Is this M.2 SSD actually worth buying?

[Deleted]

I've just got a new motherboard and it supports M.2 SSD's and claims to be up to 32GB/s. But I've seen many of these M.2 SSD's to vary in speeds and I always get confused. Also because it says "max read/write", is that actually going to be a noticeable difference to a standard SSD? I need to get a new SSD anyway so I was wondering if it's worth the money.

This is my MoBo:
https://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Comp...roductId=64491

And this is the SSD I'm thinking of getting if worth it, and are they definitely compatible? I understand that this might seem like a typical "New PC Build" post that does not belong in this thread, but I was mainly wondering if M.2's are actually good and worth the money so I wasn't sure which forum this post belongs in.

https://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials...roductId=64939

I never understand how M.2's can be so different in their specs. Like this one is only 2GB/s? Or am I read this wrong? Most likely am. I'm going by the max read. I don't get this stuff! If anyone can explain this to me that would be great, thank you
https://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Stor...roductId=64187

[Eroginous]

I've just got a new motherboard and it supports M.2 SSD's and claims to be up to 32GB/s. But I've seen many of these M.2 SSD's to vary in speeds and I always get confused. Also because it says "max read/write", is that actually going to be a noticeable difference to a standard SSD? I need to get a new SSD anyway so I was wondering if it's worth the money.

This is my MoBo:
https://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Comp...roductId=64491

And this is the SSD I'm thinking of getting if worth it, and are they definitely compatible? I understand that this might seem like a typical "New PC Build" post that does not belong in this thread, but I was mainly wondering if M.2's are actually good and worth the money so I wasn't sure which forum this post belongs in.

https://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials...roductId=64939

I never understand how M.2's can be so different in their specs. Like this one is only 2GB/s? Or am I read this wrong? Most likely am. I'm going by the max read. I don't get this stuff! If anyone can explain this to me that would be great, thank you
https://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Stor...roductId=64187

M.2 is faster because the bus it uses is a newer tech, capable of much higher bandwidth than a SATA 3 bus (4 pci lanes instead of 1). That's always been the limit before, how fast a SATA 3 bus can go using only 1 pci lane. However, I'm not sure the speeds of an m.2 will translate into a worthwhile return on investment for a gamer. That's up to you and whether or not you want to pay a premium for it. I like the form factor of M.2, it lets you do builds/case mods without needing to consider hard drive placement.

[Deleted]

However, I'm not sure the speeds of an m.2 will translate into a worthwhile return on investment for a gamer.

What about for someone who uses powerful software like Unity? Or Photoshop / Video editing stuff? I use my computer for a lot of things besides just games. Is that first SSD I linked the right one I need? Not sure why the last one is so much cheaper Thank you very much for the info!

[Eroginous]

NVME is a much faster memory controller than AHCI, so I'd get the first one.

https://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials...roductId=64939

And yes, productivity is where you're going to notice the speeds. Gaming, not so much. Load times should be super fast for gaming, but you probably won't notice the difference in gaming until you're trying to use multiple applications at once in a demanding way to access the hard drive. Like, watching 4k movies and playing a 4k game while you encode a video you've put together. The sheer amount of data being handled by the PCI bus would need more bandwidth to remain efficient.

So yeah, I'd recommend an m.2 over a regular SSD for you.

[Deleted]

NVME is a much faster memory controller than AHCI, so I'd get the first one.

https://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials...roductId=64939

And yes, productivity is where you're going to notice the speeds. Gaming, not so much. Load times should be super fast for gaming, but you probably won't notice the difference in gaming until you're trying to use multiple applications at once in a demanding way to access the hard drive. Like, watching 4k movies and playing a 4k game while you encode a video you've put together. The sheer amount of data being handled by the PCI bus would need more bandwidth to remain efficient.

So yeah, I'd recommend an m.2 over a regular SSD for you.

Thank you, appreciate it! Sounds promising

[Ssateneth]

The difference between an m.2 drive and a mechanical drive is night and day. But the difference between an m.2 drive and a sata SSD is, in a human-perceivable perspective, very little, especially in day-to-day usage. The difference only shows up in benchmarks and very large continuous read and/or writes (random or sequential).

If you gotta have the latest and greatest, sure, go for it. I won't tell you not to or recommend against it. But if you are upgrading from SATA SSD to M.2 SSD, it won't be night and day like mechanical hdd to ssd.

BTW, whoever said 1 SATA port = 1 pci-e lane, thats not how it works. Sure, one SATA 3 port offers similar throughput to a single PCI-E 2.0 lane (600MB/sec for SATA 3 vs 625MB/sec for PCI-E 2.0 1x lane) but it's not pure pci-e and there are additional latencies inherent to ACPI over SATA that a NVME over PCI-E drive (be it M.2, U.2, or PCI-E slot) doesn't have.

[Eroginous]

The difference between an m.2 drive and a mechanical drive is night and day. But the difference between an m.2 drive and a sata SSD is, in a human-perceivable perspective, very little, especially in day-to-day usage. The difference only shows up in benchmarks and very large continuous read and/or writes (random or sequential).

If you gotta have the latest and greatest, sure, go for it. I won't tell you not to or recommend against it. But if you are upgrading from SATA SSD to M.2 SSD, it won't be night and day like mechanical hdd to ssd.

BTW, whoever said 1 SATA port = 1 pci-e lane, thats not how it works. Sure, one SATA 3 port offers similar throughput to a single PCI-E 2.0 lane (600MB/sec for SATA 3 vs 625MB/sec for PCI-E 2.0 1x lane) but it's not pure pci-e and there are additional latencies inherent to ACPI over SATA that a NVME over PCI-E drive (be it M.2, U.2, or PCI-E slot) doesn't have.

You're thinking single usage, like someone who only uses their PC for one thing at a time. Most people don't use their PC like that. If you have multiple heavy use programs open at once sharing data on a SATA 3 port it's going to move slower than if it were being handled across NVME. That's the usage case I was talking about.

And yes, there are other problems with AHCI that inhibit SSD speeds, such as AHCI being originally designed for latency laden platters on a hard drive, and not for super fast NAND memory. I did say that it was up to him to decide if the premium was worth it for NVME, so I don't really see the problem with suggesting the faster platform (especially since it's more future proof) if he's willing to pay a little more money.