Question What's a good M.2 NVMe SSD with a decent price?

Jul 19, 2019
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I want an M.2 SSD (rather than a 2.5 or 3.5 since my case CMH500 only has 4 storage spaces and I don't wanna fill them right away) with good reading speeds that would boot my PC up in, say, 10-15 seconds or so. I don't want a 140 GB one or so. I'd rather go with a 240GB one since I'll be using it for a while until I get my first HDD or 7200RPM. So far, I've settled for the Corsair MP510 240GB. Anything you can suggest with similar performance but less pricey? Thanks!
 
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Jul 19, 2019
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Never thought 5 seconds is that unachievable. I saw a comparison video of SSDs and it said regular M.2 NVMe SSDs take around 5 to 20 seconds to boot depending on a lot of things. That's what gave me an inaccurate idea of the boot up times. Anyway, This is going on an Asus ROG Strix B450-E motherboard. Finally, I don't even know what extra features NVMe provides for M.2 SSDs but I thought all the good ones were NVMe so yeah. Excuse my stupidity but I look like the triangular Jerry in my Picture in real life, Imagine how dumb I would be.
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
During boot up, there's a LOT more going on besides just the raw drive speed.
Strip the system down to the absolute bare essentials, and you can maybe see that time. But that leaves the system mostly not usable.

Like trying to get the absolute best gas mileage from your car. More weight = worse gas mileage.
So, remove the doors, insulation, sound proofing, all seats except the drivers seat, etc etc.
Less weight = better gas mileage. But an unusable car.


An NVMe drive is basically just another form of solid state drive.
Basically 2 (or 3) different options:
2.5" SATA. Looks like a regular drive, connects the same was as a regular hard drive
M.2 SATA. About the size of a stick of gum...looks a little like a RAM stick. Same performance as a 2.5" drive, just a different package.
M.2 NVMe. Looks the same as a M.2 SATA, but faster speed. And at a higher $ per GB.

"M.2" is just the package and how it connects.

Examples:
2.5" SATA III - Samsung 860 EVO
https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-500GB-Internal-MZ-76E500B-AM/dp/B0781Z7Y3S

M.2 SATA - Samsung 860 EVO
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B078218TWQ

M.2 NVMe - Samsung 970 EVO
https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-970-EVO-500GB-MZ-V7E500BW/dp/B07BN4NJ2J
 
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USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
Never thought 5 seconds is that unachievable. I saw a comparison video of SSDs and it said regular M.2 NVMe SSDs take around 5 to 20 seconds to boot depending on a lot of things.

My current OS drive is a 500GB Samsung 850 EVO, several years old.
Takes 30 seconds to boot up, to a fully usable system. And half of that time is waiting for the BIOS to do its thing, which is not impacted by the drive at all.

Am I going to notice or obsess over the difference between 30 seconds and 20 seconds? Not even a little bit.
 
Jul 19, 2019
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Thank you so much. I understand that the significance I should put on boot time shouldn't be that much and that it depends on a lot of factors, but what additional / different features does NVMe provide if it's another form of SSD. If M.2 is usually fast in generally, it being NVMe wouldn't just simply make it faster, right? So what are its features / specifications?