Which M.2 drive for my OS?

[StevieP]

I'm replacing my SanDisk SSD with a 2TB Crucial SSD to install games onto but I quite like the idea of installing my OS on a relatively small separate M.2 drive - either 256GB or possibly 512GB if the price is right!

I was leaning towards the Sabrent Rocket but have read a bit recently about them changing the quality of one of the components that could affect the performance or the reliability?? - which M.2 drives would you fine people recommend for an OS drive?

 

[Space Monkey]

I'm replacing my SanDisk SSD with a 2TB Crucial SSD to install games onto but I quite like the idea of installing my OS on a relatively small separate M.2 drive - either 256GB or possibly 512GB if the price is right!

I was leaning towards the Sabrent Rocket but have read a bit recently about them changing the quality of one of the components that could affect the performance or the reliability?? - which M.2 drives would you fine people recommend for an OS drive?

I've done something similar, just bought a Sabrent Rocket 512GB for the OS & 1TB for the games drive, haven't installed these yet but previously had a 1TB from them and it was perfectly fine speed and quality wise.

I've not seen the comments regarding the lower quality ones? Was it early drives or newer drives that were affected?

 

[StevieP]

I've not seen the comments regarding the lower quality ones? Was it early drives or newer drives that were affected?

I saw a link to a review on the rainforest that said there had been changes - pretty recent I think!

"Sabrent technical called me back several days later and confirmed that manufacturing has changed the specification and design of the product and did bother to tell anyone, even the tech support at Sabrent

as I stated, if you compare the chip layout paying specific attention to the resistors and cache chip by the pci-e connector.. you can see that it does not match the picture posted here on amazon by the Mfg. Further, if you look at the photo of the 3 reference layouts for Phison, you will notice that the card on the right, the reference E12 layout is what the Mfg advertises it uses, however if you look at the photo of the part that I received, it more closely resembled the E8 layout from 2017. I did not even get the E8 level of performance out of the drive."

Truth be told I don't know if it's true - or even if it makes any difference, but I was just wondering whether anyone here had had any experience of the (supposed) change.

 

[Gibbo]

Check out the following:
Corsair MP510
TeamGroup MP34
Patriot VPN
Gigabyte M2

All are the same hardware and all excellent value though Gigabyte have best price right now.

 

[SirJinks]

I saw a link to a review on the rainforest that said there had been changes - pretty recent I think!

FWIW I've read some chatter that Sabrent's support have confirmed they moved from the E12 to the E12s controller as well as a change to the reference pcb design, people have reported their new design Rocket's benchmark at similar levels to E12 reference drives. Only way to be certain though is to look at the markings on the controller chip itself though. As always ymmv.

 

[Cyber-Mav]

Do nvme drives use dram cache?