Question (SOLVED) Using a M2 PCI-E NVMe SSD to PCIe expansion card on a PCIe 2.0 x16 slot, is it worth it?

[lordmoltke]

Hi everyone! Hope you're all having a nice life! (Happy New Year by the way)
My question (I think) is quite simple. I have this pc with a MOBO that has 2 PCIe 2.0. slots: 1x PCIe x16 and 1x PCIe x8. I was thinking of getting one of those PCIe to NVMe SSDs expansion cards, a decent-affordable NVMe SSD and see how that goes. But I wonder if it is worth the time and money, and whether it'll work at all. I found this thread https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/do-they-make-pcie-gen-2-m2-ssds.3819896/ on the forum on that topic, but despite all the good info there, it isn't still that clear to me. Any help/ advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance for your answers.

 

[rgd1101]

what is your motherboard?
using the m.2 just for data?

 

[kanewolf]

Hi everyone! Hope you're all having a nice life! (Happy New Year by the way)
My question (I think) is quite simple. I have this pc with a MOBO that has 2 PCIe 2.0. slots: 1x PCIe x16 and 1x PCIe x8. I was thinking of getting one of those PCIe to NVMe SSDs expansion cards, a decent-affordable NVMe SSD and see how that goes. But I wonder if it is worth the time and money, and whether it'll work at all. I found this thread https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/do-they-make-pcie-gen-2-m2-ssds.3819896/ on the forum on that topic, but despite all the good info there, it isn't still that clear to me. Any help/ advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance for your answers.

No, IMO. A SATA 2.5in SSD is more compatible.

 

[CelicaGT]

I've looked at similar products too. Between the lack of good information, and the likelihood of them eating up PCIe lanes from my x16 (Brings it down to x8 on my mobo) slot I decided against it. I'll just front the cash for bigger drives. Sooner rather than later based on the latest pricing...

 

[lordmoltke]

what is your motherboard?
using the m.2 just for data?

Yes, since it won't be able to boot from it, that much I already knew.

No, IMO. A SATA 2.5in SSD is more compatible.

I think you're right. Guess I'll have to wait until I upgrade the whole system and get one m.2 capable motherboard. FWIW, I do some light video editing, nothing fancy nor 4K and much less 8K of course, but 1080p only. I was contemplating this idea to see if I could get to reduce export/rendering times. Thanks.
PS: I tried to find the "best answer" tick mark, but didn't see it anywhere. And yes, I checked the link on "How to award a best answer" in your signature, but again, I don't see the tick mark.

 

[USAFRet]

I was contemplating this idea to see if I could get to reduce export/rendering times.

Rendering time is FAR more dependent of the RAM and CPU.
The drive you output to...irrelevant.

Here, rendering and outputting the same video to 3 different SSD types.
PCIe 4.0, PCIe 3.0, SATA III.

 

[USAFRet]

PS: I tried to find the "best answer" tick mark, but didn't see it anywhere. And yes, I checked the link on "How to award a best answer" in your signature, but again, I don't see the tick mark.

Try it now.

 

[lordmoltke]

Rendering time is FAR more dependent of the RAM and CPU.
The drive you output to...irrelevant.

Here, rendering and outputting the same video to 3 different SSD types.
PCIe 4.0, PCIe 3.0, SATA III.

Hmmm ... this post tells a different story: https://larryjordan.com/articles/for-video-editing-storage-how-fast-is-fast-enough/

 

[COLGeek]

Hmmm ... this post tells a different story: https://larryjordan.com/articles/for-video-editing-storage-how-fast-is-fast-enough/

That article is measuring differently than what USAFRet showed you. The linked article is more of a measure of read/write times, not the practical measure from a user perspective. Apples and oranges comparison.

 

[lordmoltke]

That article is measuring differently than what USAFRet showed you. The linked article is more of a measure of read/write times, not the practical measure from a user perspective. Apples and oranges comparison.

Ok. Thanks for the clarifying. So, doesn't faster write/read times equal faster rendering? No?

 

[COLGeek]

Ok. Thanks for the clarifying. So, doesn't faster write/read times equal faster rendering? No?

As USAFRet showed you, no. There is far more involved in the rendering process than just SSD access times.

 

[USAFRet]

Hmmm ... this post tells a different story: https://larryjordan.com/articles/for-video-editing-storage-how-fast-is-fast-enough/

This is 2 of the 3 drives shown above.
The 980 Pro and 860 EVO. Both 1TB, about the same age.
Benchmarks show the 980 to be 10 times as fast as the 860, right?

Benchmark numbers do not necessarily translate into actual performance.

Now...if I were transferring data between 2x 980 Pro, it would go a LOT faster than between 2x 860 EVO SATA III drives.
For most people, that is a rare task.

And again, for rendering the video...the drives are basically loafing, waiting for the CPU/RAM/GPU to give it something to do.

 

[lordmoltke]

As USAFRet showed you, no. There is far more involved in the rendering process than just SSD access times.

Ok. I'll rephrase that to "Doesn't faster write/read times help to get faster rendering?" I know there's more to it, like CPU core-count, the more, the better. (And sorry for going off-topic, but since we're at it ... )

 

[USAFRet]

Ok. I'll rephrase that to "Doesn't faster write/read times help to get faster rendering?" I know there's more to it, like CPU core-count, the more, the better. (And sorry for going off-topic, but since we're at it ... )

From your linked article:
----------------------
SUMMARY

The key take-away is that editing video doesn’t demand the absolute fastest storage anymore. Once you get over 400 MB/second, you can edit just about any single camera format. Even a single SATA SSD is more than fast enough to edit all SD, HD, 2K and 4K video formats.
----------------------

 

[USAFRet]

The big performance jump was from HDD to SSD.
Once we moved off the spinning platters, the difference in SSD flavors is mostly seen in benchmark numbers.

In my current system, I have 6x SSD.
PCIe 4.0, PCIe 3.0 and 4x SATA III.
In daily use, it is hard to tell the difference.

 

[lordmoltke]

From your linked article:
----------------------
SUMMARY

The key take-away is that editing video doesn’t demand the absolute fastest storage anymore. Once you get over 400 MB/second, you can edit just about any single camera format. Even a single SATA SSD is more than fast enough to edit all SD, HD, 2K and 4K video formats.
----------------------

Yes, I read that. I'm just not sure if he includes rendering in that statement, but he probably does.

 

[lordmoltke]

The big performance jump was from HDD to SSD.
Once we moved off the spinning platters, the difference in SSD flavors is mostly seen in benchmark numbers.

In my current system, I have 6x SSD.
PCIe 4.0, PCIe 3.0 and 4x SATA III.
In daily use, it is hard to tell the difference.

Which one? BigBrother or Viper? Both?

 

[USAFRet]

Which one? BigBrother or Viper? Both?

Currently, Viper.
BigBrother is in the wings, to be recommissioned as something else.