# Worth upgrading 7 year old SSD?



## oli_ramsay (Dec 2, 2018)

Would I see any tangible benefit upgrading my old crucial M4 SSD to an m.2 drive when I build a new PC and carry across storage.

I've heard in real world usage it's unnoticeable but obviously benchmarks tell a different story...

Thoughts?


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## Zyll Goliat (Dec 2, 2018)

oli_ramsay said:


> Would I see any tangible benefit upgrading my old crucial M4 SSD to an m.2 drive when I build a new PC and carry across storage.
> 
> I've heard in real world usage it's unnoticeable but obviously benchmarks tell a different story...
> 
> Thoughts?


Well...Yes and No....You could see some benefit maybe in certain games loading time could be faster also if you do a lot of copy/paste paticularly larger files,also maybe in  some apps you can benefit to but do not expect miracles like when you switched from HDD on SSD.....


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## Deleted member 67555 (Dec 2, 2018)

oli_ramsay said:


> Would I see any tangible benefit upgrading my old crucial M4 SSD to an m.2 drive when I build a new PC and carry across storage.
> 
> I've heard in real world usage it's unnoticeable but obviously benchmarks tell a different story...
> 
> Thoughts?


Yes it does make a difference.
IMO it is worth it.
Most of the gimp in your system is fetching data so faster is still faster whether or not it adds to your user experience or not.


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## hat (Dec 2, 2018)

Note that m.2 is just a form factor. An m.2 can either be the really fast NVMe type (what you seem to be referring to) or it can still be a plain SATA drive. That said, I think you would see a bigger benefit from getting more SSD storage and... storing more stuff on it. If you're storing a lot of games on that spinner, you might notice better load times and overall performance from having it on a SSD instead, even if it's SATA and not NVMe.


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## Komshija (Dec 3, 2018)

Depends what you are doing with your PC. Moving, copying or editing large files will be slightly faster even on the budget (cheapest) newer M.2 NVMe or mSATA compared to an old SSD. Maybe even the OS will load some 2 seconds faster... 
If you need more space, like 240 GB or 480 GB, 2.5" SSD's are reasonably priced at the moment.


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## tabascosauz (Dec 3, 2018)

M.2 is more useful for smaller ITX builds where 2.5” drives just might not be feasible, hence the presence of M.2 2260 or 2280 in a lot of ITX boards.

What I want to know is how much you’ve used that M4 and what CrystalDiskInfo says about its health and total writes.


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## newtekie1 (Dec 3, 2018)

If you were upgrading from a more modern drive, I'd say it isn't worth it.  However, the M4 is a pretty old drive, and performance wise is quite a bit behind modern SSDs.

So, yes, I say it is worth it to upgrade the M4.  Even if you just upgrade it to another SATA drive...


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## oli_ramsay (Dec 3, 2018)

Samsung Evo 970 any good?


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## Deleted member 67555 (Dec 3, 2018)

oli_ramsay said:


> Samsung Evo 970 any good?


Yeah... They are fantastic.
So are 3rd generation WD Black NVMe.


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## rtwjunkie (Dec 3, 2018)

newtekie1 said:


> If you were upgrading from a more modern drive, I'd say it isn't worth it.  However, the M4 is a pretty old drive, and performance wise is quite a bit behind modern SSDs.
> 
> So, yes, I say it is worth it to upgrade the M4.  Even if you just upgrade it to another SATA drive...


This^^^. It’s exactly what I came into thread to say.  Even a SATA would be an improvement.


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## R0H1T (Dec 3, 2018)

Yes & yes, it is noticeable in real world usage but really it depends on what you're doing. If all you're doing is browsing the web or watching movies, listening to songs then you won't see too much benefit.
Depending on your budget & needs a regular SATA or NVMe drive will do quite well.


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## bug (Dec 3, 2018)

jmcslob said:


> Yeah... They are fantastic.
> So are 3rd generation WD Black NVMe.


Adding the mandatory Crucial MX500 to the list.
Get whichever is cheapest, performance is more or less the same 

But beware. Your motherboard only has one mSATA (not M2) port and that is SATA 3Gbps only. It also disables two one of your other SATA ports. Imho you should be looking for a plain SATA SSD instead. That means no 970EVO or WD Black for you. 860 EVO will do nicely though.


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## Deleted member 67555 (Dec 3, 2018)

bug said:


> Adding the mandatory Crucial MX500 to the list.
> Get whichever is cheapest, performance is more or less the same
> 
> But beware. Your motherboard only has one mSATA (not M2) port and that is SATA 3Gbps only. It also disables two of your other SATA ports. Imho you should be looking for a plain SATA SSD instead. That means no 970EVO or WD Black for you. 860 EVO will do nicely though.


Nice catch on the chipset limitation.


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## cucker tarlson (Dec 3, 2018)

get a bigger sata ssd over a smaller nvme one.


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## bug (Dec 3, 2018)

jmcslob said:


> Nice catch on the chipset limitation.


Either way, unless you frequently do large file transfers, most metrics used in benchmarks are meaningless for home usage. What you should look at is 4k random reads (at QD1). If you can find a drive that is 20-30% better than what you currently have, that would be something you will feel.
Higher queue depths are hard to reach at home (you only go up to QD4 if you manage to stress your PC, anything higher is reserved for servers serving multiple clients simultaneously). Sequential transfer is only useful when reading/writing large files and you rarely do that. Video editing, backing up or restoring often would benefit from better sequential transfers, but otherwise the reads/writes are too small for them to make a difference. Game level loading will also benefit from better sequential reads, but it depends on how much time you are currently wasting because of that.


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## FreedomEclipse (Dec 3, 2018)

oli_ramsay said:


> Samsung Evo 970 any good?



Yeah. you missed the boat though. Amazon were doing them for £89 for 500GB on black friday. I bought one myself to save me from a slightly slower western digital SSD.


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## Voluman (Dec 3, 2018)

Yeah, its a good drive, but there was improvement in the past couple of years, especially if you get a bigger one, like a 240gb version.
Probably wont be as big jump like from hdd to ssd, but maybe if you choose a nvme drive you will notice that.


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## newtekie1 (Dec 3, 2018)

bug said:


> But beware. Your motherboard only has one mSATA (not M2) port and that is SATA 3Gbps only. It also disables two one of your other SATA ports. Imho you should be looking for a plain SATA SSD instead. That means no 970EVO or WD Black for you. 860 EVO will do nicely though.





oli_ramsay said:


> when I build a new PC



The OP's current motherboard doesn't matter in the decision.


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## Deleted member 67555 (Dec 3, 2018)

newtekie1 said:


> The OP's current motherboard doesn't matter in the decision.


Nice catch on that not mattering... Lol.
@Knoxx29 
Yeah..Rapid mode is in Samsung Magician and what I was thinking was Intel Rapid storage..
I stand corrected


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## eidairaman1 (Dec 3, 2018)

oli_ramsay said:


> Samsung Evo 970 any good?



Even the 840 Pro, 850 Pro, 860 Pro kick rear.  MX 200, 300, MX400 do as well.

Drawback on m.2, heat.


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## hat (Dec 3, 2018)

eidairaman1 said:


> Drawback on m.2, heat.



Only for NVMe. SATA m.2 drives don't have this issue.


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## eidairaman1 (Dec 3, 2018)

hat said:


> Only for NVMe. SATA m.2 drives don't have this issue.



So the protocol is still SATA but fits into a M.2 slot, nvme utilizes pcie arch


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## hat (Dec 3, 2018)

Right. As I said before, m.2 is just a form factor. It can either be SATA or NVMe (pci express). I don't think every m.2 port can do both, though, anyone looking into purchasing relevant items should check the motherboard specs to see what's what.


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## bug (Dec 3, 2018)

hat said:


> Only for NVMe. SATA m.2 drives don't have this issue.


Not even that. NVMe drives only throttle when they write (tens of?) GB of data at once. A really artificial scenario for home users.


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## hat (Dec 4, 2018)

Just saying, I recall heat issues and NVMe drives. SATA drives don't have heat issues.


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## bug (Dec 4, 2018)

hat said:


> Just saying, I recall heat issues and NVMe drives. SATA drives don't have heat issues.


That's the problem, everybody "recalls" issues and keeps reporting them. But few people understand the issues.
The problem is that writing modifies memory cells. Writing uses power and generates heat. Where an AHCI drive will write at 500MB/s or so, a NVMe drive will write 4-5x as fast. _That_ is what generates heat faster. However, to generate enough heat to cause throttling, you have to actually write 2GB/s for at least 5-10 seconds. How often do you do that, really?


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## lexluthermiester (Dec 4, 2018)

oli_ramsay said:


> Would I see any tangible benefit upgrading my old crucial M4 SSD to an m.2 drive when I build a new PC and carry across storage.
> 
> I've heard in real world usage it's unnoticeable but obviously benchmarks tell a different story...
> 
> Thoughts?


My experience, given the age of the drive it might be time and a good idea to get a new drive. I recommend an MLC based drive. Get a USB3 enclosure and turn your old drive into a backup drive.


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