Need a second SSD. Another 850 Pro or an NVMe?

Associate
Joined
12 Oct 2010
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Location
Stratford, London
Hi, I'm in the market for a second 500GB SSD. I thought my 500GB Samsung 850 Pro would do the job when I bought my rig two years ago, but after falling in love with Oculus and VR I have nowhere near enough HDD space for my pancake games and my VR games.

My mobo is an MSI Z170A Gaming M5 with the following slots available:
  • 6 x SATA 6Gb/s ports (4 ports reserved for SATA Express port)
  • 2 x M.2 Key M Socket support type 2280/2260/2242 storage devices in both PCIE Gen3 x4 & SATA mode
  • Supports PCIe 3.0 x4 and SATA 6Gb/s standards, 4.2cm/ 6cm/ 8cm length M.2 SSD cards
  • Supports PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe Mini-SAS SSD with Turbo U.2 Host Card
  • 2 x SATAe ports (PCIe 3.0 x2)

I believe I have three worthy options but am not very knowledgeable on the topic. Can you help advise?
  1. Simply buy a second 500GB 850 Pro.

  2. I noticed there is a newer 860 Pro for the exactly the same price. Is a newer model at the same price a no-brainer? Or will I cause compatibility/mobo/data-transfer issues by running two separate models?

  3. Also in the same price range, I could get a 960 EVO NVMe M.2 SSD.
    I'm not too familiar with it apart from "it should be faster". Again, same price range and even newer and faster, does that imply no-brainer? Also is my mobo fully compatible with it?

Assuming my Mobo has the ports to support any of those options, what would you advise?
Thanks!
 
Last edited:
Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
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14,047
Location
West Midlands
Also in the same price range, I could get a 960 EVO NVMe M.2 SSD.
I'm not too familiar with it apart from "it should be faster". Again, same price range and even newer and faster, does that imply no-brainer? Also is my mobo fully compatible with it?

If your sole use for this will be as a secondary storage drive for games, then all you will notice is that some games load faster. NVMe options offer a much higher uplift in IOPS and data transfer, but gaming uses the bear minimum, hence why a normal SSD is more than adequate.

You can buy a decent 1TB SSD (Crucial, ADATA, etc.) for less than £200 today, which is going to be better for you long term. Also pretty much all SATA3 based drives will manage the top end of the SATA bus speed these days.

If you do opt to go M.2 NVMe then can I suggest you look at the replacement for the 960 EVO, which is the 970 EVO should be the same price give or take £10.

Lastly, no drive will cause any problem paired with any other drive, since they are independent of each other. :)
 
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