M.2 vs 2.5" SSD, Which is better?

[ModMonster]

Hello! I am thinking about getting an SSD for Christmas to load my OS on and a few games that have a lot of loading involved. I went on Newegg looking for an SSD and Samsung and Intel make the most reliable. I came across two SSDs with the same storage from Samsung. One was 2.5" and the other was M.2 for the same exact price. Which is better? Which is Faster? What are the pros and cons of each? My Asus Z97-AR does Support M.2 as well. Thanks for the help I really appreciate it.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Productcompare.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=-1&IsNodeId=1&Description=samsung%20SSD&bop=And&CompareItemList=636%7C9SIA3FA2RE0490%5E9SIA3FA2RE0490%2C9SIA3FA2EV1108%5E9SIA3FA2EV1108&percm=9SIA3FA2RE0490%3A%24%24%24%24%24%24%24%3B9SIA3FA2EV1108%3A%24%24%24%24%24%24%24

 

[rgd1101]

There are review out there, m.2 slightly faster than the 2.5 version. but also a little more expensive.

 

[ModMonster]

So why wouldn't anyone get M.2"? Cause the board doesn't support?

 

[rgd1101]

For some, small improvement are worth the money.

m.2 have 2 interface pcie and sata.
The next one from samsung that come out at the end of the month would be pcie interface which is about 4x read, 3x write.

 

[rgd1101]

So why wouldn't anyone get M.2"? Cause the board doesn't support?

Yup. m.2 is new when 9 series came out

 

[jimmysmitty]

Every board supports a 2.5" drive. They all use SATA. The benefit to a M.2 is that it supports much faster connection speeds. This is just a lower end version.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147425

That one is a M.2 that runs on the PCIe standard and supports up to a 32GB/s connection interface. As you can see the read and write are much higher than a standard SATA SSD.

If anything most people get a 2.5" drive because M.2 is not common on board yet, this is changing though.

 

[ModMonster]

For some, small improvement are worth the money.

m.2 have 2 interface pcie and sata.
The next one from samsung that come out at the end of the month would be pcie interface which is about 4x read, 3x write.

Its not a high end m.2

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Productcompare.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=-1&IsNodeId=1&Description=samsung%20SSD&bop=And&CompareItemList=636%7C9SIA3FA2RE0490%5E9SIA3FA2RE0490%2C9SIA3FA2EV1108%5E9SIA3FA2EV1108&percm=9SIA3FA2RE0490%3A%24%24%24%24%24%24%24%3B9SIA3FA2EV1108%3A%24%24%24%24%24%24%24

And according to the specs, the 2.5 seems faster.

 

[jimmysmitty]

They are very similar in performance, the SATA one is slightly faster, but again that is a M.2 that is running using the SATA standard. Pull up the one I linked which uses the M.2 PCIe standard and you will see how much faster M.2 can be.

 

[rgd1101]

comparing 500 version. m.2 vs sata
http://www.techspot.com/review/969-samsung-850-evo-m2-msata/

 

[ModMonster]

They are very similar in performance, the SATA one is slightly faster, but again that is a M.2 that is running using the SATA standard. Pull up the one I linked which uses the M.2 PCIe standard and you will see how much faster M.2 can be.

This last post didn't make much sense to me. I can see why m.2 CAN be faster, but I ain't really wanting to spend $260 on a 256GB Thats over a $1 a GB

 

[jimmysmitty]

They are very similar in performance, the SATA one is slightly faster, but again that is a M.2 that is running using the SATA standard. Pull up the one I linked which uses the M.2 PCIe standard and you will see how much faster M.2 can be.

This last post didn't make much sense to me. I can see why m.2 CAN be faster, but I ain't really wanting to spend $260 on a 256GB Thats over a $1 a GB

Then ether one you pick will be the same. They have very similar performance, look at reviews, within a few MB/s of each other.

If you want better performance then you would have to wait till the M.2 PCIe parts come down in $/GB.

 

[ModMonster]

They are very similar in performance, the SATA one is slightly faster, but again that is a M.2 that is running using the SATA standard. Pull up the one I linked which uses the M.2 PCIe standard and you will see how much faster M.2 can be.

This last post didn't make much sense to me. I can see why m.2 CAN be faster, but I ain't really wanting to spend $260 on a 256GB Thats over a $1 a GB

Then ether one you pick will be the same. They have very similar performance, look at reviews, within a few MB/s of each other.

If you want better performance then you would have to wait till the M.2 PCIe parts come down in $/GB.

So as of right now, the m.2 is better for the price?

 

[rgd1101]

Question, are you getting it as a boot drive? might need to do see if it can boot from The m.2 version

 

[ModMonster]

Question, are you getting it as a boot drive? You might need to do see if it can boot from it.

That didn't make much sense at all.

 

[jimmysmitty]

It is bootable but you have to install Windows to the M.2 drive in UEFI, M.2 only supports UEFI and not the legacy CSM booting.

 

[ModMonster]

It is bootable but you have to install Windows to the M.2 drive in UEFI, M.2 only supports UEFI and not the legacy CSM booting.

isn't UEFI faster any ways?

 

[jimmysmitty]

Yes UEFI is faster but that only affects the boot, not the drive performance per say. What affects the drive performance is the interface, the standard used and other things like AHCI vs NVMe.

 

[ModMonster]

Yes UEFI is faster but that only affects the boot, not the drive performance per say. What affects the drive performance is the interface, the standard used and other things like AHCI vs NVMe.

I want a fast boot, but more importantly my games. So you think I should get the 2.5?

 

[jimmysmitty]

Since you are looking at the SATA based M.2 one then yes, save a bit of money. Only if you were looking at the PCIe based M.2 SSD would I suggest it over the 2.5" SATA SSD.