Is there any point in getting an M.2 SSD of this level in my case?

steffeeh

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Feb 12, 2016
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Right now I have a Crucial BX200 250 GB or so 2,5" SSD as my boot drive and for installed programs, then a 1 TB SSHD too for storage.
However I've already consumed almost all of my SSD storage, and therefore had to install some newer and storage heavy games onto my SSHD.
Long story short, this makes me wish I'd spent a little extra cash on a 1 TB SSD instead.

So I'm planning on getting myself a 1 TB SSD sometime in the future (and ditch the harddrive to reduce noise, I have an external HDD for backup anyways). And at first I was thinking of getting a 1 TB Samsung Evo or so with a regular SATA cable.

But now I've looked up M.2 SSD's a little more, and I see that for only a bit more cash I can get much better speed - been looking at the "Samsung SM961 MZVKW1T0HMLH 1TB", which has a reading speed of 3200 MB/s, a writing speed of 1800 MB/s, an IOPS reading of 450 000, and an IOPS writing of 400 000.

These specs are insane to my eyes, and definately worth the extra cash in my opinion if it will make a difference on my type pf PC usage.
The main question is, will I benefit at all from these specs compared to a regular 2,5" Evo?

I use my computer a lot for gaming and want to have all of my games on an SSD without worrying about the space, but I also use the computer for audio editing and working with music software in DAW programs which are at least very, very CPU hungry.
As I'm doing these things on my computer, will I benefit at all performance wise by getting the M.2 card compared to a regular 2,5" Evo? Or are M.2 SSD's on this levels more meant for other types of usages (meaning I won't notice the difference)?
 
Solution


Yes, it would be faster. Potentially a lot faster.
Will you notice? Depends on your use case.
It would do nothing to speed up a CPU intensive application. It's a drive. It only counts when you are reading from or writing to it.

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
You have to be careful when looking at M.2 drives.
There are two different types. SATA and NVMe. "M.2" is just the interface as to how it connects to the motherboard.

A m.2 SATA drive runs at the same speed as a regular SATA 2.5" drive.
A NVMe, as you linked above, does indeed run a LOT faster. However, your specific motherboard must support an NVMe drive. Not all do.

Look up the specs on your specific board and see if it does.
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator


Yes, it would be faster. Potentially a lot faster.
Will you notice? Depends on your use case.
It would do nothing to speed up a CPU intensive application. It's a drive. It only counts when you are reading from or writing to it.
 
Solution