Planning for a new PC build, need clarify a few things

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Ultimate Geek

#1553914 17-May-2016 08:53

pstar008:

With M.2 SSD or just SATA?

Boot Speed never bother my much for work Desktop, as I rarely turned it off, and when it need install update or event just restart, I will take a coffee break. But on my home PC, I usually tuned it off after done, but BIOS seems took a long time. If I am starting build a new PC, might worth consider the difference between M.2 and normal SATA.

As mentioned previously, M.2 is a form factor. You can have M.2 SATA and M.2 PCIe (and M.2 PCIe NVME). I thought I'd mention that again in case you go and buy an M.2 SATA SSD and find out its no faster than a 2.5" SATA SSD.

timmmay

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#1553916 17-May-2016 08:55

pstar008:

With M.2 SSD or just SATA?

Boot Speed never bother my much for work Desktop, as I rarely turned it off, and when it need install update or event just restart, I will take a coffee break. But on my home PC, I usually tuned it off after done, but BIOS seems took a long time. If I am starting build a new PC, might worth consider the difference between M.2 and normal SATA.

No idea, I don't take work laptops apart. Toshiba ultrabook, probably almost 2 years old. I don't think the difference in performance between SATA and M2 is going to be noticeable under normal conditions for most people. I might get a PCE-E M2 if I was building a new PC and cost was similar.

Jase2985

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#1553917 17-May-2016 09:06

a M.2 SATA HDD will be no faster than a 2.5in SATA3 HDD as they both use the same bus. A M.2 PCIe HDD on the other hand uses a much faster bus and with a compatable HDD will go 3-4x faster.

Most SSD's are SATA, and they tend to be a bit cheaper than the PCIe SSD ones

timmmay

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#1553926 17-May-2016 09:20

Jase2985:

a M.2 SATA HDD will be no faster than a 2.5in SATA3 HDD as they both use the same bus. A M.2 PCIe HDD on the other hand uses a much faster bus and with a compatable HDD will go 3-4x faster.

How much real world performance gain is there? Obviously Windows boot speed is irrelevant, what does M2 PCIe actually help with by reducing human time or batch processing times?

richms

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#1553957 17-May-2016 09:56

From my understanding not much unless you get a nvme one to replace the less efficient sata interface.

Richard rich.ms

Jase2985

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#1553959 17-May-2016 09:58

real world for most people, probably not much at all.

pstar008

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Ultimate Geek

#1554057 17-May-2016 11:51

D.W:

pstar008:

With M.2 SSD or just SATA?

Boot Speed never bother my much for work Desktop, as I rarely turned it off, and when it need install update or event just restart, I will take a coffee break. But on my home PC, I usually tuned it off after done, but BIOS seems took a long time. If I am starting build a new PC, might worth consider the difference between M.2 and normal SATA.

As mentioned previously, M.2 is a form factor. You can have M.2 SATA and M.2 PCIe (and M.2 PCIe NVME). I thought I'd mention that again in case you go and buy an M.2 SATA SSD and find out its no faster than a 2.5" SATA SSD.

Yeah, NVMe through M.2 is what I meant rather than the SATA through M.2. Most newer motherboard advertise 3-4 times faster than SATA, and assume that you need both motherboard support for NVMe through M.2 and the device side as well.

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pstar008

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Ultimate Geek

#1554113 17-May-2016 13:06

timmmay:

Jase2985:

a M.2 SATA HDD will be no faster than a 2.5in SATA3 HDD as they both use the same bus. A M.2 PCIe HDD on the other hand uses a much faster bus and with a compatable HDD will go 3-4x faster.

How much real world performance gain is there? Obviously Windows boot speed is irrelevant, what does M2 PCIe actually help with by reducing human time or batch processing times?

Exactly, that what's I was trying to figure out, whether M.2 make a difference in term of user perception. Isn't the first thing people noticed the difference between SSD and HDD is the system boot time? I am trying to figure out the difference in user/myself can perceived way is more like SSD VS HDD or SATA2 VS SATA3?

I would expect an ultra book more likely to user a M.2 connection as no need for normal hard drive enclosure as SATA SSD is major advantage of M.2, but it might be using SATA interface/bus.

richms

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#1554122 17-May-2016 13:22

I dont know how much difference there is between sata 600 connection and a m2 ssd, I have an old m2 drive in a USB3 case and it performs just as well as a sata ssd on a usb to sata adapter.

The thing is, if you are building a small machine, the m2 drive means you have space to stick a large capacity spinning rust drive on the sata ports and in the mounts that you would not have if there was a 2.5" ssd taking that space up.

Richard rich.ms

Jase2985

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#1554137 17-May-2016 13:48

SATA 2 VS SATA 3 on a SSD the difference is a few seconds (aprox 5) on bootup (I have an old laptop which only has SATA 2)

the difference between a spinning disk and a SSD would be a lot more noticeable than the difference between a SATA and PCIe M.2 drive or even SATA 2 and SATA 3.

pstar008

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Ultimate Geek

#1554390 17-May-2016 21:07

Jase2985:

SATA 2 VS SATA 3 on a SSD the difference is a few seconds (aprox 5) on bootup (I have an old laptop which only has SATA 2)

the difference between a spinning disk and a SSD would be a lot more noticeable than the difference between a SATA and PCIe M.2 drive or even SATA 2 and SATA 3.

Seems I caused a bit confusion, I was thinking most of the case the difference between SATA 2 and SATA 3 wouldn't have significant different, as it's only about double the bandwidth, and it wasn't that often for a SSD to exceed SATA2 bandwidth (probably wasn't hold true anymore as SSD are getting even faster). Where the difference between SSD and HDD is orders of magnitude, and difference between M.2 NVMe SSD and SATA must be between those two situation. But what I don't know is how easy it is for current SSD to exceed the bandwidth of SATA 3 thus we can benefit from M.2 NVMe bus on normal usage or just Windows boot time difference.

richms

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#1554489 17-May-2016 23:04

There is also inefficiancy in the sata protocol when dealing with a flash memory device since it was designed for spinning media. Often see mid 500's for a single sata connected SSD, that is basically all you will get with a sata 6gb connection.

nvme is made to do flash memory from the start, its a well overdue replacement of basically what is fix upon tweek upon speed increse on top of IDE drives from 30 years ago.

Richard rich.ms

Jase2985

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#1554523 18-May-2016 06:04

pstar008:

Jase2985:

SATA 2 VS SATA 3 on a SSD the difference is a few seconds (aprox 5) on bootup (I have an old laptop which only has SATA 2)

the difference between a spinning disk and a SSD would be a lot more noticeable than the difference between a SATA and PCIe M.2 drive or even SATA 2 and SATA 3.

Seems I caused a bit confusion, I was thinking most of the case the difference between SATA 2 and SATA 3 wouldn't have significant different, as it's only about double the bandwidth, and it wasn't that often for a SSD to exceed SATA2 bandwidth (probably wasn't hold true anymore as SSD are getting even faster). Where the difference between SSD and HDD is orders of magnitude, and difference between M.2 NVMe SSD and SATA must be between those two situation. But what I don't know is how easy it is for current SSD to exceed the bandwidth of SATA 3 thus we can benefit from M.2 NVMe bus on normal usage or just Windows boot time difference.

i think your missing that a PCIe SSD and a SATA SSD are not made they same, they have the same connector but the working of it are completely different.

the PCIe Drives are different machines to the SATA ones so its easy to get upwards of 2000MB/S write speed on a PCIe interface vs a max of 600MB/s on a SATA one, and like Rich said add in overheads etc and you will probably get in the mid to low 500's.

why you are still worrying about it, i dont know, you either want a drive that goes 600MB/s or you want one that does 2000MB/s. This then dictates the type of motherboard you need to support the SSD format you choose.

Are there real world gains from it, possibly, but PCIe and NVMe drives look like they are the future, so you could say future proofing your system isnt a bad idea, and they are currently about double the price of a standard M.2 SATA drive.

pstar008

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Ultimate Geek

#1554562 18-May-2016 08:48

richms:

There is also inefficiancy in the sata protocol when dealing with a flash memory device since it was designed for spinning media. Often see mid 500's for a single sata connected SSD, that is basically all you will get with a sata 6gb connection.

nvme is made to do flash memory from the start, its a well overdue replacement of basically what is fix upon tweek upon speed increse on top of IDE drives from 30 years ago.

So it more than the difference thant SATA2 to SATA3 then

Jase2985

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#1554596 18-May-2016 09:23

nothing has SATA2 these days anyway, only place you will really find it is in 3-4+ year old kit.

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