M.2 or not M.2 SSD

[Tom Kelley]

I'm finally ordering the 8930 Dell. After reading quite a bit, i'm still a little confused about the SSD i want. I'm looking at a 1 TB PCIe M.2, but don't know if i should get the M.2 or just the PCIe. Right now i do very little video, as far as gaming is concerned, but would like to hold the option open. I'm also considering the combination of a smaller SSD with a 1 TB HDD. Which one would be the best SSD for me please?

Thanks
Tom Kelley

 

[Rogue Leader]

1TB M.2 NVME drive is going to be very expensive, its the fastest thing you can get, but you really pay for it.

For the average person a smaller (256gb) M.2 NVME drive is fine for your OS and a couple programs, then get a 1-2tb HDD for your software, storage, games, etc. Or even a standard SSD if you want to spend a bit more.

 

[finitekosmos]

SSD's are like any component choice when it comes to computing.

There are so many available and so many specs it can be almost dizzying. You havent mentioned what your options are so I'll talk about a couple of pointers here and then you can make maybe a slightly better informed choice.

When choosing an SSD you should bear in mind a few criteria, the first is obvious, capacity. And this has a role to play in both the lifespan of the drive and the performance depending on the technology used. you see some drives can withstand a larger amount of writes of course a larger drive has more circuitry available to write to which can increase the lifespan. If you see a make and model for the drive you can easily go to the manufacturers site and find out these ratings since most happily detail it. If you want the SSD to store your operating system the minimum I'd recommend is 256GB.

The next thing to bear in mind is the type of drive. do you want an NVME or a SATA drive? it's important to note that M.2 drives come in both nvme and M.2SATA variants. This is because not every M.2 interface can fully support an NVME drive and some require a SATA controller. SATA M.2 drives are slower than their NVME counterparts, having said that they are still orders of magnitude faster than traditional hard drives.

With respect to M.2 or PCIe M.2 the difference is pretty straightforward, a PCIe M.2 is the same M.2 drive installed on a PCIe card. that card can be installed in a PCIe slot in your PC. The issue is that some PC's cannot or do not permit you to boot from a storage device in a PCIe slot, you'll need to confirm this yourself for your machine. an M.2 Drive by itself must be connected to an available M.2 socket on your motherboard if it has one available now M.2 is simply a connection standard and can allow the connection of a few different devices, you should check and make sure that your motherboard can host an M.2 storage device and use it for boot purposes if you want to use it as your Operating System drive. I hope this helps.

 

[Tom Kelley]

1TB M.2 NVME drive is going to be very expensive, its the fastest thing you can get, but you really pay for it.

For the average person a smaller (256gb) M.2 NVME drive is fine for your OS and a couple programs, then get a 1-2tb HDD for your software, storage, games, etc. Or even a standard SSD if you want to spend a bit more.

I don't see an NVME option for this system. I see a 256 M.2 plus 2 GB HDD. Is this the same as NVME, or what is the difference between 256 M.2 and 256 M.2 NVME?

 

[USAFRet]

I don't see an NVME option for this system. I see a 256 M.2 plus 2 GB HDD. Is this the same as NVME, or what is the difference between 256 M.2 and 256 M.2 NVME?

m.2 is the platform type. How it plugs in.

An m.2 drive may be SATA or may be NVMe.
A SATA based drive is exactly the same speed as a traditional SATA III SSD.
NVMe is the faster one.


You need to determine exactly which drive and type they're talking about.

 

[Rogue Leader]

1TB M.2 NVME drive is going to be very expensive, its the fastest thing you can get, but you really pay for it.

For the average person a smaller (256gb) M.2 NVME drive is fine for your OS and a couple programs, then get a 1-2tb HDD for your software, storage, games, etc. Or even a standard SSD if you want to spend a bit more.

I don't see an NVME option for this system. I see a 256 M.2 plus 2 GB HDD. Is this the same as NVME, or what is the difference between 256 M.2 and 256 M.2 NVME?

So NVME is a PCIe SSD. It just uses an M.2 slot. A normal M.2 SSD is a SATA drive and the same performance as a full size SSD.

Looking at Dell's site yes if you chose the M.2 option its a PCIe NVME SSD, which is as fast as you can get.

 

[Tom Kelley]

I don't see an NVME option for this system. I see a 256 M.2 plus 2 GB HDD. Is this the same as NVME, or what is the difference between 256 M.2 and 256 M.2 NVME?

m.2 is the platform type. How it plugs in.

An m.2 drive may be SATA or may be NVMe.
A SATA based drive is exactly the same speed as a traditional SATA III SSD.
NVMe is the faster one.


You need to determine exactly which drive and type they're talking about.

 

[Tom Kelley]

Thanks so much, I'll contact Dell and see which one.

 

[stdragon]

Per Dell's nomenclature for this make/model

"M.2 for SSD (SATA or PCIe/NVMe"

https://www.dell.com/support/manuals/al/en/albsdt1/xps-8930-desktop/xps-8930-setup-and-specification/storage?guid=guid-3ed7c1be-9ffe-4ba7-9e77-f1414dd01985&lang=en-us

So yes, PCIe in this case is synonymous with NVMe. Which admittedly is confusing as hell because PCIe SSD cards really do exist. Dell should be ashamed!

 

[Tom Kelley]

Per Dell's nomenclature for this make/model

"M.2 for SSD (SATA or PCIe/NVMe"

https://www.dell.com/support/manuals/al/en/albsdt1/xps-8930-desktop/xps-8930-setup-and-specification/storage?guid=guid-3ed7c1be-9ffe-4ba7-9e77-f1414dd01985&lang=en-us

So yes, PCIe in this case is synonymous with NVMe. Which admittedly is confusing as hell because PCIe SSD cards really do exist. Dell should be ashamed!

 

[Tom Kelley]

Yes, i think they try to confuse you so you don't really know what you're ordering.

 

[stdragon]

Actually, I might be wrong here - There might actually be M.2 SSDs that talk directly to PCIe without using the more advanced NVMe protocols. I did some searching, and apparently this is more the case with OEM manufactures such as Dell, HP, and Lenovo. I'm surprised by this actually. I guess I'm normally accustomed to see the retail variuants that only come in SATA or NVMe flavors of the M.2 form-factor.

Basically, just clarify with Dell if these are truly NVMe's or not. Even if it's PCIe and not NVMe, that's still way faster than SATA based.

 

[Tom Kelley]

Actually, I might be wrong here - There might actually be M.2 SSDs that talk directly to PCIe without using the more advanced NVMe protocols. I did some searching, and apparently this is more the case with OEM manufactures such as Dell, HP, and Lenovo. I'm surprised by this actually. I guess I'm normally accustomed to see the retail variuants that only come in SATA or NVMe flavors of the M.2 form-factor.

Basically, just clarify with Dell if these are truly NVMe's or not. Even if it's PCIe and not NVMe, that's still way faster than SATA based.

 

[Tom Kelley]

Thanks man, i appreciate it.

 

[Rogue Leader]

Thanks man, i appreciate it.

Its a PCIe x4 SSD which is NVME. It says it right on Dell's site. This is what I said earlier.