Understanding data transfer speeds

[FBi7]

Hi folks,

I've well and truly entered an area I'm not completely au fait with and your feedback would be appreciated. Rig in sig, I appreciate it's old now, think the CPU is now at 4.4 GHz.

I've been toying with the idea of buying one of these which boasts 2400/1900 MB/s read/write speeds, with the hope of speeding up loading times in MSFS2020 and P3D (will move the OS to another SSD). I know this isn't the fastest drive on the market, but it's cheap. Is this a realistic expectation/option given the following:

My C: drive is a 240GB WD Green M.2 drive (which I've only just realised is SATA). Top line of the 4 CrystalDiskMark speeds is 535/434 MB/s read/write.

I have two identical 1TB SSDs with MSFS2020 on one and P3D on the other. Top line of the 4 CrystalDiskMark speeds is 561/523 MB/s read/write.

And just for reference, I have a 2TB HDD (7200 rpm). Top line of the 4 CrystalDiskMark speeds is 187/181 MB/s read/write.

My main questions are:
1 - Do these figures seem right to you?
2 - Can I expect a significant improvement in sim load times/expect to see the 2400/1900 MB/s advertised?
3 - Am I limited by my older motherboard/cpu?
4 - Will having the sims on NVMe be a detriment to in-sim smoothness/fps?

Comments/feedback much appreciated.

FB..

 

[FBi7]

Hi, thanks for a quick reply.

It’s likely that the more important figure is IOPS (input/output operations per second)

Here's a screenshot of IOPS. Top set is my M2 drive, bottom is a standard SSD. I have no idea what SEQ1M Q8T1, etc, mean

As long as your motherboard has a spare M.2 slot, it’s PCIe based (and not SATA) and you have available PCIe lanes, you’ll be good to go.

Only a single M2 slot on my board. Suspect it's SATA based as if I use the M2 slot, I lose the use of SATA ports 5&6. Re PCIe lanes, again, not a clue. Have 2 x PCIe slots on the mobo, only using one for the GFX card at the min.

Edit: I’m on mobile and can’t see signatures

Asus Z97-K | Intel i5 4690K @ 4.4GHz | Asus GTX1060 OC 6GB

 

[FBi7]

@MrRockliffe - That's extremely informative, thank you.

If you’re loading a game/simulation, it’s more likely you’re loading smaller bits of information, in a more random order

Yeah, Flight Sims are 10s/100s of 1000s of smaller files, scattered all over the place.

Given your situation, I’d be very tempted to go for a SATA based SSD if you’re not planning to upgrade your CPU and motherboard

No plans to upgrade CPU/motherboard at the moment. My next proper upgrade would be a better GFX card, when they're more readily available and sensibly priced I'll dig out the mobo manual and see what that says re NVMe/PCIe. I'll also look into the feasibility of combining an M2 NVMe with a PCI adapter.

Thanks again for all your help,

FB..

 

[FBi7]

^Thanks both.

Not got around to doing anything yet, too busy procrastinating