M2 SSD vs NVME

mrochester · 18 Sep 2017 at 11:38

hi all

Would an M2 SSD feel slow in usage in a laptop when I’ve been used to an nVME based SSD for the last three years?

Best wishes

M.

HoneyBadger · 18 Sep 2017 at 11:56

I assume you mean an M.2 SATA SSD VS M.2 NVME SSD? The answer is no, you won't notice a lot of difference.

mrochester · 18 Sep 2017 at 11:58

HoneyBadger said:
I assume you mean an M.2 SATA SSD VS M.2 NVME SSD? The answer is no, you won't notice a lot of difference.

Correct, specifically the difference between a 2014 MBP SSD and an Asus Zenbook Pro SSD.

Radox-0 · 18 Sep 2017 at 13:09

Think there may be some confusion, so hopefully can clear a few things up. M.2 is the form factor, NVMe is the protocol (ACHI is the other common one). The interface used for most SSD's is SATA with quick ones using PCIe, specifically GEN 3.0 x 4. Currently NVMe drives such as 960 Pro / EVO etc also use PCIe Gen 3.0 x 4 lanes to attain the very high speeds they do.

Your Macbook Pro 2014 has a much more limited speed of Gen 2.0 x 2 lanes (if this is correct: http://www.everymac.com/mac-ssd-sto...-pro-hard-drive-ssd-storage-upgrade-info.html). So while it uses PCIe lane's it does so at much slower speeds then modern drives so the speed your likely seeing with your Macbook Pro 2014, for drive speeds at least is no higher then a typical SSD using SATA (your Samsung 850 EVO's for example). It more recently M.2 slots which support the higher speeds of new NVMe M.2 drives are becoming commonplace on the new platform's.

The current ASUS Zenbook Pro has capability to support higher speed drives then your MBP 2014 so will not be a step back in that aspect.

As for your actual question however, for a majority of task's most user's will not notice the difference in performance between even a normal SSD like 850 EVO and 960 Pro. The benefits come into play with certain workloads's like opening / closing large files multiple times, large read / write tasks etc. For most people working with document's, opening web browser, playing games. Difference will usually be imperceptible.

Avalon · 19 Sep 2017 at 09:12

The law of diminishing returns kicked in a long time ago, in all but niche usage scenario's and benchmarks the differences between SSD's is not generally perceivable to the average end user.