Question What SSD should I get?

[harpreet06]

I have an old PC build at the moment and find myself with only 40gb left on my SSD. I have a 256gb SSD and a 2TB HDD, my pc has an i5 6500 and mobo is an Asus H110M-A. Want to get a new SSD to put games on, as I feel like putting them on the HDD would lead to slow loading times. I searched google and found that I can only get a Sata SSD? In the future, I'd like to get/build a new pc so was thinking of getting an NVMe SSD and some kind of Sata adapter if that would work on my PC, then moving it over to the new PC. If it will work, which ones would you recommend? I'm in the UK, not sure what size would be sufficient, I'd most likely just put 2 or 3 games at a time on there.

 

[Math Geek]

when you get a new system with m.2 slots, that is the time to bother getting m.2 drives. not worth the extra cost and time working with an adapter card just to say you have an nvme drive.

prices have come down a lot last few months so a 1 tb sata ssd is very cheap at around $50 starting that it's hard to go with a smaller one. this would handle your game library for a good while if you're swapping them out as you go. way more than 2-3 at a time

really depends on how much you want to spend. you can stay at 512gb starting at about $30 or so. of course the best drives cost more.

so how much do you want to spend?

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

Hey there,

Yes, you can have an M2 drive, but it will only run at SATA speeds, AFAIK. For your current build, if the standard 2.5 SATA drive is cheaper than the M2 drive, then it's the same really in terms of performance, apart from adding in an add in card.

You can still bring the SATA 2.5 to another build.

 

[harpreet06]

Hey there,

Yes, you can have an M2 drive, but it will only run at SATA speeds, AFAIK. For your current build, if the standard 2.5 SATA drive is cheaper than the M2 drive, then it's the same really in terms of performance, apart from adding in an add in card.

You can still bring the SATA 2.5 to another build.

Just thinking in terms of future-proofing, would you notice the difference between a SATA drive and an M2 drive in games? Not for this PC but whenever I get one in the future. I guess that also makes me question if SSDs are likely to get significantly faster in the coming year or two to the point that an M2 drive now seems slow.

when you get a new system with m.2 slots, that is the time to bother getting m.2 drives. not worth the extra cost and time working with an adapter card just to say you have an nvme drive.

prices have come down a lot last few months so a 1 tb sata ssd is very cheap at around $50 starting that it's hard to go with a smaller one. this would handle your game library for a good while if you're swapping them out as you go. way more than 2-3 at a time

really depends on how much you want to spend. you can stay at 512gb starting at about $30 or so. of course the best drives cost more.

so how much do you want to spend?

I had a quick look and an M2 SSD to 2.5in SATA Adapter costs ~£20 and a 512GB sata SSD (Patriot P210) is £25 so almost the same cost just for the adapter. Not sure if that's a good SATA drive to get, the 1TB version is £48. Which 1tb or 512gb SATA SSDs would you recommend?

In contrast the M2 512GB is £37 (Crucial P2) and 1TB is £65 (Patriot P310), so I'd be spending £30-40 more to get the M2 including adapter but not sure if the future-proofing will be worth it.

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

Well, there's a difference between a standard M2 drive and an M2 Nvme. The Nvme are much faster than the standard M2 SATA drives. Your current mobo can't use those drives without an ad in card.

 

[Math Geek]

there is little real world difference between sata ssd's and nvme ones. even expensive pcie 4 drives are barely faster.

honestly it is not worth it if you don't have the slot. a sata drive will do the job fine. you're much better off putting that extra money into more capacity or a better model than using it on an adapter. the only real speed difference you will see is going from a spinning hdd to an ssd. that is real noticeable and worth it.

looking at partpicker for the UK. without going to the bottom of the barrel these 2 models are good options

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/products/compare/h3tQzy,ft8j4D,7nsnTW,mRpmP6/

performance drops a lot as you go cheaper. you can of course go cheaper but your into DRAMless territory and they tend to slow down quickly with sustained operation.

 

[logainofhades]

Just get a large capacity 2.5" drive.

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