Would you recommend me to buy a m.2 ssd or use amd's StoreMI feature?

[ProPlayerGR]

Hello everyone. I plan on upgrading my pc to a 2600x/2700x and asrock x470 master sli/asus x470 pro and I'm thinking if I should buy a m.2 ssd so as to my games load faster. Right now I have a 240gb ssd and I don't have any games in this ssd. I have all my games in the 2TB WD and some of them load REALLY slowly(e.g. PUBG). I read something about amd's storeMI technology that combines two hdd(a ssd and a hdd) to one hdd and it automatically puts the programs I use more on the ssd for faster load times. So what do you recommend me to do? Buy a m.2 ssd or use the above technology? Also if I buy a m.2 should I go for 250gb or 500gb? Also my gpu is gtx 1070 and my current cpu is amd fx 9370. Thanks in advance.

 

[QwerkyPengwen]

Assuming your budget is simply whatever you want because you have all the money in the world, if you want an M.2 SSD then get the Samsung 960 Pro or an Intel Optane SSD of large capacity for storing all your games and call it a day.

However, if you have a budget please specify it.
To be honest, getting a super high performance M.2 isn't worth it. Can just get something more cost effective that connects using SATA and has the capacity you're looking for along with the standard speeds you'd expect from a regular SSD. Approximately 500/500 on average.
In this regard, I would recommend the Crucial MX500 500GB SSD for use as your game drive. If you plan on continuing to use your HDD for most all of your games and only the SSD for very specific games that have bad load times, take into consideration the amount of games this is. If it's a small enough amount that you can get away with using a 250GB SSD then get that instead (same thing, I'd recommend the Crucial MX series. Although, ADATA SU650 and SU800 series are quite good and can save you a little bit of cash compared to Crucial MX.)

End result, M.2 is useless to spend the extra money on unless your system just doesn't have the room for a 2.5" SSD or you just don't have the available SATA ports for it. (Assuming that the M.2 slot on the motherboard in question is capable of connecting via PCIe instead of using up SATA ports.)
Honestly, the M.2 is best suited for having a 120GB that is exclusively your OS drive that holds the main basic apps like web browsers and stuff and then you put everything else on other drives that connect using SATA (or PCIe like Optane if you're the kind of person to buy the most expensive tech that's on the bleeding edge of performance and whatnot)

 

[ProPlayerGR]

Assuming your budget is simply whatever you want because you have all the money in the world, if you want an M.2 SSD then get the Samsung 960 Pro or an Intel Optane SSD of large capacity for storing all your games and call it a day.

However, if you have a budget please specify it.
To be honest, getting a super high performance M.2 isn't worth it. Can just get something more cost effective that connects using SATA and has the capacity you're looking for along with the standard speeds you'd expect from a regular SSD. Approximately 500/500 on average.
In this regard, I would recommend the Crucial MX500 500GB SSD for use as your game drive. If you plan on continuing to use your HDD for most all of your games and only the SSD for very specific games that have bad load times, take into consideration the amount of games this is. If it's a small enough amount that you can get away with using a 250GB SSD then get that instead (same thing, I'd recommend the Crucial MX series. Although, ADATA SU650 and SU800 series are quite good and can save you a little bit of cash compared to Crucial MX.)

End result, M.2 is useless to spend the extra money on unless your system just doesn't have the room for a 2.5" SSD or you just don't have the available SATA ports for it. (Assuming that the M.2 slot on the motherboard in question is capable of connecting via PCIe instead of using up SATA ports.)
Honestly, the M.2 is best suited for having a 120GB that is exclusively your OS drive that holds the main basic apps like web browsers and stuff and then you put everything else on other drives that connect using SATA (or PCIe like Optane if you're the kind of person to buy the most expensive tech that's on the bleeding edge of performance and whatnot)

Wow ok thanks that't quite an answer. As far as my budget is concerned yeah I don't have all the money in the world and I don't want to spend more than 700€ on an upgrade(cpu/mobo/ram/ssd) and my case is Corsair Obsidian 750D Airflow Edition so I don't think I will have a problem with 2.5 slots. And for the sata ports I don't use many devices that need sata ports so about 4 sata ports will be free to use. Thanks for answering with a so detailed answer, so do you recommend that I buy a regular ssd rather than a m.2? I don't want to put many games in the ssd. I only want to put pubg(really slow load time right now), Rainbow Six Siege(I have to put textures to medium to load fast otherwise it takes a long time if textures are at very high) and GTA 5(extremely long time to get you in gta online). So what do you recommend? Thanks in advance.

 

[QwerkyPengwen]

hmm.... now that you are talking about siege and GTA I don't know what you consider really long load times.
I put those games to their max settings and I run them off an HDD and the load times aren't terrible.

Perhaps your issue isn't that you need an SSD, but that your HDD is either getting old and needs to be replaced or you are using a 5400rpm drive (or both)
I have a Seagate Barracuda HDD that is 7200RPM with 64MB Cache and load times are pretty much fine. Siege is fairly quick and GTA as well.

Your HDD speeds aren't the only factor, CPU and RAM speeds matter too when it comes to loading times.

If your RAM is slow then it'll take longer for the information to get loaded from the HDD into it.
Also, if you CPU isn't quite up to snuff it can take longer for it to make that information load into the RAM from the HDD and to start processing it.

Again, it depends on what you consider super slow loading times.
But assuming it's taking more than 60sec to load Siege and more than 120sec to load GTA then I would say it's most likely that you just have a slow HDD that is being slowed down by either old age, it being a 5400rpm drive, or both even.

 

[ProPlayerGR]

hmm.... now that you are talking about siege and GTA I don't know what you consider really long load times.
I put those games to their max settings and I run them off an HDD and the load times aren't terrible.

Perhaps your issue isn't that you need an SSD, but that your HDD is either getting old and needs to be replaced or you are using a 5400rpm drive (or both)
I have a Seagate Barracuda HDD that is 7200RPM with 64MB Cache and load times are pretty much fine. Siege is fairly quick and GTA as well.

Your HDD speeds aren't the only factor, CPU and RAM speeds matter too when it comes to loading times.

If your RAM is slow then it'll take longer for the information to get loaded from the HDD into it.
Also, if you CPU isn't quite up to snuff it can take longer for it to make that information load into the RAM from the HDD and to start processing it.

Again, it depends on what you consider super slow loading times.
But assuming it's taking more than 60sec to load Siege and more than 120sec to load GTA then I would say it's most likely that you just have a slow HDD that is being slowed down by either old age, it being a 5400rpm drive, or both even.

I don't think siege takes more than 60 seconds at medium settings but at very high it may take more I don't remember right now. Gta 5 on the other hand for sure takes more than 120 seconds to load, I'd say about 5 minutes sometimes. And by the way what is a 5400rpm drive and how can I check if I have that?(sorry I'm really noob is this stuff). The model name of my hdd is WDC WD20PURX-64P6ZY0(is that a 5400rpm?). Thanks for the help.

 

[QwerkyPengwen]

the RPM refers to Rotations Per Minute. Because a standard HDD is made using disc platters that store data magnetically and they spin around and the data is then accessed by using a needle on top. Like how a record player uses a needle to read a vinyl record or how a CD/DVD reader uses a laser to read data while the disc spins.

The higher the RPM rate of an HDD the faster the read and write speeds are.

You can either open up your system and look at it or you can go into device manager and get the device serial number and google it.

 

[ProPlayerGR]

the RPM refers to Rotations Per Minute. Because a standard HDD is made using disc platters that store data magnetically and they spin around and the data is then accessed by using a needle on top. Like how a record player uses a needle to read a vinyl record or how a CD/DVD reader uses a laser to read data while the disc spins.

The higher the RPM rate of an HDD the faster the read and write speeds are.

You can either open up your system and look at it or you can go into device manager and get the device serial number and google it.

I have cpuid hwmonitor and it says the serial number is WDC WD20PURX-64P6ZY0. Is that a 5400rpm piece?

 

[QwerkyPengwen]

yes. It's a Western Digital Purple drive.
Simply upgrading to a 7200RPM drive would greatly increase the loading times of your games.

If you so wish though, you can not only upgrade your HDD but get a small SSD as well just exclusively for a couple of games.

For an HDD upgrade I recommend this one.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01IEKG402/?tag=pcpapi-20

And as for a low cost, low capacity SSD I present to you this one.
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820215163
This one is currently on sale right now.

Alternatively this one will do.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01K8A2A0E/?tag=pcpapi-20
(This one is about 50mb/s faster all around compared to the other ADATA SSD I linked.)

 

[ProPlayerGR]

yes. It's a Western Digital Purple drive.
Simply upgrading to a 7200RPM drive would greatly increase the loading times of your games.

If you so wish though, you can not only upgrade your HDD but get a small SSD as well just exclusively for a couple of games.

For an HDD upgrade I recommend this one.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01IEKG402/?tag=pcpapi-20

And as for a low cost, low capacity SSD I present to you this one.
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820215163
This one is currently on sale right now.

Alternatively this one will do.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01K8A2A0E/?tag=pcpapi-20
(This one is about 50mb/s faster all around compared to the other ADATA SSD I linked.)

I already have a ssd though(Sandisk 240gb Ultra II). Should I replace the western digital one with the seagate or should I keep it and add the seagate?

 

[QwerkyPengwen]

You can get the Seagate and just copy over everything then you can wipe the WD and keep it around as extra storage for files like word, pictures, music, etc.
Once you've just copied everything over be sure to update the drive letter of the Seagate to be the same that the WD was so that all your shortcuts still work.