Question DRAM vs HMB SSD ?

[Regev]

How big are the differences in performance and reliability - speed rates being equal - between a DRAM nvme gen 4 to a DRAMless (HMB) nvme gen 4 ? In other words, if you're the average user and could get a DRAM drive for $50, or an HMB version of that same drive for $35, which one would you go for?

 

[Lafong]

Get the DRAM SSD if you are driven by benchmarks. There's a lot of them out there showing the superiority of DRAM in certain cases.

Quite possible you'd never know which you had if you didn't know which was installed. But you'd still have the nagging doubt if you chose DRAMless. You could pay the $15 difference to avoid that.

I just chose DRAMless myself............for $35 also. Saved $15.

I literally can't tell the difference between my new DRAMless drive and the SSD (with DRAM) it replaced. But I am nonetheless torn with regret because of those benchmarks I willfully chose to ignore.

I don't know any way to guess at reliability.

 

[Regev]

Get the DRAM SSD if you are driven by benchmarks. There's a lot of them out there showing the superiority of DRAM in certain cases.

Quite possible you'd never know which you had if you didn't know which was installed. But you'd still have the nagging doubt if you chose DRAMless. You could pay the $15 difference to avoid that.

I just chose DRAMless myself............for $35 also. Saved $15.

I literally can't tell the difference between my new DRAMless drive and the SSD (with DRAM) it replaced. But I am nonetheless torn with regret because of those benchmarks I willfully chose to ignore.

I don't know any way to guess at reliability.

Could you link to the benchmark that has given you the most heartache?
I haven't seen any benchmarks yet.

 

[Lafong]

I haven't seen any benchmarks yet.

You bettah off.

I don't have links. I wouldn't want it on my conscience that I contributed to your future unhappiness or continued hand-wringing.

But the benchmarks are easily found...the internet is infested with the topic. You can easily find whichever benchmarks support your pre-conceived notion.

 

[CountMike]

Short and sweet DRAM cache for System/OS disk, that's where you can notice some faster response as it's bunch of small files read or written in fast succession.
Still, given same or similar prices I would opt for ones with cache, often they are better in other ways.

 

[Zerk2012]

How big are the differences in performance and reliability - speed rates being equal - between a DRAM nvme gen 4 to a DRAMless (HMB) nvme gen 4 ? In other words, if you're the average user and could get a DRAM drive for $50, or an HMB version of that same drive for $35, which one would you go for?

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkih1aSCHcg

 

[Pextaxmx]

I consider DRAMless drives 15% smaller size drives because they are more prone to losing performance when filled.

 

[drea.drechsler]

How big are the differences in performance and reliability - speed rates being equal - between a DRAM nvme gen 4 to a DRAMless (HMB) nvme gen 4 ? In other words, if you're the average user and could get a DRAM drive for $50, or an HMB version of that same drive for $35, which one would you go for?

With some noteable exceptions (like Samsung's recent problems with 990 and 980 PRO NVME's) I believe SSD's have been very reliable as a whole. But don't confuse reliability and service life since I believe the more important thing to look at is life, or how long they last in use. You can use TBW (TeraBytes Written) spec's by manufacturer as a guide for that since their warranties last up to the TBW spec, or the number of years, whichever comes first.

Drives with QLC flash have relatively low TBW specs and since QLC flash is cheaper it makes sense you'll find it in DRAM-less drives. That doesn't mean it's bad though, it just means you have to consider your useage pattern. A game store drive, for instance, gets very low write useage as it's mostly reading data making a QLC drive a good fit. If you do extensive work that involves constant or frequent writing of very large files, video rendering as a content creator perhaps, you might want to choose a drive with a high TBW spec to provide long life and would probably use TLC flash. That doesn't mean a TLC drive will automatically have DRAM cache though.

I would not suggest a QLC flash drive for the system drive as it gets so much write activity. Also, if you get a DRAM-less drive that uses an HMB cache instead be sure to also go to the manufacturer's web site and download their NVME driver to be certain the HMB is enabled.

I recently upgraded my system's drives and went with TLC drive with DRAM-cache (980 PRO) for the system drive, 512 GB to keep cost down, and a Crucial P3 Plus DRAM-less QLC drive for the games store. Because it was QLC and DRAM-less I could go with 2TB and it's turned out to be a perfect trade-off since I can't really tell any difference in performance.

And reading through reviews as I made my selection I came to realize there's are significant differences in performance even of drives with similar specs and using similar flash and controllers. I think what it comes down to is how well-tuned the algorithms are that the drive manufacturers use. But even then once you get out of the synthetic benchmarks, like Crystal DiskMark, used by the reviewers you'll not likely notice any difference while operating the computer except in highly specific scenarios.

 

[Regev]

Thanks.

Perhaps I should mention, I'm a really light user. I currently have a Sabrent 1TB with DRAM, that I only use about 30GB of (yep, 97% is free). Therefore, I am giving that drive to a friend of mine, who's recently exhausted his 512GB drive. Told him I'll buy something small (was actually looking for 128 or 256 drives, but i noticed the price differences are really tiny between 256 and 512). I did find Micron 256GB drives taken from Lenovo laptops, sold for $20 a piece (Gen 4, DRAMless) tho.

Anyway, as someone who doesn't game at all, only working on internet-based activities (internet developing - mostly text files), will I notice a stutter or a latency lag or so with DRAMELESS when dealing with my many small files scattered across the 30GB of data on the drive?

 

[Pimpom]

With the kind of use you put your computer to, it's highly unlikely that you'll notice any lag in performance with a DRAM-less SSD.

I think it's also a wise decision to get a smaller cheaper drive. A few months ago, I replaced a recalcitrant 1TB HDD with a 250GB DRAM-less SSD (WD SN570) in a laptop at my daughter's workplace. They're government-funded but it's a peripheral service with a tight budget. I partitioned the SSD into 90GB for C: and the remaining 140-ish GB for data. I don't think they'll ever use up a quarter of the second partition.

I also installed a DRAM-less SSD - a Samsung 980 1TB - in my son's new computer last year. He uses it for architectural designing and occasional light gaming. He hasn't reported any stuttering.

 

[Regev]

Will I not experience slower latency on day to day use (because it's a million small files) ?

 

[CountMike]

Will I not experience slower latency on day to day use (because it's a million small files) ?

HMB can pick up the slack. If you have enough RAM windows cache is active anyway and to avoid writing cache to disk it keeps system files in RAM.

 

[Regev]

HMB can pick up the slack. If you have enough RAM windows cache is active anyway and to avoid writing cache to disk it keeps system files in RAM.

I'm using Linux Fedora. Is there an equivalent running there?

 

[CountMike]

I'm using Linux Fedora. Is there an equivalent running there?

I can only guess it does, haven't used Fedora for many years but did use Mint for long time and it does have same if not better caching than windows by using separate partition for it which is specially of great help with HDDs.