BIOSTAR M700 512 GB PCIe NVMe SSD

[W1zzard]

With just $50 for the tested 512 GB model, the BIOSTAR M700 M.2 NVMe SSD is the most affordable SSD we ever reviewed, even cheaper than most 2.5" SATA drives. Thanks to its fast PCIe x4 3.0 interface paired with an SMI controller, performance is good, too. Is there any reason left to buy a 2.5" SATA SSD?

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[Mathragh]

That really is an amazing product for the price!
Just to be clear: it doesn't use any system DRAM for caching lookup tables like iirc some other DRAMless drives appear to do?

 

[TheGuruStud]

Spend the extra for random speed.

 

[Kapone33]

If you don't have a spare M2 slot. On a serious note though this is a great deal considering the price/performance ratio. Hopefully these will be available in Canada without too much of a cost premium.

 

[W1zzard]

Just to be clear: it doesn't use any system DRAM for caching lookup tables like iirc some other DRAMless drives appear to do?

Host-memory-buffer? I just double-checked, it supports 32 - 64 MB HMB

 

[Mathragh]

Host-memory-buffer? I just double-checked, it supports 32 - 64 MB HMB

Thanks! was wondering just in case it used a not-insignificant amount of system ram, and just because it's interesting from a technological point of view.

Seems like they did a great job finding their sweet-spot whilst balancing many factors.

 

[W1zzard]

Thanks! was wondering just in case it used a not-insignificant amount of system ram, and just because it's interesting from a technological point of view.

Seems like they did a great job finding their sweet-spot whilst balancing many factors.

64 MB is nothing for today's systems, almost a rounding error

 

[Mathragh]

64 MB is nothing for today's systems, almost a rounding error

Indeed, cannot think of any scenario where it wouldn't be worth the trade-off, even in very low-cost systems where RAM is tight.
Even in hardware where the OS is so RAM starved its using this disk a lot as a swap file the 64MB HMB would probably do way more good boosting iops than it would do as 64MB of generic system RAM.

 

[W1zzard]

would probably do way more good boosting iops than it would do as 64MB of generic system RAM.

absolutely, I almost wish HMB sizes would be bigger

 

[Mathragh]

absolutely, I almost wish HMB sizes would be bigger

Would make for an interesting review if at some point you had a drive with a good controller, decent NAND flash, no RAM and a configurable size of HMB .

 

[Assimilator]

The lack of TBW spec is a little worrying, but it's Intel flash so it's not like it's low-quality rejects like you find in the no-name-brand Chinese drives. I'm really surprised that Biostar is able to price this drive so low, especially considering it's using 64L NAND which AFAIK is more expensive. (In fact I didn't even know Intel was still making 64L, I thought they'd transitioned fully to 96L.)

It would be pretty cool to be able to configure HMB - IMO it should be a per-device no-reboot-needed SSD control panel thing. After all, if I have 32GB, I can afford to give 1GB of that to my SSD.

 

[notb]

Is this even a real product? Can you buy one?
Alibaba is the only seller I could find (200+ items per order).

 

[Aquinus]

Wow. That's a lot of SSD for a very reasonable price. That's a good little budget SSD.

Spend the extra for random speed.

I would replace my 4x1TB WD Black RAID-5 with a RAID-5 of these on one of those 4x M.2 expansion cards in a heartbeat if I had a machine that could do the PCIe aggregation magic to make that work. For $95 a pop for the 1TB model, that's really not too bad considering a 1TB WD Black is about $75.

 

[QUANTUMPHYSICS]

#1 The problem with M.2 NVME SSD is that most motherboards only have room for one. This isn't true for laptops - typically - which have room for 2 + 1 laptop HDD, but for a desktop user, space is everything.

#2 So you can only have one M.2 NVME SSD...you're gonna want to install the OS on it which takes up whatever space it takes - let's say 50GB for the OS + connected files like Windows Onedrive cloud storage.

#3 If you're a gamer, you won't want to have your games on sata SSD if you can help it. You'll want your most played games on the M.2 since the loading is faster while your old games collect dust on your slow HDD.

The only logical choice is to either use a small M.2 and then put your games on Sata SSD... or SPEND MORE AND GET A LARGER M.2.

You can get M.2 SSD for $199 in 2TB capacity...

I personally think the industry needs to focus squarely on 1TB and 2TB models.


However...lets say you do want a 500GB SSD... most gamers are gonna end up buying a Samsung Pro model.

I pretty much do everything on SSD due to the sheer speed, quiet and efficiency of it. The only HDD I keep around is for dumping large video files.

 

[AnarchoPrimitiv]

#1 The problem with M.2 NVME SSD is that most motherboards only have room for one. This isn't true for laptops - typically - which have room for 2 + 1 laptop HDD, but for a desktop user, space is everything.

#2 So you can only have one M.2 NVME SSD...you're gonna want to install the OS on it which takes up whatever space it takes - let's say 50GB for the OS + connected files like Windows Onedrive cloud storage.

#3 If you're a gamer, you won't want to have your games on sata SSD if you can help it. You'll want your most played games on the M.2 since the loading is faster while your old games collect dust on your slow HDD.

The only logical choice is to either use a small M.2 and then put your games on Sata SSD... or SPEND MORE AND GET A LARGER M.2.

You can get M.2 SSD for $199 in 2TB capacity...

I personally think the industry needs to focus squarely on 1TB and 2TB models.


However...lets say you do want a 500GB SSD... most gamers are gonna end up buying a Samsung Pro model.

I pretty much do everything on SSD due to the sheer speed, quiet and efficiency of it. The only HDD I keep around is for dumping large video files.

A lack of m.2 slots is what a $15 PCIe x4 to m.2 adapters is made for... And have you checked SSD prices lately... I just picked up a 2TB HP EX950 m.2 drive (3500/3000 r/w) for $240 and you can find many 1TB models for under a $100...theyre basically the same price as Sata SSDs at this point so there's no reason to buy Sata.

Wow. That's a lot of SSD for a very reasonable price. That's a good little budget SSD.

I would replace my 4x1TB WD Black RAID-5 with a RAID-5 of these on one of those 4x M.2 expansion cards in a heartbeat if I had a machine that could do the PCIe aggregation magic to make that work. For $95 a pop for the 1TB model, that's really not too bad considering a 1TB WD Black is about $75.

It's called PCIe bifurcation. There are more expensive nvme raid adapters that have hardware level raid (unlike those simple 4x m.2 adapter by Asrock, Asus, gigabyte, etc) like my Highpoint Storage SSD7103... try looking into one of these

 

[TheMadDutchDude]

Most motherboards these days definitely have more than one M.2 slot...

Games are rarely benefited by a super fast M.2 drive. I've only ever seen my games load at around 400 MBps, regardless of which SSD I am storing them on. I'll most likely end up grabbing a couple of large drives in the future, but for my current needs... pointless.

 

[Vario]

Most motherboards these days definitely have more than one M.2 slot...

Games are rarely benefited by a super fast M.2 drive. I've only ever seen my games load at around 400 MBps, regardless of which SSD I am storing them on. I'll most likely end up grabbing a couple of large drives in the future, but for my current needs... pointless.

Unfortunately you lose SATA ports on some configurations.

 

[TheMadDutchDude]

If your storage is on M.2 ... who cares? You typically only lose two out of the six on average anyway.

 

[Solid State Soul ( SSS )]

It's rare to see Intel's TLC nand on anything other than their own SSDs.

 

[mahirzukic2]

Does anybody know where we could get these drives and also what is their TBW rating for respective drive sizes?

 

[W1zzard]

Does anybody know where we could get these drives and also what is their TBW rating for respective drive sizes?

I definitely remember seeing it listed in Germany, at Alternate if I remember correctly. Doesn't seem to be listed anymore..

 

[Mathragh]

Been trying to find it here in the Netherlands as well, no luck so far.