[SOLVED] M.2 ssd vs regular ssd

[Ronv1011]

Hey friends is m.2 ssd the same as regular ssd? I mean can i buy 2 m.2 ssds one for windows and one for games like i do on my regular ssds?

 

[lvt]

Yes, most of motherboard have more than one M.2 slot.

 

[USAFRet]

Hey friends is m.2 ssd the same as regular ssd? I mean can i buy 2 m.2 ssds one for windows and one for games like i do on my regular ssds?

Yes, but it depends on your motherboard.

As far as performance?

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3AMz-xZ2VM

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YoRKQy-UO4

 

[mamasan2000]

Regular SSD is about 500 megs/sec. PCI-E gen 3 NVME SSDs are ~2000-5000 megs/s. Gen 4 is ~5000-8000 megs/s. Read speeds. If I remember correctly.

Motherboards might have 2 x m2-slots but one of the slots CAN go via the PCH/southbridge/chipset. That means the 2nd slot will be slower.
The slot nearest to CPU, the first/top slot, to my knowledge, is always connected straight to CPU. That will be fullspeed.
You will need to check how m.2 slots are electrically wired to figure it out. Is it 4 lanes straight to CPU or does it go via chipset?
The chipset is responsible for SATA-drives, USB etc. It is slower than a dedicated m.2 slot that connects straight to CPU.

 

[Bob.B]

Hey friends is m.2 ssd the same as regular ssd? I mean can i buy 2 m.2 ssds one for windows and one for games like i do on my regular ssds?

If by regular ssd you mean a 2.5 size then a m.2 is physically different.
Yes you can buy 2 m.2 ssd's but the question is do you have 2 m.2 slots on the mobo?

 

[InvalidError]

Regular SSD is about 500 megs/sec. PCI-E gen 3 NVME SSDs are ~2000-5000 megs/s. Gen 4 is ~5000-8000 megs/s. Read speeds. If I remember correctly.

3.0x4 is 32Gbps of raw bandwidth, which is exactly 4GB/s (G=1E9) max, closer to 3.6GB/s usable.

 

[Dean0919]

M.2 can be nvme and sata too. Sata M.2 has the same speed as SSDs, so basically there's no difference between them two, however nvme M.2 are much much faster with insane speed.

 

[geofelt]

m.2 is a size format, about like a stick of gum.
It is often confused with pcie versions of m.2 drives which have faster sequential benchmarks.
The nice thing about m.2 is that they do not need data and power connectors, they just fit into a motherboard slot.

One can indeed use two devices, but I am in the camp of using just one large ssd for windows and all other things.
Space management is easier with a single space on the C drive.
There is no performance advantage of two devices over one.

If budget is not an issue, by all means buy a pcie m.2 ssd.
It will benchmark much better in sequential operations.
You will feel good about it and such things as virus scans will go faster.

But, as a practical matter you will be hard pressed to tell any difference.

Here is an amusing video of experts trying ti tell which pc has what ssd:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DKLA7w9eeA

 

[InvalidError]

There is no performance advantage of two devices over one.

If budget is not an issue, by all means buy a pcie m.2 ssd.

I like keeping my OS and data physically separate. That way, if the OS drive fails, my data is still safe and if a data drive fails, at least I still have an OS drive to start recovery from.

Budget-wise, NVMe 3.0x4 SSDs cost about the same as equivalent tier SATA SSDs at least at the smaller end of the scale, it isn't as much of a dilemma as it used to be at least for people like me who prefer having separate OS and data drives.

 

[Dean0919]

I like keeping my OS and data physically separate. That way, if the OS drive fails, my data is still safe and if a data drive fails, at least I still have an OS drive to start recovery from.

Budget-wise, NVMe 3.0x4 SSDs cost about the same as equivalent tier SATA SSDs at least at the smaller end of the scale, it isn't as much of a dilemma as it used to be at least for people like me who prefer having separate OS and data drives.

Yeah, that's smart and I used to do the same, but there's another option for keeping your data safe even if OS fails - keep your data on the same drive as OS, but have them backed up on Onedrive/Google drive. If OS fails and you install new OS, you can install Google drive or login in Onedrive and your data will be downloaded in your new OS. Another plus is, if your physical drive fails where you keep your data, your files will be still safe, since they will be on cloud. The only downside is storage limit for free - Microsoft gives you free 5GB space and Google seems more generous with 15GB, however if your data is more than that, then you have to buy more storage.

 

[Colif]

one drive storage: If you have a Microsoft 365 subscription you get 1tb of space. Suddenly backing up everything to cloud is only restricted by your internet.
I did what above suggested last install on this PC, I didn't have to install anything off my old pc as it all came from Onedrive
I still have 2 drives in PC as old habits die hard - its still faster than downloading all your games again if they already on 2nd drive and just need to be relinked to Steam, for instance.

 

[USAFRet]

I like keeping my OS and data physically separate. That way, if the OS drive fails, my data is still safe and if a data drive fails, at least I still have an OS drive to start recovery from.

Same here. It also makes drive changes much easier.

The 250GB 840 EVO I use for CAD and video is getting a bit slim on space.
Copy the data elsewhere, swap in a new 1TB 860 I bought a couple months ago, copy the data back.
The OS on its own drive needs no changes.