[SOLVED] PCIE 4.0 NVME Over SATA

[feelinfroggy777]

I am in need of more storage and want to get a 1tb NVME drive. I am running a Gigabyte z370 Gaming 7 and I am planning on upgrading my platform when the next gen AMD/Intel CPUs are released in the second half of 2022.

I know that I dont have PCIe 4.0 mobo and I wont be able to take advantage of the faster speeds. But I will upgrade to one later in the year and would like to have one of the fancy ultra fast PCIe 4.0 drives (wd850, 980pro, etc.).

The issue that I have is I have a PCIe wifi card installed in my rig which takes away some PCIe lanes. I have an 3.0 NVMe drive installed, but I moved it to one of the M.2 SATA ports to keep my 3080 running at PCIe 3.0 x16 and not x8.

I know I am not hitting the recommended speeds, but I am running this in the short term until I upgrade my rig.

So my question it, if I get a wd850 or 980pro, will it work in the m.2 SATA slot? I know it would be handicapped to SATA speeds, but I dont want to drop $150+ and it not work at all on my board.

 

[USAFRet]

No it will NOT work in a M.2 SATA port, unless that port is specifically for both protocols.
Some are, some are not.

https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/Z370-AORUS-Gaming-7-rev-10/sp#sp
Your board has 3x M.2 ports, all of them seem to be NVMe capable.


Also, don't buy a fast drive now, in hopes of future proofing for a future system. Drive prices almost always go down.

Also, the user facing difference you see between PCIe 3.0 and 4.0 is basically none, unless you're moving sequential data between 2 such drives.

 

[feelinfroggy777]

Thanks for the info, just what I needed.

I have though about just getting a 980 or 750. They are cheaper and for my use case, wont make a difference. Honestly, I have considered just keeping my boot drive and getting a 2tb 2.5" SSD. I would get twice the storage for half the cost and will be perfect for a game drive. But I also like getting the new tech.

 

[USAFRet]

Thanks for the info, just what I needed.

I have though about just getting a 980 or 750. They are cheaper and for my use case, wont make a difference. Honestly, I have considered just keeping my boot drive and getting a 2tb 2.5" SSD. I would get twice the storage for half the cost and will be perfect for a game drive. But I also like getting the new tech.

For a game drive, there is little difference.

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

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

 

[Bob.B]

Thanks for the info, just what I needed.

I have though about just getting a 980 or 750. They are cheaper and for my use case, wont make a difference. Honestly, I have considered just keeping my boot drive and getting a 2tb 2.5" SSD. I would get twice the storage for half the cost and will be perfect for a game drive. But I also like getting the new tech.

For most folks the diff between a 2.5 and a m.2 is cable clutter.
Perf wise about zip.

 

[USAFRet]

For most folks the diff between a 2.5 and a m.2 is cable clutter.
Perf wise about zip.

Indeed.
I'm finishing up a test between various flavors of SSD, regarding video and photo rendering.
So far, the performance difference is zero.

 

[feelinfroggy777]

For a game drive, there is little difference.

Good video by Linus. Should not have been surprised by the results. I guess I am still living with the same line of thought from 5 years ago that putting a SSD in a co

For most folks the diff between a 2.5 and a m.2 is cable clutter.
Perf wise about zip.

Yea, I already have (2) 2.5 drives installed and an optical drive (I still cant part ways with it) and it takes some clever work to keep the cables managed

 

[USAFRet]

The difference between HDD and SSD was huge.
Between different flavors of SSD, not so much.

The main benefit of the SSD is the near zero access time. Which is across all SSD types.

 

[feelinfroggy777]

Let me ask you guys this, DRAM vs DRAMless. My ancient experience screams get a drive with DRAM, but the size of the cache and new controllers in some of the new drives is showing DRAMless drives being very competitive. The benchmarks for 980 (DRAMless) vs the 970 Evo Plus is impressive.

Do you have an opinion on these or at this point, should I go with the cheapest option available because it will be a wash in the end?

I dont do a ton of file transfers, so I doubt I would hit the limits of the cache very often. But its also a little confusing because it depends on how full the drive is too.

 

[Bob.B]

Let me ask you guys this, DRAM vs DRAMless. My ancient experience screams get a drive with DRAM, but the size of the cache and new controllers in some of the new drives is showing DRAMless drives being very competitive. The benchmarks for 980 (DRAMless) vs the 970 Evo Plus is impressive.

Do you have an opinion on these or at this point, should I go with the cheapest option available because it will be a wash in the end?

I dont do a ton of file transfers, so I doubt I would hit the limits of the cache very often. But its also a little confusing because it depends on how full the drive is too.

For most folks 980/970 perf wise the diff would be zip.

 

[Pextaxmx]

For most folks 980/970 perf wise the diff would be zip.

except when the drive is quite full. DRAMLESS tends to slow down a lot when full.

 

[Bob.B]

except when the drive is quite full. DRAMLESS tends to slow down a lot when full.

That's why you do house cleaning on a schedule.
That way the house never gets too dirty.

 

[Pextaxmx]

That's why you do house cleaning on a schedule.
That way the house never gets too dirty.

not really a strong argument though. We can always make a drive full with 100% important data.
DRAMLESS is effectively, I would say, 10% reduction of the capacity. You don't save much, if at all, by going DRAMLESS.

 

[USAFRet]

This is a sample of rendering a 10 minute video to various SSDs.
Corel Paintshop Pro, 2x 5 minute videos with a 3 second transition.

The difference between the 3 is basically zero.
The rest of the system has all the impact, rather than the specific drive speeds and types.


Full writeup sometime in the near future.