Which (if any) SSD+HDD+OPTANE setup makes most sense?

[rzepek2pl]

Hey guys. I'm about to step into the new storage technology and buy a new system which would support m.2 storage. So far, I haven't seen any mobo with multiple m.2 slots, and I'd like to have an m.2 ssd for my system (right now boot off a sata ssd) and Optane memory to support my hdd cache. My question is: which of the following systems makes sense?

OS on m.2 ssd in built-in mobo slot, and Optane on m.2 slot adapted into pci-e slot (does it work that way?), or vice versa?

[IdiotPenguin]

I’m not sure about the bottom half of your questions but boot speeds from a decent ssd and an m.2 (I assume NVME) is pretty negligible from what I’ve heard/seen so

[Fennrarr]

Most motherboards anymore do have 2 m.2 slots. Anyway, generally speaking, just buy a 120/250GB NVMe SSD (Think Samsung 970 Pro/Evo) as your boot drive with a few choice games, and a high capacity sata-based SSD (Think Samsung 860 EVO) for bulk storage. Optane doesn't have large enough capacities in the consumer space to make them a replacement for normal SSDs just yet. They're better for accelerating HDDs, but do very little in a SSD system.

[rzepek2pl]

2 minutes ago, Fennrarr said:

Most motherboards anymore do have 2 m.2 slots. Anyway, generally speaking, just buy a 120/250GB NVMe SSD (Think Samsung 970 Pro/Evo) as your boot drive with a few choice games, and a high capacity sata-based SSD (Think Samsung 860 EVO) for bulk storage. Optane doesn't have large enough capacities in the consumer space to make them a replacement for normal SSDs just yet. They're better for accelerating HDDs, but do very little in a SSD system.

Thanks for a quick reply!

I may have explained my problem poorly, so let me rephrase that. I want Optane to accelerate my HDD, and another m.2 SSD to boot my system off it. As for mobos with multiple m.2 slots, I'll try and look for such boards.

[rzepek2pl]

13 minutes ago, IdiotPenguin said:

I’m not sure about the bottom half of your questions but boot speeds from a decent ssd and an m.2 (I assume NVME) is pretty negligible from what I’ve heard/seen so

All I know is sata has a speed cap of 250(?) MB/s, and m.2 interface is way faster than that.

[GDRRiley]

Just now, rzepek2pl said:

Thanks for a quick reply!

I may have explained my problem poorly, so let me rephrase that. I want Optane to accelerate my HDD, and another m.2 SSD to boot my system off it. As for mobos with multiple m.2 slots, I'll try and look for such boards.

optane doesn't make a lot of sense, just get 1 NVME 250-500GB boot drive, a 1TB SSD for games and if you need more space get a 4-8TB HDD.

[GDRRiley]

Just now, rzepek2pl said:

All I know is sata has a speed cap of 250(?) MB/s, and m.2 interface is way faster than that.

nope sata is capped at 6GB/s or 600MB/s

M.2 using PCIE 4x is but many m.2 slots support sata drives as well. 

[rzepek2pl]

1 minute ago, GDRRiley said:

nope sata is capped at 6GB/s or 600MB/s

M.2 using PCIE 4x is but many m.2 slots support sata drives as well. 

Thanks for correcting me!

Even with 600 MB/s, sata is behind m.2 which can reach thousands of MB/s, right?

[IdiotPenguin]

48 minutes ago, rzepek2pl said:

Thanks for correcting me!

Even with 600 MB/s, sata is behind m.2 which can reach thousands of MB/s, right?

Yes but i'm 99% sure it will only make a few seconds at best in boot times. If you need to transfer files super quick then go for it tho. Either that or you have money and you wanna really try it out. Can't go wrong with fast as fuck speeds