Question M.2 NVMe vs HDD

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Kyleplier_1985

Kyleplier_1985

Apr 9, 2019
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My primary question here is, when it comes to a fresh install of Windows is it actually a faster process on an M.2 SSD (Especially MVMe) over a standard HDD even at 7200RPM?

Primary reason why I'm asking is because my brother-in-law is one of the only members in the family that have experience with fresh installations of Windows. However he has never dealt with solid state drives so in his experience it takes between 1 and 3 days for a fresh install.

Because regardless at the end of the day whether it's my own personal build or if I build for others as well, each and every build mine included will at the very least for the OS use an M.2 SSD at 256GB with anywhere between 1-4TB 7200RPM HDD for mass storage.

And of course concerning my own personal build I actually will be going from an FX-4300 and GTX 1050 to either 3rd Gen Ryzen 7 or Core i7 9700k and an RTX 2080 or 2080Ti. keep in mind I am actually an Intel Fanboy and I'm considering going with Ryzen. That's how impressed I was with the keynote for 3rd Gen Ryzen 7.

Any assistance on my primary question about M.2 NVMe in my case (because I'm no longer compromising on anything anymore) vs HDD will be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time.
 
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Hello man

Hello man

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Aug 11, 2013
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1 - 3 days?!!!

I have installed windows 10 pro and 7 ultimate on 5400 RPM hard drives in less than half an hour. Remember that a lot of installation speed depends on installation media. Using a CD will be slower than creating an install disk on even a USB 2.0 flash drive.

That being said, the time comparison for windows installs on SSD vs HDD is night and day.
 
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CountMike

CountMike

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1 to 3 days ????? Maybe with installation of all other programs and drivers. Shouldn't take more that half to an hour even on slowest drives.
Clean install on an NVMe drive takes about 10 minutes, not much more. W10 should install right away but W7 may need NVMe driver preinstalled.
 
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ktriebol

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When he said 1-3 days, he might have been allowing time for download of Windows over a slow internet connection. If you already have the Windows installation software, the installation onto an SSD will be about 10 minutes, as already stated. It will be a little longer on a HDD, but not much.
 
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I can install windows in 8 minutes flat on a fast connection. and that's on a crappy a6 based notebook
 
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Kyleplier_1985

Kyleplier_1985

Apr 9, 2019
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Thank you. The 960 EVO is what I've been eyeballing. And I've already put an official ISO of Windows directly from Microsoft on a 16GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive. Did that about a year and a half ago. Already a step ahead there lol
 
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Kyleplier_1985

Kyleplier_1985

Apr 9, 2019
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ktriebol said:
When he said 1-3 days, he might have been allowing time for download of Windows over a slow internet connection. If you already have the Windows installation software, the installation onto an SSD will be about 10 minutes, as already stated. It will be a little longer on a HDD, but not much.
Click to expand...

Exactly. He's on wireless internet. SBT Internet specifically. It's still on the outdated 3G network. Fastest internet for residential is 6Mbps down 6Mbps up. I'm on a fiber ready network with 100Mbps down, 25Mbps up with the Calix
ktriebol said:
When he said 1-3 days, he might have been allowing time for download of Windows over a slow internet connection. If you already have the Windows installation software, the installation onto an SSD will be about 10 minutes, as already stated. It will be a little longer on a HDD, but not much.
Click to expand...

Exactly. He's on wireless internet. SBT Internet specifically. It's still on the outdated 3G network. I'm on a fiber ready network with a Calix 844G Gigacenter. His internet is 8x slower than mine. He gets 6Mbps down 6Mbps up. I get 100Mbps down, 25Mbps up. He no longer however, has to wait for a download. Thanks to me putting that official ISO on a flash drive.

He still however has the bottleneck of the hardware he uses. He builds for music, not gaming.
 
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TJ Hooker

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Kyleplier_1985 said:
Exactly. He's on wireless internet. SBT Internet specifically. It's still on the outdated 3G network. Fastest internet for residential is 6Mbps down 6Mbps up.
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Well in that case his slow install time has nothing to do with HDD vs SSD.

NVMe SSDs generally aren't meaningfully faster than SATA SSDs for most use cases. Either would be significantly faster than an HDD. Although I think using Windows install time as a performance metric is a little odd, given that it's not something you'll be doing often.
 
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Kyleplier_1985

Kyleplier_1985

Apr 9, 2019
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TJ Hooker said:
Well in that case his slow install time has nothing to do with HDD vs SSD.

NVMe SSDs generally aren't meaningfully faster than SATA SSDs for most use cases. Either would be significantly faster than an HDD. Although I think using Windows install time as a performance metric is a little odd, given that it's not something you'll be doing often.
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It was a valid question for me,* because it's something I've never done before, so it should be understandable to not know.

Regardless, I still plan on using an M.2 SSD for my OS so as I can have as much available space on my mass storage as possible.
 
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TJ Hooker

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Well it's up to you. But if you have the choice of a smaller NVMe drive or a larger SATA drive, the larger SATA drive would allow you to have more of your applications /games/files take advantage of the fast load time of an SSD. You want to put more than just your OS on the SSD.
 
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mdd1963

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When I installed Windows 10 Pro to an NVME drive for the first time 2 years ago from USB install media, I was open-mouth shocked that it was pretty much done in about 4 minutes....

If someone must write 10-15 GB of data onto a drive, it should come as no real shock that can be done faster on a device/media format capable of up to 2000-3000 MB/sec sequential transfers with NVME drives, versus the classic 7200 rpm spinning drive, most samples of which max out at roughly 10% of that capacity, where a spinning drive that can write a sustained 200-240 MB/sec is quite good.
 
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mdd1963

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Kyleplier_1985 said:
Thank you. The 960 EVO is what I've been eyeballing. And I've already put an official ISO of Windows directly from Microsoft on a 16GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive. Did that about a year and a half ago. Already a step ahead there lol
Click to expand...
Always get the latest Win10 ISO download from MS...; not much point in writing some late 2017/early 2018 version of Windows 10, only to be bogged down for 1-3 hours (depending on connection speed) downloading some 5-8 GB of a new version in a 'version/creator's update' update the next day anyway...
 
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TJ Hooker

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mdd1963 said:
When I installed Windows 10 Pro to an NVME drive for the first time 2 years ago from USB install media, I was open-mouth shocked that it was pretty much done in about 4 minutes....

If someone must write 10-15 GB of data onto a drive, it should come as no real shock that can be done faster on a device/media format capable of up to 2000-3000 MB/sec sequential transfers with NVME drives, versus the classic 7200 rpm spinning drive, most samples of which max out at roughly 10% of that capacity, where a spinning drive that can write a sustained 200-240 MB/sec is quite good.
Click to expand...
In the case of installing windows, or any time you're copying files from another drive to your SSD, you'll still be limited by the speed of the other drive no matter how fast your SSD is.
 
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