Some Storage Questions

[Hi P]

1.- The difference in boot time and game loading times between NVMe and SATA III SSD seems to be very little, so when would one make use of the NVMe potential? (under which tasks)

 

2.- After reading the sticky I learned that SSD have a limited amount of writing before dying, how do I know which SSDs last longer?

 

3.- Which SATA III SSD would you recommend as a long lasting reliable backup drive that may be used on a daily basis?

 

4.- Same as the third question but on SATA III HDD.

 

5.- I want to buy colored cables for the storage, would any brand do? or are there not so reliable brands even for things such as cables?

 

Thank you

[Electronics Wizardy]

1. Lots of things like: heavy database, some video editing workflows, vms and lots of other heavy io workloads. NVMe is just a better standard for nand drives and has lower cpu overhead compared to ahci aswell.

 

2. Don't worry about ssd endurace, as a consumer you will never reach it and drives will go well beyond there rating

 

3. Budget? Mx500, 860  evo are both good buys.

 

4. Budget? Size? use case? seagate barracuda, wd blue are both good buys.

 

5. Any sata cable will workf ine.

[seagate_surfer]

1 hour ago, Hi P said:

1.- The difference in boot time and game loading times between NVMe and SATA III SSD seems to be very little, so when would one make use of the NVMe potential? (under which tasks)

1 hour ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

1. Lots of things like: heavy database, some video editing workflows, vms and lots of other heavy io workloads. NVMe is just a better standard for nand drives and has lower cpu overhead compared to ahci aswell.

Hello Hi P,

That's right, the NVMe interface move transfer larger files more easy than what SATA can do. But if it is only one application like a video game, you won't experience much of a difference. Boot a computer from a NVMe feels very sweet thou. But again, the video game itself won't fell different for being running from a HDD or SSD, meaning that frame rates won't be better, that's a task that relies more on the CPU/GPU than the storage device you are using.

 

1 hour ago, Hi P said:

2.- After reading the sticky I learned that SSD have a limited amount of writing before dying, how do I know which SSDs last longer?

1 hour ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

2. Don't worry about ssd endurace, as a consumer you will never reach it and drives will go well beyond there rating

 

Just pay attention to the years of warranty and forecasted usage, if the drive was not built to work 24/7 then don't use it like that or you will end up burning the unit, so shut down the computer when not in use. And 5 years of warranty of course is better than 3, so if in the specifications they mention how much data you can write, you can grab that number and divided by 5 if the warranty is 5years or by 3 if it was 3 years, and from there you can have an idea as to how much data you can write, you can split that total in 365 for example and it will give you a daily number of how much data limit you can write per day.

 

But again, just like Electronics Wizardy said, it is very difficult that someone ever be able to write that much of data per day. Do the math and you'll see what we are talking bout!

1 hour ago, Hi P said:

3.- Which SATA III SSD would you recommend as a long lasting reliable backup drive that may be used on a daily basis?

1 hour ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

3. Budget? Mx500, 860  evo are both good buys.

Did you hear of the BarraCuda version for SSDs, nope? Well, here is a link should you wish to check it out: https://www.seagate.com/internal-hard-drives/ssd/barracuda-ssd/

1 hour ago, Hi P said:

4.- Same as the third question but on SATA III HDD.

1 hour ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

4. Budget? Size? use case? seagate barracuda, wd blue are both good buys.

It all depends on the drive forecasted usage, for example if you need a NAS level hard drive then use a NAS level hard drive and not a home user hard drive. For many people the BarraCuda works well!

 

1 hour ago, Hi P said:

5.- I want to buy colored cables for the storage, would any brand do? or are there not so reliable brands even for things such as cables?

 

Thank you

1 hour ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

5. Any sata cable will workf ine.

Yeah! Any SATA cable works. 

 

[Hi P]

@seagate_surfer Thank you very much!

[seagate_surfer]

You are welcome!