NVMe vs M.2

[ZeroG]

I'm looking to buy a larger capacity drive for my Steam library. Currently it's on a 6TB SATA drive and taking up approx 2.5TB, which is only a small part of my Steam library. I'm sure there are some games that would benefit from load times etc on a faster drive.

I thought about an M.2 drive like https://www.overclockers.co.uk/wd-b...-solid-state-drive-wds100t2b0b-hd-54n-wd.html but reading up a little it disables 2x sata ports (is this true?). But there's also this https://www.overclockers.co.uk/cors...d-state-drive-cssd-f960gbmp510-hd-065-cs.html which is a little more expensive.

My motherboard is an MSI X99A SLI PLUS which does have an M.2 slot however is the NVMe drive compatible with this board?

 

[bimbleuk]

I've got an X99 board and a similar M.2 SATA slot and yes an NVMe should work as it's backward compatible. NVMe is more efficient protocol with big advantages in a IO intensive loads but in normal use it's the higher transfer speeds that benefit you more though even SATA is plenty fast enough as modern solid state devices are maxing it out. Typically SATA 5/6 ports are shared with the PCIE lanes that feed the M.2 slot so yes they are disabled.

I also use M.2 NVMe drives in spare PCI-E slots with an adapter.

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/akasa-m.2-ssd-to-pcie-adapter-card-cc-008-ak.html

 

[EssexBoy]

yes it disables two sata ports to use the m.2 drive. If you need them ports or want faster read\write then you will need a nvme

 

[an0nym0us]

I'm looking to buy a larger capacity drive for my Steam library. Currently it's on a 6TB SATA drive and taking up approx 2.5TB, which is only a small part of my Steam library. I'm sure there are some games that would benefit from load times etc on a faster drive.

I thought about an M.2 drive like https://www.overclockers.co.uk/wd-b...-solid-state-drive-wds100t2b0b-hd-54n-wd.html but reading up a little it disables 2x sata ports (is this true?). But there's also this https://www.overclockers.co.uk/cors...d-state-drive-cssd-f960gbmp510-hd-065-cs.html which is a little more expensive.

My motherboard is an MSI X99A SLI PLUS which does have an M.2 slot however is the NVMe drive compatible with this board?

Yes, your motherboard is able to accommodate one M.2 NVMe SSD (NVMe means it uses PCIe bus).

• 1 x M.2 port, supports M.2 SATA 6Gb/s module* or M.2 PCIe module up to 32Gb/s speed**

• M.2 Key M Socket supports type 2280/2260/2242 storage devices in both PCIE Gen3 x4 & SATA mode
• M.2 port supports 4.2cm/ 6cm/ 8cm length module
• M.2 PCIe module does not support RAID 0, RAID1, RAID 5 and RAID 10.

* The SATA Express port or SATA5~6 ports will be unavailable when installing the M.2 (Gen2 x2 mode) module in the M.2 port.
** Intel RST does not support PCIe M.2 SSD with Legacy ROM.

https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/X99A-SLI-PLUS/Specification

The Sabrent 1TB ROCKET NVMe PCIe M.2 2280 is currently very well priced right now, but you'd have to shop around for it.

 

[Steveocee]

There is no point going for an NVMe drive over a "normal" SSD if all you are planning on doing is putting games on it. Games will load faster being on SSD compared to HDD for certain but the difference NVMe>SSD is negligible and only becomes apparent in benchmarks.

NVMe is still priced higher than equivalent capacity SSD as well so it totally makes sense to go for SSD as well as being able to keep the 2 ports open, you could effectively run 2 SSDs and split the library across them.

 

[Oblivion007]

If its for gaming just stick with an SSD. You won't notice the difference between NVMe and SSD - you'll save a few quid too.

 

[ZeroG]

So given the choice between these two products would people still choose the SSD?
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/seag...olid-state-drive-za1000cm1a002-hd-3a9-se.html

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/inte...id-state-drive-ssdpeknw010t8x1-hd-08v-in.html

 

[EsaT]

So given the choice between these two products would people still choose the SSD?
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/seag...olid-state-drive-za1000cm1a002-hd-3a9-se.html

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/inte...id-state-drive-ssdpeknw010t8x1-hd-08v-in.html

Intel 660p uses pretty much analog QLC flash, which needs to distinguish between 16 charge states. (vs. 8 for TLC)
That makes its durability lot worser, because there isn't much tolerance for charge degradation/interference.
And its native unbuffered writing speed is slower than old "spinning rust".
It simply masks that by initially writing in SLC mode/one bit per cell untill running out of empty space.
After that write speed collapses to IIRC ~80MB/s.

So QLC drives should be good amount cheaper per GB than TLC drives.
Especially now that Kingston has TLC based A2000 NVMe priced to same level with SATA SSDs.


As you mentioned having multi-TB game library, SSD caching would be good supplement.
Splitting some 50GB partition for caching wouldn't mean really anything in 1TB SSD.
https://www.romexsoftware.com/en-us/primo-cache/

You could have heavier/often played games in SSD for getting full SSD speed, while less demanding/less often played games can be kept on HDD.
When you first time load game from cached HDD, it happens at speed of HDD.
But that accessed data is written to SSD cache and when it's needed next time it's loaded at speed of SSD.
And playing through multiple levels of game would get most of game's assets cached, making subsequent level loading/game load in next day closer to native SSD installation speed.
If you decide to play another game from HDD, caching happens similarly.
And once SSD cache becomes full, oldest/least used data is simply replaced by new data.

Here's testing of PrimoCache:
https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/did-some-benchmarking-of-an-ssd-caching-solution.2533859/
Compare that lower RUN 2 group of results to HDD Run 1 or native SSD runs.

 

[sideways14a]

Or you could use something like primocache and a cheep 128 or 256Gb ssd to cache the big spinner and make it faster.

 

[ZeroG]

I guess that's an option I could look into. I just thought it might be easier to buy a large SSD and install Steam onto it.

 

[EsaT]

I thought about an M.2 drive like https://www.overclockers.co.uk/wd-b...-solid-state-drive-wds100t2b0b-hd-54n-wd.html but reading up a little it disables 2x sata ports (is this true?). But there's also this https://www.overclockers.co.uk/cors...d-state-drive-cssd-f960gbmp510-hd-065-cs.html which is a little more expensive.

My motherboard is an MSI X99A SLI PLUS which does have an M.2 slot however is the NVMe drive compatible with this board?

Documentation isn't fully clear/detailed, but manual's block diagram (page 1-7) shows that M.2 slot's PCIe v3 (x4) mode drive gets its lanes from CPU and shouldn't have effect to chipset's ports.
PCIe v2 x2 mode lanes are again taken from chipset, apparently sharing signal wiring with those two SATA ports of SATA Express.
And that's also source of SATA support of M.2 slot.

 

[ZeroG]

Looking around at prices and performance it might just be the case of getting a 1TB SSD and putting my most used games on it and keeping everything else on my 6TB drive.

Not keeping up with the latest technology I didn't realise there was diffent issues with the likes of QLC etc.

 

[Minstadave]

Looking around at prices and performance it might just be the case of getting a 1TB SSD and putting my most used games on it and keeping everything else on my 6TB drive.

Not keeping up with the latest technology I didn't realise there was diffent issues with the likes of QLC etc.

I would do the same.

 

[EsaT]

Looking around at prices and performance it might just be the case of getting a 1TB SSD and putting my most used games on it and keeping everything else on my 6TB drive.

Not keeping up with the latest technology I didn't realise there was diffent issues with the likes of QLC etc.

PrimoCache has free fully functional 30 day period you could try it.

Crucial P1 is another QLC drive.
And likely with exactly same hardware as Intel, because of cooperation between them and Micron. (whose consumer product brand Crucial is)
Samsung's x-bit MLC marketing scammery 860 QVO is also QLC drive, despite of pricing similar to TLC SATA drives and now even to Kingston's TLC NVMe drive.
Adata SU630 is another QLC drive.

And don't worry, in few years they'll make QLC look good in comparison.
Some lame brains in need of "cognitive recalibration" with fine adjuster are already tinkering in trying to make Penta Level Cells with ludicrous 32 charge states:
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/toshiba-5-bit-per-cell-flash-plx-xl-nand-pcie-4.0-ssd,40237.html
Wouldn't wonder if write speeds match "good old" floppy drives.
Maybe even write endurance will match that of clay tablet and data retention that of water colour painting in outside wall.

 

[ZeroG]

This is what always confuses me when looking for new hardware so I try and do research and seek as much advice as possible {which sometimes leaves me even more confused when getting conflicting information in reviews and such).

A piece of hardware looks great at a certain price until you start reading about it. Different manufacturers have different terms for same tech etc.

My current SSDs are fairly old. Windows is installed on a 500GB Samsung SSD 840 Evo and a 120GB OCZ Vertex2 for some random small games.

 

[EsaT]

This is what always confuses me when looking for new hardware so I try and do research and seek as much advice as possible {which sometimes leaves me even more confused when getting conflicting information in reviews and such).


Windows is installed on a 500GB Samsung SSD 840 Evo.

Usual rule is that if you're not confused at some point, then you're not researching.

IIRC 840 Evo was the first ever TLC drive.
Made with tiny transistors of planar/single layer NAND it just couldn't store charge state inside tolerances, causing slowing down from heavy reliance on error correction when bits started evaporating.
It was bubblegum and duct tape fixed eventually after couple firmware updates making controller rewrite/refresh data after some time period. (kinda like in DRAM)

Bigger more robust transistors of 3D NAND made TLC comparable to old planar MLC.
But QLC again removes charge state tolerances.
That's plenty of reason to be suspicious of QLC.

 

[sideways14a]

You could just get a big 1tb drive - but as the likes of primo cache is free to trial i would give it a shot with a couple of gigs of ram and at least a 128gb ssd partition.
Not going to cost much to try and it does speed up spinners as i use it with a 3tb drive for steam and other games n crap.

 

[Drumroll]

SSD should be fine.
The only scenario where I can really "feel" the performance gain is when moving a very large file or folder.
Loading times, I'm not running anything really heavy, but under games, can't tell the difference from the 840 EVO to the 960 EVO to the 970 EVO. All have been the primary drive at some point, and the 970 is the one at the moment.
Also you could try a PCI-E adapter if for any reason can't "waste" 2 SATA ports.

 

[Avalon]

MSI X99 owner here, update the BIOS and NVMe works - I seem to recall some fixes being rolled out in a previous update that improved support/stability. I have a 970 Pro in currently as a daily driver.

Intel 660p uses pretty much analog QLC flash, which needs to distinguish between 16 charge states. (vs. 8 for TLC)
That makes its durability lot worser, because there isn't much tolerance for charge degradation/interference.
And its native unbuffered writing speed is slower than old "spinning rust".
It simply masks that by initially writing in SLC mode/one bit per cell untill running out of empty space.
After that write speed collapses to IIRC ~80MB/s.

This is one of those often quoted facts that has little relevance in the real world for many people’s usage, or in this case, the op’s anticipated usage scenario. The dynamic SLC area is between 6GB and 76GB on a 512GB 660p, that goes up to 12/140 on 1TB and 24/280 on 2TB. Other than the initial copy over if op is dumping several hundred GB’s, it’s very unlikely they will notice any real world difference between QLC and TLC for write speed, especially as the end use is going to look more like write once, read often. Now if the price point is the same, then obviously TLC makes more sense, but i’ve paid as little as £75/TB for 660’s (2TB), I haven’t seen TLC drives that cheaply, yet. Would I put one in my main Ubuntu box doing 15+TB of writes per day? No way. But for Steam or a general desktop, it’ll be more than adequate - think about how many times you’ve seen drives with low smart health come up for sale, it’s rare people actually use them in anger.

 

[chrcoluk]

PrimoCache has free fully functional 30 day period you could try it.

Crucial P1 is another QLC drive.
And likely with exactly same hardware as Intel, because of cooperation between them and Micron. (whose consumer product brand Crucial is)
Samsung's x-bit MLC marketing scammery 860 QVO is also QLC drive, despite of pricing similar to TLC SATA drives and now even to Kingston's TLC NVMe drive.
Adata SU630 is another QLC drive.

And don't worry, in few years they'll make QLC look good in comparison.
Some lame brains in need of "cognitive recalibration" with fine adjuster are already tinkering in trying to make Penta Level Cells with ludicrous 32 charge states:
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/toshiba-5-bit-per-cell-flash-plx-xl-nand-pcie-4.0-ssd,40237.html
Wouldn't wonder if write speeds match "good old" floppy drives.
Maybe even write endurance will match that of clay tablet and data retention that of water colour painting in outside wall.

Yeah, QLC is pretty much a joke. QLC drives are barely 10-20% cheaper at most. When the QVO launched it was the same price as the EVO LOL.