[SOLVED] M.2 NVME recommendation with DirectStorage in mind?

[LonerPrime]

Hi folks,
Long time reader, first time poster so I'm pleased to make your acquaintance. Recently, I decided to populate my M.2 NVME slot on my MSI B360M PRO-VDH with a 1TB drive and since the expected SSD life is at least 5 years, I wanted to pick something that would still be viable once DirectStorage compatible games are deployed in 2023. Here are some of the factors involved:

1. I'm a light workstation user. I do use RPG Maker to work on game applications and intend to use the drive for offline gaming for a few hours but I'm by no means a hardcore all day gamer.
2. I'm looking for something that one would consider a bang for the buck, as money is a factor. But not enough to start compromising on things that matter. (NAND Typing, Device Longevity, Reliable after sales service etc.)
3. I'm looking for a Gen3 drive but I'm open to evaluating a Gen4 drive if it's worth the investment.

Now I know from reading around here that NVME speeds have little impact on gaming performance presently, especially if you're used to gaming on SATA SSDs but how would that statement hold once DS comes into play? Would this new tech be governed by the speed of the drive? Enough to justify the cost of something like a Samsung 980/WD SN750 instead of an affordable but slower option like Kioxia Exceria/WD SN570? Or am I completely mistaken and all that would matter would be the size of the drive? If so, what would be my best option moving forward?

I apologize if this became a mini wall of text with a thousand questions, but I've been sitting here eyeing the SN550 for a few days now. I'm very much on the fence investing in something that would cost me 120$(National Tax added) but might become a dated tech in a year or so. I'd really appreciate someone with experience who would be kind enough to pen their thoughts and recommendations if possible.

Thanks in advance.

Kind Regards,
LonerPrime

 

[kerberos_20]

in 2023 pcie5 should be around, or maybe even pcie 6.x
on ps5 drives running pcie3 nvme are working fine

main bottleneck still happens between cpu and ram, once they put some compute units on ram modules, thats when you will see some huge performance uplift

 

[LonerPrime]

So overall, NVME speed does will not matter and everything will boil down to RAM and CPU? Does that mean as long as I've 1TB NVME, anything is good enough?

 

[TommyTwoTone66]

No, you still want a good brand with a good controller.

But yes, a decent gen3 NVMe drive is all you need to unlock very rapid performance and enable directstorage

I would recommend the Samsung 970 EVO. It offers very high speeds, great value for money, excellent quality flash chips which will last decades, and an awesome controller chip that outclasses any other SSD.

The Western Digital drives are okay, but Samsung drives are in a class of their own.

 

[Bob.B]

Hi folks,
Long time reader, first time poster so I'm pleased to make your acquaintance. Recently, I decided to populate my M.2 NVME slot on my MSI B360M PRO-VDH with a 1TB drive and since the expected SSD life is at least 5 years, I wanted to pick something that would still be viable once DirectStorage compatible games are deployed in 2023. Here are some of the factors involved:

1. I'm a light workstation user. I do use RPG Maker to work on game applications and intend to use the drive for offline gaming for a few hours but I'm by no means a hardcore all day gamer.
2. I'm looking for something that one would consider a bang for the buck, as money is a factor. But not enough to start compromising on things that matter. (NAND Typing, Device Longevity, Reliable after sales service etc.)
3. I'm looking for a Gen3 drive but I'm open to evaluating a Gen4 drive if it's worth the investment.

Now I know from reading around here that NVME speeds have little impact on gaming performance presently, especially if you're used to gaming on SATA SSDs but how would that statement hold once DS comes into play? Would this new tech be governed by the speed of the drive? Enough to justify the cost of something like a Samsung 980/WD SN750 instead of an affordable but slower option like Kioxia Exceria/WD SN570? Or am I completely mistaken and all that would matter would be the size of the drive? If so, what would be my best option moving forward?

I apologize if this became a mini wall of text with a thousand questions, but I've been sitting here eyeing the SN550 for a few days now. I'm very much on the fence investing in something that would cost me 120$(National Tax added) but might become a dated tech in a year or so. I'd really appreciate someone with experience who would be kind enough to pen their thoughts and recommendations if possible.

Thanks in advance.

Kind Regards,
LonerPrime

Flip a coin.
I'm sure folks have their opinion about good/better/best.
Gen3/4/5/6/7.
Dram/no dram.

Most folks can't tell the diff between sata and nvme....my self included.

I have a wd black 750 gen3.
All I can tell you about it is it works.

Unless you moving big chunks of data I doubt you will see a diff going above sata.

 

[LonerPrime]

I understand that, hence I'm not so much focused on "what is best" but more on the technical side of things. Direct Storage: Apart from the 1TB capacity requirements, will the NVME speed matter? I mean sure, I can follow TommyTwoTone66's sound advice and simply invest in a drive that nearly touches the Gen3 ceiling, but that's a steep 170 dollar blind investment. If in the end, is their even enough information out there around DirectStorage that would help make any kind of sound decision on this matter or am I just fishing in the dark here?

 

[USAFRet]

I understand that, hence I'm not so much focused on "what is best" but more on the technical side of things. Direct Storage: Apart from the 1TB capacity requirements, will the NVME speed matter? I mean sure, I can follow TommyTwoTone66's sound advice and simply invest in a drive that nearly touches the Gen3 ceiling, but that's a steep 170 dollar blind investment. If in the end, is their even enough information out there around DirectStorage that would help make any kind of sound decision on this matter or am I just fishing in the dark here?

DirectStorage requires a minimum PCIe 3.0 drive.

Will it make an actual user facing difference? A lot of that depends on the game devs and how they work with the API.
It is not a standalone thing...it needs to be built into the game code.

 

[TommyTwoTone66]

It’s not really a blind investment with so many user testimonies that these drives are incredibly rapid with or without directstorage.

It’s worth getting a 2200mb/sec capable drive but any faster than that and it doesn’t have any effect.

Will that always be the case? No. Will speeds faster than 2gig a second matter significantly within the next 5 years? Unlikely. And if it ever does, then that time will be when to buy a 5gig a second capable drive, not now.

Directstorage will work just fine on any gen3 NVMe drive, no sweat. It likely won’t make a massive difference to load times anyway.

 

[LonerPrime]

Thank you all for your opinions. I really do appreciate it as it helped clear some doubts- enough to make an informed decision. On one last note though, before I pull the trigger on buying a NVME platform and I do apologize in advance if this comes off sounding absurdly noobish, but could I request you folks to weigh in on a doubt I've regarding my motherboard MSI B360M PRO-VDH? The motherboard isn't exactly "new" as it came out around mid 2018 but it does list M.2 M key which I do believe means NVME support, if I'm not mistaken?

Spoiler

However, though it does list M.2 details, it makes no mention of NVME until you trip on it where MSI makes a passing remark while describing board features in short.

Spoiler

Now the term M.2 M and the key cut on the slot does seem to signify that the board does support NVME protocol but does it also allow booting OS off the NVME SSD? That particular detail seems to be missing and I've read around that some folks faced this issue with their builds, so before I commit to a buy, is their any way to figure out if the motherboard does support that particular capability? Amazon in my country works a bit differently and doesn't allow returns but only replacements so it would be great if more knowledgeable heads than mine could give me guidance in this regard one last time.

 

[USAFRet]

For your board....

1 x M.2 slot (Key M)
Support up to PCIe 3.0 x4 and SATA 6Gb/s

https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/b360m-pro-vdh/Specification

Yes, it WILL accept an NVMe drive.
And yes, that port is bootable.

 

[LonerPrime]

Thank you. That puts my mind at ease. Now to mentally convince myself to spend the extra 50 bucks on a Samsung instead of WD :S

[PS: Dear Mods: Thank you for the thread. It's safe to mark it as Solved.]

 

[TommyTwoTone66]

You mark it as solved, not the mods.

 

[LonerPrime]

Ahh... read around and it seems I need to pick best post, which is troubling since all answers given here were pretty informative. Oh well guess I'll just "Eeny, meeny, miny, moe" it. Also TommyTwoTone66, I decided to take your advice and invested in a 970 EVO Plus. Bob.b is probably correct and I might not notice the difference since I'm already on a 2.5 inch SSD but I'd rather bite the bullet now than regret not spending extra few bucks cause I picked the slower horse for the cheaper tag. Worse case scenario, it amounts to nothing but I can still rely on it for some heavy tasks now and then.

Much appreciate your time donated on my thread folks. o/

 

[TommyTwoTone66]

Ahh... read around and it seems I need to pick best post, which is troubling since all answers given here were pretty informative. Oh well guess I'll just "Eeny, meeny, miny, moe" it. Also TommyTwoTone66, I decided to take your advice and invested in a 970 EVO Plus. Bob.b is probably correct and I might not notice the difference since I'm already on a 2.5 inch SSD but I'd rather bite the bullet now than regret not spending extra few bucks cause I picked the slower horse for the cheaper tag. Worse case scenario, it amounts to nothing but I can still rely on it for some heavy tasks now and then.

Much appreciate your time donated on my thread folks. o/

You will enjoy that drive for sure. Even vs. A very fast SATA-3 drive it is a little quicker, and if your old drive is SATA-2 or even a middling performance SATA-3 drive it will be quite a big uplift. Nothing like going from HDD to SSD, but noticeable all the same.

One good thing is you don’t have to lose the SATA drive, you can keep it around, then for big storage-y tasks like unzipping very large rar files or rendering video or whatever, you can go from one drive to another and get very rapid performance.