Question Recommendations for M.2 NVME drives that offer excellent REAL WORLD Performance?

[Iver Hicarte]

Good day,

I'm currently looking for a 1TB M.2 NVME that has excellent REAL WORLD performance, I don't really give much emphasis if a lot of the NVME drives today have very fast speeds when it comes to synthetic benchmarks since these are SYNTHETIC BENCHMARKS. I'm looking for a drive that can really offer excellent performance in the real world. Basically, I'm looking for a an M.2 NVME drive that can always copy files on a constant or stable "gigabyte speed" with no drops in the speed. For example, I want a drive that can copy files whether big or small, on at least a gigabyte per second, 900MB's below is a no go for me. Price is of no issue, but I don't wanna pay too much either for a drive that you're only paying the brand name for. I don't wanna end up paying twice as much as I shouldn't have. I don't wanna go cheapskate also, I want something that will last and something that is fast.

 

[USAFRet]

For a PCIe 3.0 slot, the Samsung 970 EVO or 980.
For a PCIe 4.0, the Samsung 980 Pro. Possibly one of the Sabrent variants.

That's about as real world as it gets.

What might those drives be lacking?

 

[dwd999]

Also, an important factor is "real world performance" is cooling. Drive performance suffers because the drives heat up when transferring large amounts of data. So if you're concerned about maintaining high transfer rates, you need to plan on how you're going to cool your m.2. You'll see some motherboards come with cooling options and some ssds also come with coolers. So you'll need to consider those factors in your planning.

 

[sonofjesse]

WDSN850
980 pro,
Sabrent has some good ones
I have good luck with Adata/xpg too.

No shortage of good SSD's. If you install a heatsink don't remove the sticker for warranty.

First you need to pick if your going Gen 3 or Gen 4. Gen 4 is almost 2x the price, but gives you around 2x the transfers speeds for a time.

Good luck

 

[hotaru.hino]

There's a lot of variables here, but the short answer is most NVME PCIe 3.0/4.0 SSDs will keep up with 1GB/sec if you're doing a sustained sequential write and the controller has adequate cooling.

However, in any condition is a problem because the biggest way to kill performance is to do a ton of small transfers. It takes a lot longer to transfer 1,000 1MB files than it does to transfer a single 1GB file. Not just due to the smaller size being an issue for SSDs, but there's filesystem overhead for each file.

 

[Iver Hicarte]

WDSN850
980 pro,
Sabrent has some good ones
I have good luck with Adata/xpg too.

No shortage of good SSD's. If you install a heatsink don't remove the sticker for warranty.

First you need to pick if your going Gen 3 or Gen 4. Gen 4 is almost 2x the price, but gives you around 2x the transfers speeds for a time.

Good luck

I'm looking for GEN 3 drives.

 

[sizzling]

When you say copy files do you mean between 2 separate drives or between 2 locations on a single NVMe drive?

 

[USAFRet]

I'm looking for GEN 3 drives.

In what way is the 970 EVO Plus not suitable?

 

[Iver Hicarte]

In what way is the 970 EVO Plus not suitable?

It's a good drive no doubt, but I'm not willing to pay the premium, you're just paying for the name "Samsung". Although no doubt they have the best drives, quality wise also. But I'm not just willing to pay the premium, on that price I could easily get a bigger capacity drive on other brands and on a cheaper price.

 

[USAFRet]

It's a good drive no doubt, but I'm not willing to pay the premium, you're just paying for the name "Samsung". Although no doubt they have the best drives, quality wise also. But I'm not just willing to pay the premium, on that price I could easily get a bigger capacity drive on other brands and on a cheaper price.

So what is available, in your market, at your preferred price point?
Give us a list, and maybe we can suggest. Both good, and what to avoid.

If you just ask - "What is a good drive with excellent real world performance?", the Samsungs bubble up to the top.
Once you put conditions on the list, then a specific recommendation is harder.

So....which ones are you looking at?

 

[DimkaTsv]

Personally use Kingston KC2500 both 500GB and 1TB now
It is definitely cheaper and by huge margin, but ofc different controller and potentially definitely slower
Question is... What real world performance you targeted to. Consecutive R/W or random I/O?
Also, are you actually gonna hit that performance limit every time?

Price is of no issue, but I don't wanna pay too much either for a drive that you're only paying the brand name for. I don't wanna end up paying twice as much as I shouldn't have.

Actually price directly corresponds to quality of controller and, because of that, on speed of the drive... So, it is actually depending on price range you look drive for. As it was said before 970 EVO is best you can find.

 

[falcon291]

Sidenote: If your mainboard does not does not support PCIe 4.0 then there is no need to pay for a more expensive PCIe 4.0 M2 drive.

& unless you are working with 4K videos, I don't think you will ever feel the speed difference.

 

[Bob.B]

Good day,

I'm currently looking for a 1TB M.2 NVME that has excellent REAL WORLD performance, I don't really give much emphasis if a lot of the NVME drives today have very fast speeds when it comes to synthetic benchmarks since these are SYNTHETIC BENCHMARKS. I'm looking for a drive that can really offer excellent performance in the real world. Basically, I'm looking for a an M.2 NVME drive that can always copy files on a constant or stable "gigabyte speed" with no drops in the speed. For example, I want a drive that can copy files whether big or small, on at least a gigabyte per second, 900MB's below is a no go for me. Price is of no issue, but I don't wanna pay too much either for a drive that you're only paying the brand name for. I don't wanna end up paying twice as much as I shouldn't have. I don't wanna go cheapskate also, I want something that will last and something that is fast.

Samsung/Western digital/Crucial.
Those are the big names.
If your planning on passing big chunks of data look for a unit with dram and a heatsink.

Real world.....most folks won't see a diff between a 2.5 sata and a m.2 pcie.

 

[Iver Hicarte]

Sidenote: If your mainboard does not does not support PCIe 4.0 then there is no need to pay for a more expensive PCIe 4.0 M2 drive.

& unless you are working with 4K videos, I don't think you will ever feel the speed difference.

I do work with 4k videos I'm a professional video editor, I'm really looking for some nice upgrades.

 

[Iver Hicarte]

Personally use Kingston KC2500 both 500GB and 1TB now
It is definitely cheaper and by huge margin, but ofc different controller and potentially definitely slower
Question is... What real world performance you targeted to. Consecutive R/W or random I/O?
Also, are you actually gonna hit that performance limit every time?


Actually price directly corresponds to quality of controller and, because of that, on speed of the drive... So, it is actually depending on price range you look drive for. As it was said before 970 EVO is best you can find.

Simply, I strongly prefer a drive that has a consistent gigabyte speed when I am transferring files. At least 1 gb on the speed, below 1gb, forget about it.

 

[hotaru.hino]

I do work with 4k videos I'm a professional video editor, I'm really looking for some nice upgrades.

The biggest bottleneck here is still going to be your CPU, unless maybe you have a Threadripper or EPYC.

 

[Iver Hicarte]

Sidenote: If your mainboard does not does not support PCIe 4.0 then there is no need to pay for a more expensive PCIe 4.0 M2 drive.

& unless you are working with 4K videos, I don't think you will ever feel the speed difference.

I believe there is a huge difference if you use an NVEME M.2, if using an NVME SATA, then yes, there wouldn't really be a noticeable difference.

 

[Iver Hicarte]

So what is available, in your market, at your preferred price point?
Give us a list, and maybe we can suggest. Both good, and what to avoid.

If you just ask - "What is a good drive with excellent real world performance?", the Samsungs bubble up to the top.
Once you put conditions on the list, then a specific recommendation is harder.

So....which ones are you looking at?

I really wanna get the Samsung drive don't get me wrong, but where I live at, those drives are ridiculously expensive and are not worth buying, but if it was priced right, then surely I would've gotten it already.

 

[USAFRet]

Simply, I strongly prefer a drive that has a consistent gigabyte speed when I am transferring files. At least 1 gb on the speed, below 1gb, forget about it.

I do work with 4k videos I'm a professional video editor, I'm really looking for some nice upgrades.

970 Pro.

 

[sonofjesse]

Just lay out all your stipulations from the get go.

Gen 3
No Samsung (higher in my country/region)


Then we will be able to answer more specifically. Also if your not in the USA or CA, like suggested by USAFRet give us a list of the choices you want us to pick from lol, be easier. If you don't' give us a list, then get the Samsung lol, that is off the list due to price (totally get that).

Most drives will go over 1000mb second, are you asking for sustained 1000mb a second and greater well that is a different requirement. Some drives after the cache the performance drops like a rock.

Avoid QLC drives if you want 1000mb second writes sustained.


What is wrong the SN750 for a Gen 3?

snippent from toms hardware.......talking about the SN750

"Much like the Adata XPG SX8200 Pro, it writes at 2.8 GBps for the first 36GB of the test, but performance degrades to an average of about 1400 MBps once the workload saturates the cache "



Good luck!

 

[Endre]

Good day,

I'm currently looking for a 1TB M.2 NVME that has excellent REAL WORLD performance, I don't really give much emphasis if a lot of the NVME drives today have very fast speeds when it comes to synthetic benchmarks since these are SYNTHETIC BENCHMARKS. I'm looking for a drive that can really offer excellent performance in the real world. Basically, I'm looking for a an M.2 NVME drive that can always copy files on a constant or stable "gigabyte speed" with no drops in the speed. For example, I want a drive that can copy files whether big or small, on at least a gigabyte per second, 900MB's below is a no go for me. Price is of no issue, but I don't wanna pay too much either for a drive that you're only paying the brand name for. I don't wanna end up paying twice as much as I shouldn't have. I don't wanna go cheapskate also, I want something that will last and something that is fast.

Hello!

If you want a constant hi-speed, durable SSD, you should look for an SSD that has 2-bit MLC V-NAND.
(The quality of the NAND is directly responsable for the speed of the drive).

My recommendation is:
Samsung 970 PRO 1TB (M.2, 2-bit MLC V-NAND, NVMe, PCIe 3.0 x4 SSD).

<INFOS>
NAND can be:

1. SLC: 1-bit/cell (the best).
2. MLC: 2-bit/cell (very fast & durable).
3. TLC: 3-bit/cell (regular).
4. QLC: 4-bit/cell (low speed, low durability & reliability).
5. PLC: 5-bit/cell (extremely low quality).

I hope this helps...

 

[DimkaTsv]

1. PLC: 5-bit/cell (extremely low quality).

Such thing as PLC drives do exist?... Wow, never knew about them.
Well... I guess for these drives it is not question of speed or quality, but memory amount... PLC should have some incredibly dense data

 

[USAFRet]

Such thing as PLC drives do exist?... Wow, never knew about them.
Well... I guess for these drives it is not question of speed or quality, but memory amount... PLC should have some incredibly dense data

"quality" is absolutely a consideration.

A company like Samsung or Crucial(Micron) can control the entire chain of events.
They are much more likely to stand behind their product.

Any second rate chips they may produce that does not meet their standards may be sold to someone else, to incorporate in their 'brand'.

 

[iTRiP]

Don't forget about the size, 1Tb fills up pretty fast when where talking NVMe speeds.

 

[Endre]

Such thing as PLC drives do exist?... Wow, never knew about them.
Well... I guess for these drives it is not question of speed or quality, but memory amount... PLC should have some incredibly dense data

I don’t think they exist yet, but they are in the works.

PLC NAND will have similar speed to a regular HDD.