Question 1 to 2TB M.2 NVME SSD suggestions

[beoza]

I'm currently using 2 Samsung SSD's; my boot drive is an older 500GB 850 EVO SATA III drive and I also have a 250GB 970 EVO Plus M.2 NVME drive. I want to switch to a higher capacity M.2 drive. Currently I'm on a Gigabyte z170x Gaming 7 which has 2 M.2 slots and 1 of them will prevent me from using the SATA 3 from the chipset. Not really concerned about the SATA drive if I switch to the newer NVME drives.

Any suggestions for good drives for gaming that are between 1 and 2TB would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

[Barty1884]

Do you need a higher end NVMe?
While they're nice, the really good ones do come at a price premium.

For example, a and the 1TB 970 EVO is ~$170 and the 2TB is ~$490.

Vs a 2TB Intel 660p at $195

A solid enough drive. Not the best, but you pay accordingly. For strictly gaming, it would be fine - and very arguably unnecessary/overkill.

 

[beoza]

I've looked at the 660P and it seems pretty good from what I have read. Don't think I really need the high end NVME drives just more storage space then my current setup. The more modern games I run off the SSD's and anything older or less intensive games I run off the HDD since they are not really affected by load times.

Samsung is rather pricey compared to other vendors, they make good stuff but I don't really want to pay the extra if there is something that works just as good but is slightly slower. Any others you might suggest that are similar to the 660P?

 

[mdd1963]

Last time I looked (10 seconds ago) , Intel's 1 TB 660P was only $94 or so...

That's a fire-sale, rivals/beats most standard 2.5" SATA SSD prices...

 

[Barty1884]

Yeah, for outright raw performance, the Samsung drive is solid.
But for bulk storage that is simply not an HDD, a 2.5" drive would be more than adequte... and the 660p is a good step up from that still. Not really necessary, but a very good price for what it is.

 

[mdd1963]

As you have the other SSDs already, you'd think 1 TB might suffice, but,....with Intel's 660P awesome pricing, I could see where many would be tempted by the 2 TB model....; you could always fresh install OS only on the 960/970, and save the 660P for all games/applications....

One or both of the M.2 slots will likely disable one or two SATA ports when in use, typically the first and last pair for 1rst/2nd slots, respectively....