Do ssd speeds matter?????

Alex_124

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Dec 26, 2015
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So I have upgraded everything on my computer and it is a monster with an i5-6600k and a new gtx 1080. However my storage is laughable with no ssds but a single 2tb drive. I have been looking around and can't find a solid answer about ssd speeds. My motherboard supports m.2 and i love the idea of faster boot up speeds without installing more cables and taking up space... which leads me to my issue. I have been looking around and saw two prime ssds but at far different speeds and costs
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16820147467

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=0D9-0006-000G4&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-PCPartPicker,%20LLC-_-na-_-na-_-na&cm_sp=&AID=10446076&PID=3938566&SID=

These both do the job but at far different speeds. The pro has speeds at 2500/1500 mb/s while the sandisk is at a slower 500/500 mb/s and I was wondering if this is a noticeable difference and worth the money. Now I know theres some impact on 4k editing but my use would be only for streaming and heavy gaming. How much does speed matter???
 
Solution
My cheap PNY SSD's I've seen peaks into the 590MB/s range. but mostly sustain around 480 - 500MB/s writing to another internal SSD transferring 10+GB videos I've recorded. thats pretty much all that the sata interface can do these days. Thats still plenty for my needs. NVMe is noticeably faster if you boot up from a cold start or open up programs that normally have a long load time anyway. Or if you like running a lot of Virtual Machines I can see NVMe helping there as well.

With a ton of stuff on my start up (I don't even look at my start up anymore) I sit at about 10 -15sec boot time from when I push the power button and where everything loaded like my audio programs, weather programs. Bios screen takes awhile on this motherboard.
Based on reviews I could find, a top-end platter hard drive (WD Black) can run around 200-250MB/s read/write. Most of the cheap SSDs out there can easily sustain 500MB/s read/write speeds, which is double what a mechanical drive can do. NVMe drives (generally M.2 or PCI-E slotted) can achieve speeds that are five times greater or more than a SATA SSD, and the speeds controllers are managing are trending upward relatively quickly.

To put it simply, let's assume it takes Windows 30 seconds to boot once you pass the BIOS. With a SATA SSD, that will likely drop to 15 seconds. With a good M.2 SSD, that may fall as low as 3 seconds to boot. Needless to say, this decrease in loading times applies to any software you have on the drive, whether it be just the operating system, games, or whatever you want on there.

In the two drives you've linked, the first is an NVMe drive, which allows for speeds in excess of the SATA standard. NVMe is a relatively new standard that was developed because SSDs were reaching the point where they could transfer data faster than SATA allowed for. The second drive is simply a SATA over PCI-E interface, which is why it is significantly slower (and cheaper.)
 
My cheap PNY SSD's I've seen peaks into the 590MB/s range. but mostly sustain around 480 - 500MB/s writing to another internal SSD transferring 10+GB videos I've recorded. thats pretty much all that the sata interface can do these days. Thats still plenty for my needs. NVMe is noticeably faster if you boot up from a cold start or open up programs that normally have a long load time anyway. Or if you like running a lot of Virtual Machines I can see NVMe helping there as well.

With a ton of stuff on my start up (I don't even look at my start up anymore) I sit at about 10 -15sec boot time from when I push the power button and where everything loaded like my audio programs, weather programs. Bios screen takes awhile on this motherboard.
 
Solution