[SOLVED] Which m.2 ssd to get and do I need a heatsink?

[UniTea__]

My old 250gb sata ssd is full so I want to upgrade but I know nothing about m.2 other than that they're apparently faster. Read something about a heatsink but I have no idea if that's something I need. My motherboard is the Gigabyte Z390 Gaming X.
What's a good m.2 ssd of 1tb priced somewhere around 100€-150€?

 

[Lafong]

I don't use a heatsink.

Others do.

It's discussed a lot. Few minds have been changed.

The more you are worried about temps generally, the more likely you are to be uneasy if you don't have a heatsink. Get one if you would sleep better.

Don't know where you are or where you will buy from.

Decent mid to upper range candidates would include WD 550, 570, and 750. Samsung 970 Plus. Among others.

 

[USAFRet]

"faster", yes.
Mostly in benchmarks.

What do you use this system for?
Often, you can't really tell the difference between a SATA III SSD and an NVMe SSD.

But, given price parity at whatever size you need, go for the new NVMe drive.
Samsung 970 EVO or EVO Plus is a good choice.

 

[UniTea__]

"faster", yes.
Mostly in benchmarks.

What do you use this system for?
Often, you can't really tell the difference between a SATA III SSD and an NVMe SSD.

But, given price parity at whatever size you need, go for the new NVMe drive.
Samsung 970 EVO or EVO Plus is a good choice.

It's my main pc, so used for everything from netflix and web browsing, photoshop etc, to gaming (vr included). So far I've had my ssd (samsung 850 EVO) for just windows and my programs while games are installed on hdd.
Am I better off just getting some more ssd space instead? Or the same strategy of a small NVMe for windows & programs with the rest of ssd?

 

[USAFRet]

It's my main pc, so used for everything from netflix and web browsing, photoshop etc, to gaming (vr included). So far I've had my ssd (samsung 850 EVO) for just windows and my programs while games are installed on hdd.
Am I better off just getting some more ssd space instead? Or the same strategy of a small m.2 for windows & programs with the rest of ssd?

As said, the various flavors of SSD are not always identifiable.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YoRKQy-UO4

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

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQ9LyNXpsOo



A single 250GB drive is TooSmall for most users.
A 500GB NVMe SSD for your OS and applications, and SATA III SSD for everything works quite well.

 

[Lafong]

I wouldn't expect to see much if any noticeable performance change between an ordinary 2.5 inch SSD and the latest red hot NVMe. The most practical advantage of an M.2 drive may be the lack of cables.

Keeping OS and apps on drive A and data on drive B remains a good choice regardless. It can simplify your backup life....if you have one.

 

[Karadjgne]

M.2 is a shape. That's all. If it's a Sata M.2 it's the same thing as a 2.5" plug in Sata SSD. No difference.

If it's NVMe M.2 that's different. They can be and generally are considerably faster, especially in the higher Gb, a 2Tb NVMe has a longer expected lifespan, and generally out-performs a 500Gb/1Tb NVMe.

In large ( game files are tiny, even maps aren't that big, I'm talking about 1000 page legal documents, full game zip transfers etc) file use only. So with games there's relatively no difference between Sata and NVMe, it's only noticeable as a second or 3 in a side by side comparison.

Gen3 NVMe/Sata don't usually get hot enough, even under heavy loads, to require a heatsink as such. They come with a heat exchanger in the form of copper strips built into the sticker, and thats plenty. They actually work better and suffer less wear and tear when warm, so it's a good thing for Gen3 to be open air.

Gen4 (pcie4.0) gets nasty hot, especially when loaded down. So you will want, it's basically a requirement, a heatsink. All the Gen4 come with a heatsink, whether you use that or use the fancy one on the mobo or another heatsink of your choice is upto you, but use one you must.

The Z390 Gaming X has 2x M.2 ports, both accept Gen3 Sata or NVMe, so a Gen4 NVMe is useless, it'll be crippled to Gen3 speeds, too expensive to consider.

So you have Sata or NVMe choice, Gen3. On a budget, I'd say a 2Tb Sata M.2 would be good, it'll do everything you need with extra space, but if you decide you'd prefer NVMe, you'll still be restricted to Gen3, and you'll pay more for a little more usable speed at a little/lot less space.

Crucial Mx500/550/P2 are good, as are WD SN550, Samsung 850/ 960 or better etc. Sabrent and Silicon Power aren't too shabby for uber budget stuff.

 

[Bob.B]

It's my main pc, so used for everything from netflix and web browsing, photoshop etc, to gaming (vr included). So far I've had my ssd (samsung 850 EVO) for just windows and my programs while games are installed on hdd.
Am I better off just getting some more ssd space instead? Or the same strategy of a small NVMe for windows & programs with the rest of ssd?

There must be more than just the OS and apps on this 850 if it's getting full.

Perhaps some house cleaning is all you need.....other than a little time... free.

 

[Exploding PSU]

I used to have an Adata SU650 bog-standard SATA SSD and a Samsung PM1725A enterprise-grade NVME SSD plugged on the PCIe slot. In day to day usage, I can't tell the difference at all.

Like everyone said above, I don't think there will be any noticeable difference in performance.

 

[WrongRookie]

A single 250GB drive is TooSmall for most users.
A 500GB NVMe SSD for your OS and applications, and SATA III SSD for everything works quite well.

I would only argue that a 1tb NVMe has more advantage for OS because of it having more read and write speeds and there are lots of them that are at competitive prices. Other than that I agree with the rest

 

[USAFRet]

I would only argue that a 1tb NVMe has more advantage for OS because of it having more read and write speeds and there are lots of them that are at competitive prices. Other than that I agree with the rest

Within different sizes of the same model drive, read/write speed difference is basically zero.

 

[Karadjgne]

Biggest advantage to bigger drives is MTBF. Mean Time Before Failure. Ssds don't have spinning platters, so data isn't laid down sequentially, starting in the middle of the platter and working it's way to the edges. That forces constant use of the same areas, and eventually those areas go bad. That happen to any size drive.

Ssds use spacial placements, which are then moved by TRIM around. The data is stored as a voltage, machine language, either 1 or 0, yes or no. The bigger the drive, the less often an individual key is used, it remains blank space more often, so lasts longer. There's also redundancies built into the drives, an extra 7-13% on average, spare keys in case 1 goes bad. A bad key is flagged, looses it's address and that address gets placed on a spare key. 7% of a 2Tb drive is much more spares than 13% of a 120Gb drive.

I'd replace the HDD with with a decent ssd, like a Samsung 850,960, WD or Crucial MX500 2Tb. I'd keep just the OS and OS dependant (Adobe, Photoshop, Steam etc) files on it. The game files, game libraries, Photoshop storage etc move to the storage drive. That'll keep the OS drive somewhere @ 100Gb-150Gb at most, which prolongs it's life, makes windows snappier and depending on the ssd, actually improve speeds as some ssds slow way down as they fill past 50%ish.

A good advantage to multi drive with large storage is cloning/backups. A 2Tb storage has the room to take a snapshot backup of the OS drive, so should it need to be replaced or OS gets thrashed, can easily be done.

 

[WrongRookie]

Within different sizes of the same model drive, read/write speed difference is basically zero.

Correct me if I'm wrong on this but doesn't more capacity actually have more controllers on the drive which makes it have more read/write speeds?

 

[USAFRet]

Correct me if I'm wrong on this but doesn't more capacity actually have more controllers on the drive which makes it have more read/write speeds?

Do you have any independent tests showing this?
I've not seen it.

The warranty TBW is larger for larger drives. But makes no difference in real consumer use.

 

[Karadjgne]

Depends on the drive and controller. Some use 4, some use 8. But thats no guarantee of speed increase, IOPS increase or any other increase. Just a slightly different way of doing things, there's advantages and disadvantages to both, just as there's advantages and disadvantages to the different kinds of nand used. Most of which aren't apparent to the user, only to a benchmark that can split seconds into a Billion parts.

 

[WrongRookie]

Do you have any independent tests showing this?
I've not seen it.

The warranty TBW is larger for larger drives. But makes no difference in real consumer use.

I guess I'm wrong on that part. Still I feel that more endurance is better and 1 tb is to me atleast is the sweet spot

 

[USAFRet]

I guess I'm wrong on that part. Still I feel that more endurance is better and 1 tb is to me atleast is the sweet spot

Yes, larger drives have greater warranty endurance.
But in reality, those numbers are far far above what happens in a normal system.

For the 980 Pro, 500GB and 1TB.
300TBW vs 600TBW.
5 years.

Normal consumer use would not see 1/2 that in a decade.

And recently here, there was a member with a 980 Pro that went to 2.2PB. Due to his pirated software and getting a chia miner.
The drive was still working.