://techreport.com/review/30813/samsung-960-pro-2tb-ssd-reviewed/5

 

@Z-Gaming, getting an NVME SSD is a waste of money if you are only using it for storing apps and games. Just get a cheaper SATA ssd instead, and save yourself some money.

 

 

only because there's no storage device that can transfer to the disk faster than 300 MB/s. if you had like a super fast usb 3.1 gen. 2 usb device that you were transferring your video game library from you would definitely notice a difference. or from one computer to another over a 10Gb network. a lot of things benefit from really fast sequential read and writes, plus NVMe drives are almost always way faster at random read and writes too.

[Froody129]

2 hours ago, robotsalad said:

only because there's no storage device that can transfer to the disk faster than 300 MB/s. if you had like a super fast usb 3.1 gen. 2 usb device that you were transferring your video game library from you would definitely notice a difference. or from one computer to another over a 10Gb network. a lot of things benefit from really fast sequential read and writes, plus NVMe drives are almost always way faster at random read and writes too.

Yeah, but you don’t notice it in everyday use unless you have some arbitrary use for your PC. There’ll be a much bigger difference if you get a bigger SATA SSD for the price of the smaller NVME. Or you just save the money

[DocSwag]

10 hours ago, robotsalad said:

only because there's no storage device that can transfer to the disk faster than 300 MB/s. if you had like a super fast usb 3.1 gen. 2 usb device that you were transferring your video game library from you would definitely notice a difference. or from one computer to another over a 10Gb network. a lot of things benefit from really fast sequential read and writes, plus NVMe drives are almost always way faster at random read and writes too.

As I already mentioned, they're only way faster at burst. Not sustained reads and writes.

 

While yes, if both drives are fast enough you will see transfers of game libraries be faster on an NVMe drive, that's not my point. My point is that, in day to day usage (booting up, launching apps, opening small files, etc.) NVMe drives and a decent sata drive perform nearly the same. I'm not saying that there is no reason to get an NVMe drive: There most definitely is, seeing as NVMe drives can be better for stuff like scratch disks for premier, but for the average consumer that is just using the ssd to store os, apps, and files sata drives are an absolute waste of money.

 

Apps have been optimized around improving launch times on HDDs. When they're introduced to an SSD, they can't take advantage of the speeds NVME SSDs have to offer.

[knightslugger]

And lets be honest, if you need a cheap ultra fast scratch storage for some project, use a RAMDisk. You've probably got some leftover RAM as it is.