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better for a bootdrive?

better for a bootdrive?

  • 960 evo M.2

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Normal SSD

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    0
  • Poll closed .
NTM2003

NTM2003

Joined
Jan 3, 2015
Messages
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Location
Richmond, VA, USA
System Specs
System Name lazy ass
Processor Intel i5 7600k 4.2 GHz
Motherboard MSI Enthusiastic Gaming Z270 (Z270 GAMING M3)
Cooling H80i GT V1 liquid cooling
Memory CORSAIR VENGEANCE RGB PRO 32GB (4x8GB) DDR4 3600MHz
Video Card(s) Gigabyte AORUS GeForce GTX 1080 8G 11Gbps
Storage seagate 2tb HDD/boot drive SSD Samsung 960 evo M.2
Display(s) ASUS 28inch 4k
Case Corsair Graphite Series 760T
Audio Device(s) mobo
Power Supply EVGA SuperNOVA 750G1 750 watts
Mouse Razer Mamba wireless/ needs a new one razer sucks
Keyboard Corsair K68 RGB
Software Windows 10 home
Benchmark Scores to be updated soon
what is better for a boot drive a normal SSD or a 960 EVO M.2. I will be adding a 10tb HDD to go along with it, games now days can take up to 100gbs for each so I want plenty of space.
 
If by better you mean speed and your system can support/facilitate that speed then yeah, the M.2 will probably be a better choice at a higher cost. If it's more storage space for your dollar ,while still at a very high speed then 2.5 inch maybe you're better choice.
 
NTM2003 said:
what is better for a boot drive a normal SSD or a 960 EVO M.2. I will be adding a 10tb HDD to go along with it, games now days can take up to 100gbs for each so I want plenty of space.
Click to expand...
the nvme is faster... but noticeably...?... a little.

100s of GB per game, ehh? What games are those? Ive seen 60ish after years and all DLC, but never as much as you mentioned...each.
 
its more about boot speed for me because my pc starts up slow, they will end up being up to a 100gb I know the newest cod game takes 150gb according to the windows 10 store.

I thought about the intel optane but that wont do much of anything from what I've been reading,
 
I can select my boot drive from the MSI boot biso screen once my pc first starts so it wont be hard to do that.
 
It might not constitute spending additional on m.2 if it is slightly better or not, i heard instances it actually was slower at times
 
SSD are cheaper to
 
how do I make a SSD my boot drive, I don't know much about doing things like that. I know in my MSI command screen I can select my boot drive so hope its easy.
 
NTM2003 said:
how do I make a SSD my boot drive, I don't know much about doing things like that. I know in my MSI command screen I can select my boot drive so hope its easy.
Click to expand...

Sata ssds use the AHCI or ide protocol, hook it up to the very first sata port, read your mobo manual on setting ahci in the bios, ensure all other drives are unhooked, put windows in, updates, drivers etc, hook up other drives, you're set.
 
Last edited:
Aaaaaaaaaaah. Hybrid. Setup. Why is no one listening to me and keep on slamming heads through brick walls with silly SSD boot drive setups (where OP is worried about the exact thing I'm slamming SSD boot drives for the entire time aka garbage capacity for top money)? How about having a SSD capability across your entire 10TB capacity? It literally won't matter what SSD you buy for that. I'd still go with M.2 because why not, less SATA power/data cables needed. 128GB SSD cache would be enough, but you can go bananas for as much as you're willing to pay for a SSD cache capacity. But I think you really don't have to go beyond 256GB. Win.
 
Hybrid setups aren't worth it if you can afford a decent sized SSD(240GB+). It is better to just use the SSD as an actual SSD at that point.
 
The M.2 drive will be nicer. It'll be measurably faster than normal SATA SSDs. Whether it's noticeably faster or not... who knows. But it'll also be convenient, and neater. Less cables hanging around.
 
My case has ssd slots on the side so wires won't be a problem I already did cable management so if I did end up getting a ssd later on
 
I agree with newtekie1. If you can afford all SSD, go all SSD. Sure, it will cost more initially, but spread those costs over the expected life expectancy of the computer, and the added cost washes out with some cost savings in lower energy consumption and heat generation too (less heat matters to facility air conditioning - pennies, but pennies add up).

Having an SSD as your boot is NOT just about boot times. Sure boot times greatly improve, but how many times a day do you boot your computer? I only boot my computer when some update requires it! So it could be days or even weeks between boots.

I've been running with SSDs for almost 4 years now and I am still amazed at how fast my systems boot or wake from sleep. The bottleneck is me - the systems have to wait for me to enter my password. But the main point is after boot, everything Windows does operates so much faster on SSD. And the faster Windows tasks are completed, the quicker Windows can deal with your programs tasks. And if your programs are on your boot drive (or another SSD) too, they operate much faster too.

I have a shortcut to a Word document in my Quick Launch task bar. This document is 70 pages long with charts, images, links and more. I use this daily as it contains my canned texts and references I use for "working the forums". When I double click that shortcut, Word starts and that document is loaded by the time I move my mouse from the shortcut to the open document. I mean it "pops" open! That cannot happen with conventional hard drives, even with the fastest hybrid drive.

As for M.2 vs SATA III SSDs, no doubt the M.2 will be faster. But we're typically talking milliseconds here. You would be hard pressed to actually notice the difference unless you had two otherwise identical computers side-by-side performing the exact same task.

You do need to look at the type of data you have too. I mean who really has 10TB of data files they regularly access? And what type of data is it? If mostly tunes or video/movie files, they can go on a hard drive. Except for locating the first file segment, fast access and loading times don't matter.

A nice 250-256GB SSD boot drive will easily hold your OS, drivers, and most, if not all of your applications and leave plenty of free space for Windows to operate in, for your Windows managed Page File and all Windows and program temp files.
 
For clarity, there are regular M.2 drives (read: not NVME based and a lot faster). ;)

Just because its M.2, doesn't explicitly mean its a lot faster than 2.5" SATA3 based. :)
 
MSI fast boot is good enough for me till I decide what to get. I got easier boot setup if I use M.2 though my MSI boot menu, it looks like all I have to do it is install it and then turn it on from the MSI boot menu seems simple to me.
 
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