PBTech SSD types

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kiwifidget

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#277235 2-Oct-2020 17:02

Hello.

I am looking at some PC's at PBTech and I am a bit confused about some of the terms they are using.

"256GB PCIe M.2 SSD"

"256GB PCIe NVMe M.2 SSD"

"256GB PCIe NVMe SSD"

Are these all the same SSD or different in some way?

BTW they are all in HP ProOne 400 G5 machines.

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gcorgnet

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#2578225 2-Oct-2020 17:47

M.2 refers to the physical format. (these are small sticks that look like small RAM sticks) that plug straight into the Motherboard.

NVMe refer to the logical transfer protocol of these disks. SO yeah, these disks are mostly equivalent.

The speed (Read and Write) may vary and coiuld explain a difference in price.

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#2578246 2-Oct-2020 18:24

Surprisingly (to me), the HP ProOne 400 G5 has options for both the slower SATA and the faster NVME SSDs. There is quite a performance difference when you are 'stretching their legs', but for general home computer use, the difference may not be really noticeable. For reference, we provide our corporate clients with 1Tb Samsung Evo SSDs at (very approximately) $250 +GST for a SATA model, and around $350 +GST for an NVME model. The price difference reflects the difference in cost... we don't put a higher margin on faster items.

HP ProOne G5 Datasheet: http://h20195.www2.hp.com/v2/getpdf.aspx/4AA7-5927ENL.pdf (see Internal Storage area)

Quick read on SATA vs NVMe: https://techreport.com/blog/3467943/nvme-vs-ssd-test/

The G5 models are being cleared out to make way for the G6 models which all have NVME drives. Perhaps find a specific HP model number (e.g. 7ZV68PA) and check its specs. I'm 80% sure all the G5 models in NZ had NVME drives, but it would pay to do a bit of googling to confirm, if this was important to you.

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#2578264 2-Oct-2020 18:41

M.2 is the form factor/connector style (physical size & layout).

Anything stating "PCIe" is usually the NVMe drives which offer around 3000MB/s read/write speeds. These are the better drives if carrying out sustained reads or writes. Bootup times are drastically reduced.

Anything stating SATA is the bog standard SATA protocol, which offers read/write speeds around 500MB/s, which is the same as "standard" 2.5" form factor SSDs. The only benefit of these is the smaller footprint of the M.2 form factor.

Even if your motherboard doesn't have an M.2 drive slot, you can get PCIe adapters which allow installation of an NVMe drive directly into the PCIe slots on the motherboard. Depending on your BIOS version, it may or may not support boot from this drive, however it can still be used as stupidly fast general storage for application files.