Question Should I install OS on Gen4 or Gen5 NVMe SSD ?

[MaxT2]

If everything goes well, next week I should be up with a computer made of new and some re-used parts.

My target is productivity performances/productivity features. So, gaming performances are not a priority, but comfort for everyday use is. Biggest bottlenecks are photo editing, video editing, running some virtual machines (Virtual Box) and various heavy-or-not computing tasks.

The permanent drives in it will be:

1. NVMe Gen5 Crucial T700 4TB
2. NVMe Gen4 Samsung 990 Pro 4TB
3. NVMe Gen4 Samsung 980 Pro 2TB (reused from current computer)
4. SATA Western Digital Gold 18 TB

Motherboard will be Asus Z890 Maximum Hero.

My question is: on what drive should I install Windows 11 Pro? The most likely options I see are

1. On the Gen5 drive?
2. On the new 4 TB Gen4 drive. Leaving the Gen5 drive at rest and dedicating to demanding project files.
3. (Maybe on the old 2TB Gen4, but I think, rather on the 4TB.)

I think of option #2 as I read that OS doesn't benefit much from being on Gen5 drives and these heat a lot.

 

[Lutfij]

I'd install it on the slower SSD, in this case that would be the PCIe4.0 SSD however in daily tasks, you won't be able to tell the difference between PCIe 4.0 and PCIe 5.0 speeds.

 

[USAFRet]

I would put it on the 2TB 980. Leave the larger drives for project files.

 

[Misgar]

Biggest bottlenecks are photo editing, video editing, running some virtual machines (Virtual Box) and various heavy-or-not computing tasks.

Assuming you're running these tasks on an existing computer, check Disk Activity during heavy video rendering and especially when you're running (multiple) VMs.

I've just started a Hyper-V VM and disk activity peaked at 100% for a few seconds, then hovered around 80 to 90% until the VM stabilized. I was still seing constant 'writes' at roughly 30MB/s and reads at 10MB/s for the VM on the 1TB M.2 boot drive in an ancient i7-4770K system. The 7950X isn't switched on at the moment, but I assume it will be similar.

If your tests show high read/write speeds on the main OS drive during video renders and for VMs, I'd try the NVMe Gen.5 drive as your Windows boot and VM drive. I have three M.2 drives in my video rig. One for OS+apps, one for Adobe scratch files and one for Work in Progress. I sometimes work to/from fast hard disks during 4K video work, instead of M.2.

If you decide to use the Gen.5 drive for something else, you can clone the OS/apps on to a Gen.4 drive and wipe the Gen.5.

Of course you could put all the VMs on the Gen.5 drive and boot from Gen.4. Difficult to say which would be better. Try experimenting if you have the time and patience.

 

[MaxT2]

Thank you.

Assuming you're running these tasks on an existing computer, check Disk Activity during heavy video rendering and especially when you're running (multiple) VMs.

Rendering is not as much an issue for me as previewing and software "responsiveness", but I get the idea.

I have three M.2 drives in my video rig. One for OS+apps, one for Adobe scratch files and one for Work in Progress.

Approximately what I did on my current computer. (Except my video editor is Vegas Pro, and I've never checked/tried, if it's possible to tell it where to place its cache data). But this sure helped with Adobe Lightroom (which went to being "barely usable" to being "acceptably sluggish").

Try experimenting if you have the time and patience.

I have the will to experiment... Not sure if time and patience are a thing at the moment, but I still have a week or so before the new computer is ready.
Thank you for the advice.

 

[NickyB]

Look at the random read IOPS for the ssd you are going to get. That will determine the snappiness of the OS in real world usage. Not sequential bullshit that they spout. A 990 pro has really high read IOPS. Whatever you get look for that spec on the drive.

 

[MaxT2]

Look at the random read IOPS for the ssd you are going to get. That will determine the snappiness of the OS in real world usage. Not sequential bullshit that they spout. A 990 pro has really high read IOPS. Whatever you get look for that spec on the drive.

Thank you. That makes:

	Samsung 980 Pro 2TB​	Samsung 990 Pro 4TB​	Crucial T700 4TB​
Random read IOPS	Up to 1,000,000 (4KB, QD32) Up to 22,000 (4KB, QD1)	Up to 1,600,000 (4KB, QD32) Up to 22,000 (4KB, QD1)	Up to 1,500,000
Random write IOPS	Up to 1,000,000 (4KB, QD32) Up to 60,000 (4KB, QD1)	Up to 1,550,000 (4KB, QD32) Up to 80,000 (4KB, QD1)	Up to 1,500,000
Sequential read	Up to 7,000 Mb/s	Up to 74500 MB/s	Up to 12,400 MB/s
Sequential write	Up to 5,100 Mb/s	Up to 6,900 Mb/s	Up to 11,800 MB/s

So it looks like the Samsung 990 Pro is a bit better.
I did not check in to detail the difference between QD1 and QD32, but I went fast through a description here: https://superuser.com/questions/1049382/ssd-4k-random-read-write-qd1-32-and-iops-values

I still like Misgar's idea to check where some applications perform disk usage while doing significant tasks, but haven't had time to do such tests yet.

 

[USAFRet]

And again, in a blind test, you would be hard pressed to tell the difference between a top tier Gen 4 (980 Pro), and top tier Gen 5 (990 Pro) SSD.

 

[USAFRet]

Smaller drive for OS and applications.
Larger drives for project files and games.

 

[MaxT2]

Smaller drive for OS and applications.
Larger drives for project files and games.

Sometimes I think the same. But sometimes I think that if I ever miss space, upgrading the smaller and older 980 Pro would be easier it doesn't have the OS. Also, the 990 Pro's specs clearly beat the 980 Pro (though I'm not sure how the numbers translate in real performance). Also, 980 Pro being older, it may start failing earlier than the other, maybe.

 

[USAFRet]

Sometimes I think the same. But sometimes I think that if I ever miss space, upgrading the smaller and older 980 Pro would be easier it doesn't have the OS. Also, the 990 Pro's specs clearly beat the 980 Pro (though I'm not sure how the numbers translate in real performance). Also, 980 Pro being older, it may start failing earlier than the other, maybe.

OS and applications on a 2TB will not run out of space anytime soon.
Applications, apart from games, don't take up a lot of space.

Your project files, movies, music take up far far more.

My CAD files for the 3D printer, on a secondary drive, take up MUCH more space than the OS and application drive.

But later, migrating that 2TB 980 to larger is easily done.

 

[MaxT2]

Yeah, I know how much my project files take... most usually depending on project types.
But I think I really want to keep the 980 Pro "easy to update" by not having the system on it.
Also, I don't really mind if some non-critical/more casual projects share the system drive.
That said, I do have some game anyway... Usually the few games I play don't require huge files. I guess I could put those on the 980 Pro. (I used to have them on the SATA drive but moved them from there, I don't remember the reason).

 

[USAFRet]

Yeah, I know how much my project files take... most usually depending on project types.
But I think I really want to keep the 980 Pro "easy to update" by not having the system on it.
Also, I don't really mind if some non-critical/more casual projects share the system drive.
That said, I do have some game anyway... Usually the few games I play don't require huge files. I guess I could put those on the 980 Pro. (I used to have them on the SATA drive but moved them from there, I don't remember the reason).

Either way, whatever works for you.

OS and applications on one drive.
Everything else on other drives.