My personal experience with m.2 NVMe SSD's

[Rob4642]

Lately, I switched from sata-connected ssd's to the type with an m.2 connection. If you don't know what that is, look it up. I've been putting in WD black m.2 NVMe's lately and I have to say, there is no downside to using an m.2 connection for your main, and my preference only, drive. They don't attach with sata cables, the size of a piece of gum, and you can get the in massive sizes. They also stay safely screwed to your motherboard. Technology is finally catching up. Like a micro sd card for a desktop.
I tested the m.2 compared to a normal SSD during gameplay, and I did indeed max out the 550mbps write speed of my sandisk ultra via hwinfo. The m.2 was a little above at about 700mbps while gaming. So SATA can, not in every situation, but it can be the last bottleneck in your system. If you haven't used one, I suggest trying then posting. I loaded Windows 10 Pro Business edition in about 5 minutes. And was playing a game within 15 minutes.
After restarting again, everything is faster. Not one thing didn't benefit from getting an m.2 drive. I've been monitoring what kind of traffic an SSD really has while gaming, desktop use etc over the past year, with various SSD's. I've maxed out my sandisk ultra's read and write speeds a number of times. An m.2 drive, which won the race for the new tech for attaching an SSD to your board, is sure to last you a long time before bottlenecking.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

Lately, I switched from sata-connected ssd's to the type with an m.2 connection. If you don't know what that is, look it up. I've been putting in WD black m.2 NVMe's lately and I have to say, there is no downside to using an m.2 connection for your main, and my preference only, drive. They don't attach with sata cables, the size of a piece of gum, and you can get the in massive sizes. They also stay safely screwed to your motherboard. Technology is finally catching up. Like a micro sd card for a desktop.

It would be nice to get some experience info given some time in use , ie time to notice whats quicker/better.
I think many here plan on getting one so a users perspective would be nice.

 

[Caring1]

.....m.2 connection. If you don't know what that is, look it up.

You posted that on a Tech site?

 

[Vya Domus]

There is one downside , price.

 

[Mussels]

the downside is that my motherboard is too old to have a native M.2 slot, stupid modern technology.

 

[bug]

There is one downside , price.

You can get M.2 SATA drives that cost about the same as a regular SATA drive. The performance hit it barely noticeable.
But as @Mussels said, motherboards don't have too many M.2 ports. Mine is rather expensive and only has three.

 

[Mussels]

my brothers mobo has two M.2 slots, but using both shut off 6 of his SATA ports :/


that caught him by surprise, and rather broke his storage plans

 

[bug]

my brothers mobo has two M.2 slots, but using both shut off 6 of his SATA ports :/


that caught him by surprise, and rather broke his storage plans

I believe it doesn't shut off SATA ports if you use NVMe drives. But then you end up paying more.

 

[Vya Domus]

You can get M.2 SATA drives that cost about the same as a regular SATA drive. The performance hit it barely noticeable.
But as @Mussels said, motherboards don't have too many M.2 ports. Mine is rather expensive and only has three.

Yeah you can get them at the same price , but not the same capacity. I don't know the prices in your area but where I live an M.2 SSD is at least 30-40% more expensive than a identical capacity regular one.

They wouldn't be selling a better product at the same price.

 

[Mussels]

I believe it doesn't shut off SATA ports if you use NVMe drives. But then you end up paying more.

it shuts them off for NVME, but not the sata type. Needs all the bandwidth... would obviously vary based on board design, but they use 4x PCI-E (2.0?) lanes per M.2 slot and intel seem to be cutting a lot of corners with PCI-E lanes these days.

 

[vega22]

nvme is great, but only a few will see it in its best light.

for most use i saw 0 difference going to a 950 pro from an 850 evo.

places where i saw a big difference are opening photoshop with many brushes and fonts installed. it used to take many seconds for this with the 850 but with the 950 it is less than 2. packing files in to paks for games (think creating rar/zip files) is another area it excels. what used to take over 5 minutes to do is well under half that.

i guess cable management is another area they excel.

4x gen 3 i think mussels.

for my 2 cents nvme is great if you spend time sat looking at stuff which is maxing out your ssd. but for most people it is too expensive to justify. as such a good sata ssd is plenty for most people.

 

[Rob4642]

There is one downside , price.

It will come down, just like all storage. I paid $250 for a 512gb one, and it's worth every penny of that over 2000mbps read and 750mbps write speeds via AIDA64. Also, if I'm building a top end computer, I'm not going to choke it with sata. That is sort of the last bottleneck in a way.

 

[alucasa]

If I recall correctly, Intel 1xx chipset used to take 2 SATA ports per M.2. 2xx chipset seems to take only one port per M.2. So, it's an improvement.

But I honestly cannot tell any difference between nVMe and sAtA M.2. Benchmark shows. Reality doesn't.

 

[biffzinker]

If I recall correctly, Intel 1xx chipset used to take 2 SATA ports per M.2. 2xx chipset seems to take only one port per M.2. So, it's an improvement.

Could it be a byproduct of SATA-Express requiring SATA ports to function? I know it does for the Z97 if it's a m.SATA your plugging into a M.2 slot.

 

[alucasa]

Could it be a byproduct of SATA-Express requiring SATA ports to function? I know it does for the Z97 if it's a m.SATA your plugging into a M.2 slot.

Honestly, I don't know. But I had been looking at a lot of motherboards for a NAS build. I do recall holding off M.2 as boot drive for it because it was taking away 2 ports for M.2. That was a while ago and it was 1xx chipset era. I needed 6 SATA ports (including the boot drive). M.2 taking away 2 killed the plan for ITX setup.

I've been doing research again with 2xx chipsets and I am seeing only one SATA port sacrifice per M.2, so the plan becomes visible again.

 

[Rob4642]

You posted that on a Tech site?

Tell me something techy then and teach me something please, before making comments like that. Some people do not know what an m.2 drive is. You'd be surprised.

 

[jboydgolfer]

If I recall correctly, Intel 1xx chipset used to take 2 SATA ports per M.2. 2xx chipset seems to take only one port per M.2. So, it's an improvement.

But I honestly cannot tell any difference between nVMe and sAtA M.2. Benchmark shows. Reality doesn't.

I see a lot of people post results from benchmarks to prove how fast their nvme drives are. I'd like to see maybe a file transfer in windows or something to that effect( or drastically shorter bot times over sata ssd). I've just grown weary of disc benchmarks because of "rapid mode" and all that and it's like showing pretend benefits to having paid 2-4x as much of a standard ssd cost.

I looked into getting an nvme solid-state drive but because of the use of words like "theoretical" and the lack of the use of the term "real world" I was dissuaded from making a purchase. I just hate the sink that kind of money on technology that can only be utilized in a few theoretical environment

 

[alucasa]

I see a lot of people post results from benchmarks to prove how fast their nvme drives are. I'd like to see maybe a file transfer in windows or something to that effect. I've just grown weary of disc benchmarks because of "rapid mode" and all that and it's like showing pretend benefits to having paid 2-4x as much of a standard ssd cost.

I looked into getting an nvme solid-state drive but because of the use of words like "theoretical" and the lack of the use of the term "real world" I was dissuaded from making a purchase. I just hate the sink that kind of money on technology that can only be utilized in a few theoretical environment

Well, we are on a tech site. Bechmarking and showing off is a part of the charm of being here. I am sure you know that.

Having said that though, some are a little too devoted to just benchmarking. Not pointing fingers at'em though. I mean, it's each to their own. I like being practical. That's all.

 

[jboydgolfer]

Well, we are on a tech site

i have no issue with it. im just saying, Id like to see Actual speed results not from a theoretical/benchmark based enviroment. thats all. i dont mind people benching to their hearts content, but if it doesnt show in real world (boot times, or file transfers) it doesnt justify cost to me.

 

[alucasa]

i have no issue with it. im just saying, Id like to see Actual speed results not from a theoretical/benchmark based enviroment. thats all. i dont mind people benching to their hearts content, but if it doesnt show in real world (boot times, or file transfers) it doesnt justify cost to me.

The practical tests don't show much of an improvement. Boot time is a second or two max faster which is, really, nothing. File transfer is a tricky test because you'd need to move files from a nVMe to another nVMe to see the real speed but quite frankly how many would have two nVMe and how often would one transfer files to one another?

The only real life application that would benefit from nVMe's strength is hosting Minercraft server on it. That game loves I/O. And, maybe, if you are doing SQL, that, too, requires nice I/O. I guess video editing will also benefit from it. It might kill the drive quickly though.

So, you can't really show it off unless you do the benchmarks.

 

[biffzinker]

Wouldn't mind reading of someones experince outside of the big name reviewers. Nothing against TPU btw.

 

[jboydgolfer]

So, you can't really show it off unless you do the benchmarks.

yeah, my point exactly....cant really show it off, or use it to its potential.

 

[alucasa]

I don't think we have many activities that even saturate SATA 3. File transfer, and between SSD to another SSD, is the only one I can think of.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

i have no issue with it. im just saying, Id like to see Actual speed results not from a theoretical/benchmark based enviroment. thats all. i dont mind people benching to their hearts content, but if it doesnt show in real world (boot times, or file transfers) it doesnt justify cost to me.

Me too, some normal file compress uncompress and move from ssd to it perhaps.

 

[biffzinker]

Speaking of SATA ports, I managed to get that Biostar 880GZ I got from @Norton to operate a Intel 520 SSD 120 GB at SATA 6Gb/s. The past Gigabyte ATX 880G board I had with the same 850 southbridge only worked at 3Gb/s. I benched the drive in AIDA64 Storage benchmark and was seeing 500 MB/s just short of the drives actual 550 MB/s.