Samsung 850 EVO 250GB, M.2-2280 or 2.5" same price?

[ClassV]

I will be running one of these on a Gigabyte GA-Z170-HD3 board. I have heard that M.2-2280 is much faster, but haven'y used my self. The M.2 actually also runs cheaper for the same capacity. This is mainly for windows and some games, I will have hard drives for the steam library. So, which one?

 

[Eximo]

They are functionally identical, both SATA drives, just a different interface.

Only the PCIe NVMe drives can really push the throughput.

 

[ClassV]

They are functionally identical, both SATA drives, just a different interface.

Only the PCIe NVMe drives can really push the throughput.

And do you have a final verdict?<3

 

[ClassV]

They are functionally identical, both SATA drives, just a different interface.

Only the PCIe NVMe drives can really push the throughput.

Also what does "Only the PCIe NVMe drives can really push the throughput." mean?

 

[Eximo]

Get the one you think is the nicest?

As I said, the two drives are nearly indistinguishable. Despite the radically different form factor they use the same communication standard of SATA III. This sets the upper limit to a max throughput of around 500MB/s, which is the same as pretty much every high end SATA III SSD.

NVMe is a newer communication protocol. Some drives use this interface, but have the same configuration of the older SATA drives and offer none or marginal improvements.

Late model NVMe drives on newer motherboards, and a few older high end boards, use PCIe. This offers a lot more bandwidth with most interfaces allowing up to PCIe 4x. Drives top out at 3200MB/s or so. Reaching those speeds takes an insane task, but the performance is there.

In your shoes I would probably take the Crucial MX300 at 275GB for a little less money. It will format out to a decent size increase.

I recently ordered a 1TB SSD NVMe (960 Evo) to replace my aging dual 256GB drives, they've been stripped since 2012 or so.

 

[bignastyid]

Id get the M.2 drive as it makes cable management a bit easier. The 850 evo m.2 and sata versions will have the same performance.