# My personal experience with m.2 NVMe SSD's



## Rob4642 (May 22, 2017)

Lately, I switched from sata-connected ssd's to the type with an m.2 connection. If you don't know what that is, look it up. I've been putting in WD black m.2 NVMe's lately and I have to say, there is no downside to using an m.2 connection for your main, and my preference only, drive. They don't attach with sata cables, the size of a piece of gum, and you can get the in massive sizes. They also stay safely screwed to your motherboard. Technology is finally catching up. Like a micro sd card for a desktop.
I tested the m.2 compared to a normal SSD during gameplay, and I did indeed max out the 550mbps write speed of my sandisk ultra via hwinfo. The m.2 was a little above at about 700mbps while gaming. So SATA can, not in every situation, but it can be the last bottleneck in your system. If you haven't used one, I suggest trying then posting. I loaded Windows 10 Pro Business edition in about 5 minutes. And was playing a game within 15 minutes. 
After restarting again, everything is faster. Not one thing didn't benefit from getting an m.2 drive. I've been monitoring what kind of traffic an SSD really has while gaming, desktop use etc over the past year, with various SSD's. I've maxed out my sandisk ultra's read and write speeds a number of times. An m.2 drive, which won the race for the new tech for attaching an SSD to your board, is sure to last you a long time before bottlenecking.


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (May 22, 2017)

Rob4642 said:


> Lately, I switched from sata-connected ssd's to the type with an m.2 connection. If you don't know what that is, look it up. I've been putting in WD black m.2 NVMe's lately and I have to say, there is no downside to using an m.2 connection for your main, and my preference only, drive. They don't attach with sata cables, the size of a piece of gum, and you can get the in massive sizes. They also stay safely screwed to your motherboard. Technology is finally catching up. Like a micro sd card for a desktop.


It would be nice to get some experience info given some time in use , ie time to notice whats quicker/better.
I think many here plan on getting one so a users perspective would be nice.


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## Caring1 (May 23, 2017)

Rob4642 said:


> .....m.2 connection. If you don't know what that is, look it up.


You posted _that_ on a Tech site?


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## Vya Domus (May 23, 2017)

There is one downside , price.


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## Mussels (May 23, 2017)

the downside is that my motherboard is too old to have a native M.2 slot, stupid modern technology.


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## bug (May 23, 2017)

Vya Domus said:


> There is one downside , price.


You can get M.2 SATA drives that cost about the same as a regular SATA drive. The performance hit it barely noticeable.
But as @Mussels said, motherboards don't have too many M.2 ports. Mine is rather expensive and only has three.


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## Mussels (May 23, 2017)

my brothers mobo has two M.2 slots, but using both shut off 6 of his SATA ports :/


that caught him by surprise, and rather broke his storage plans


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## bug (May 23, 2017)

Mussels said:


> my brothers mobo has two M.2 slots, but using both shut off 6 of his SATA ports :/
> 
> 
> that caught him by surprise, and rather broke his storage plans


I believe it doesn't shut off SATA ports if you use NVMe drives. But then you end up paying more.


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## Vya Domus (May 23, 2017)

bug said:


> You can get M.2 SATA drives that cost about the same as a regular SATA drive. The performance hit it barely noticeable.
> But as @Mussels said, motherboards don't have too many M.2 ports. Mine is rather expensive and only has three.



Yeah you can get them at the same price , but not the same capacity. I don't know the prices in your area but where I live an M.2 SSD is at least 30-40% more expensive than a identical capacity regular one.

They wouldn't be selling a better product at the same price.


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## Mussels (May 23, 2017)

bug said:


> I believe it doesn't shut off SATA ports if you use NVMe drives. But then you end up paying more.



it shuts them off for NVME, but not the sata type. Needs all the bandwidth... would obviously vary based on board design, but they use 4x PCI-E (2.0?) lanes per M.2 slot and intel seem to be cutting a lot of corners with PCI-E lanes these days.


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## vega22 (May 23, 2017)

nvme is great, but only a few will see it in its best light.

for most use i saw 0 difference going to a 950 pro from an 850 evo.

places where i saw a big difference are opening photoshop with many brushes and fonts installed. it used to take many seconds for this with the 850 but with the 950 it is less than 2. packing files in to paks for games (think creating rar/zip files) is another area it excels. what used to take over 5 minutes to do is well under half that.

i guess cable management is another area they excel.

4x gen 3 i think mussels.

for my 2 cents nvme is great if you spend time sat looking at stuff which is maxing out your ssd. but for most people it is too expensive to justify. as such a good sata ssd is plenty for most people.


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## Rob4642 (May 23, 2017)

Vya Domus said:


> There is one downside , price.


It will come down, just like all storage. I paid $250 for a 512gb one, and it's worth every penny of that over 2000mbps read and 750mbps write speeds via AIDA64. Also, if I'm building a top end computer, I'm not going to choke it with sata. That is sort of the last bottleneck in a way.


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## alucasa (May 23, 2017)

If I recall correctly, Intel 1xx chipset used to take 2 SATA ports per M.2. 2xx chipset seems to take only one port per M.2. So, it's an improvement.

But I honestly cannot tell any difference between nVMe and sAtA M.2. Benchmark shows. Reality doesn't.


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## biffzinker (May 23, 2017)

alucasa said:


> If I recall correctly, Intel 1xx chipset used to take 2 SATA ports per M.2. 2xx chipset seems to take only one port per M.2. So, it's an improvement.


Could it be a byproduct of SATA-Express requiring SATA ports to function? I know it does for the Z97 if it's a m.SATA your plugging into a M.2 slot.


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## alucasa (May 23, 2017)

biffzinker said:


> Could it be a byproduct of SATA-Express requiring SATA ports to function? I know it does for the Z97 if it's a m.SATA your plugging into a M.2 slot.



Honestly, I don't know. But I had been looking at a lot of motherboards for a NAS build. I do recall holding off M.2 as boot drive for it because it was taking away 2 ports for M.2. That was a while ago and it was 1xx chipset era. I needed 6 SATA ports (including the boot drive). M.2 taking away 2 killed the plan for ITX setup.

I've been doing research again with 2xx chipsets and I am seeing only one SATA port sacrifice per M.2, so the plan becomes visible again.


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## Rob4642 (May 23, 2017)

Caring1 said:


> You posted _that_ on a Tech site?


Tell me something techy then and teach me something please, before making comments like that. Some people do not know what an m.2 drive is. You'd be surprised.


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## jboydgolfer (May 23, 2017)

alucasa said:


> If I recall correctly, Intel 1xx chipset used to take 2 SATA ports per M.2. 2xx chipset seems to take only one port per M.2. So, it's an improvement.
> 
> But I honestly cannot tell any difference between nVMe and sAtA M.2. Benchmark shows. Reality doesn't.



  I see a lot of people post results from benchmarks to prove how fast their nvme  drives are. I'd like to see maybe a file transfer in windows or something to that effect( or drastically shorter bot times over sata ssd). I've just grown weary of disc benchmarks because of "rapid mode" and all that and it's like showing pretend benefits to having paid 2-4x as much of a standard ssd cost.

I looked  into getting an nvme  solid-state drive but because of the use of  words like "theoretical" and the lack of the use of the term "real world" I was dissuaded from making a purchase. I just hate the sink that kind of money on technology that can only be utilized in a few theoretical environment


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## alucasa (May 23, 2017)

jboydgolfer said:


> I see a lot of people post results from benchmarks to prove how fast their nvme  drives are. I'd like to see maybe a file transfer in windows or something to that effect. I've just grown weary of disc benchmarks because of "rapid mode" and all that and it's like showing pretend benefits to having paid 2-4x as much of a standard ssd cost.
> 
> I looked  into getting an nvme  solid-state drive but because of the use of  words like "theoretical" and the lack of the use of the term "real world" I was dissuaded from making a purchase. I just hate the sink that kind of money on technology that can only be utilized in a few theoretical environment



Well, we are on a tech site. Bechmarking and showing off is a part of the charm of being here. I am sure you know that.

Having said that though, some are a little too devoted to just benchmarking. Not pointing fingers at'em though. I mean, it's each to their own. I like being practical. That's all.


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## jboydgolfer (May 23, 2017)

alucasa said:


> Well, we are on a tech site



i have no issue with it. im just saying, Id like to see Actual speed results not from a theoretical/benchmark based enviroment. thats all. i dont mind people benching to their hearts content, but if it doesnt show in real world (boot times, or file transfers) it doesnt justify cost to me.


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## alucasa (May 23, 2017)

jboydgolfer said:


> i have no issue with it. im just saying, Id like to see Actual speed results not from a theoretical/benchmark based enviroment. thats all. i dont mind people benching to their hearts content, but if it doesnt show in real world (boot times, or file transfers) it doesnt justify cost to me.



The practical tests don't show much of an improvement. Boot time is a second or two max faster which is, really, nothing. File transfer is a tricky test because you'd need to move files from a nVMe to another nVMe to see the real speed but quite frankly how many would have two nVMe and how often would one transfer files to one another?

The only real life application that would benefit from nVMe's strength is hosting Minercraft server on it. That game loves I/O. And, maybe, if you are doing SQL, that, too, requires nice I/O. I guess video editing will also benefit from it. It might kill the drive quickly though.

So, you can't really show it off unless you do the benchmarks.


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## biffzinker (May 23, 2017)

Wouldn't mind reading of someones experince outside of the big name reviewers. Nothing against TPU btw.


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## jboydgolfer (May 23, 2017)

alucasa said:


> So, you can't really show it off unless you do the benchmarks.



yeah, my point exactly....cant really show it off, or use it to its potential.


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## alucasa (May 23, 2017)

I don't think we have many activities that even saturate SATA 3. File transfer, and between SSD to another SSD, is the only one I can think of.


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (May 23, 2017)

jboydgolfer said:


> i have no issue with it. im just saying, Id like to see Actual speed results not from a theoretical/benchmark based enviroment. thats all. i dont mind people benching to their hearts content, but if it doesnt show in real world (boot times, or file transfers) it doesnt justify cost to me.


Me too, some normal file compress uncompress and move from ssd to it perhaps.


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## biffzinker (May 23, 2017)

Speaking of SATA ports, I managed to get that Biostar 880GZ I got from @Norton to operate a Intel 520 SSD 120 GB at SATA 6Gb/s. The past Gigabyte ATX 880G board I had with the same 850 southbridge only worked at 3Gb/s. I benched the drive in AIDA64 Storage benchmark and was seeing 500 MB/s just short of the drives actual 550 MB/s.


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## jboydgolfer (May 23, 2017)

Don't get me wrong I'm certainly waiting for it to work where it becomes (financially) justifiable to purchase nvme solid-state drives. it was a night and day difference between hard drives & ssd's when the tech became widely popular/available( come to think of it never mind night and day it was like last week and this week) regarding perf difference.

 There are some benefits, no data or power cables being a major one, but for me to make the jump and justify the financial premium , there needs to be a performance benefit that manifests itself  without the use of benchmark software.  I don't know if that falls on the shoulders of the drive makers or the operating system  developers but I'm sure in time will reach that point


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## Mussels (May 24, 2017)

i feel like nvme M.2's will take off rapidly (hurrr) in the workstation/laptop markets first - where high speed in a small size is a big deal.
Think NUC's and ultrabooks.

SSD's on SATA 3 are just so damn fast already that speed wont be a large enough motivation to upgrade and capacity is limited  due to SATA drives being physically larger, so its gotta be 'forced' (systems with only M.2) before it'll take off.


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## cdawall (May 24, 2017)

I have had both I prefer my NVMe drives.


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## FordGT90Concept (May 24, 2017)

Rob4642 said:


> It will come down, just like all storage. I paid $250 for a 512gb one, and it's worth every penny of that over 2000mbps read and 750mbps write speeds via AIDA64. Also, if I'm building a top end computer, I'm not going to choke it with sata. That is sort of the last bottleneck in a way.


M.2 requires a lot of layers of PCB to be compliant.  On the other hand, if you dismantle a 2.5" SSD, you'll find the SSD often only takes up 1/3 of the case and it's on a thin PCB.  Because of that, M.2 SATA should be more costly to manufacture going forward but I'm in the same boat as you: no cable mess, hidden by graphics card, if you got it why not use it?  One caveat: they're a PITA to replace because stuff is covering them up.

M.2 NVMe drives cost a lot more than M.2 SATA.  In my opinion, the price difference isn't worth the cost for average consumers.  I'm not sure NVMe prices can ever compete with SATA because SATA is limited by the protocol so there's an incentive to putting faster chips on NVMe solutions.  I think NVMe ~550 MB/s SSD could be about the same price as a SATA ~550 MB/s SSD but until SATA is driven completely out of the market, that won't happen.

That said, SATA IV, 12 Gb/s (1,500 MB/s) is said to be in the works.  It's not as fast as some NVMe drives are but we should see the SATA limit lift on budget 550+ MB/s SSDs.


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## Kissamies (May 24, 2017)

I'm happy with my Intel 600p even that it's kinda low-end for a NVMe drive. Fast boot times and fast enough for me for everything I want my system drive to be.

Next thing would be to replace my HDDs with SATA SSDs, games doesn't need NVMe drives..


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## Deleted member 67555 (May 24, 2017)

I have been on RAID 0 for a long time.. software and hardware... I appreciate the speed of M.2 
I want to see one unpack and install CoD WaW... Lol


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## Hood (May 24, 2017)

jboydgolfer said:


> I see a lot of people post results from benchmarks to prove how fast their nvme  drives are. I'd like to see maybe a file transfer in windows or something to that effect( or drastically shorter bot times over sata ssd). I've just grown weary of disc benchmarks because of "rapid mode" and all that and it's like showing pretend benefits to having paid 2-4x as much of a standard ssd cost.
> 
> I looked  into getting an nvme  solid-state drive but because of the use of  words like "theoretical" and the lack of the use of the term "real world" I was dissuaded from making a purchase. I just hate the sink that kind of money on technology that can only be utilized in a few theoretical environment


In the real world, my Intel 750 400GB NVMe drive (PCIE3.0 x 4, AIC) speeds things up in many subtle ways and some that are very noticeable, like Windows utilities that are normally very slow are now many times faster (Windows Update, Disk Cleanup, Defrag & Optimize, imaging your boot drive for backup.  Also virus and malware scans, and file copy/move.  It helps that I also have a Plextor M6e M.2 drive (PCIe 2.0 x 2) that I use for downloading torrents, which are eventually moved to spinning rust.  It might not be worth the high price to those on a budget, but in my case, it was the last bottleneck and the best way to speed up my user experience, since I already had fast RAM, a fast CPU, fast video card, and a fast SATA SSD.  It all works together to make my system rank in the 98th or 99th percentile among all systems benchmarked on Passmark Performance Test, depending on my overclock level.


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## bug (May 24, 2017)

alucasa said:


> But I honestly cannot tell any difference between nVMe and sAtA M.2. Benchmark shows. Reality doesn't.



It comes down to NVMe only improving on sequential transfers overs SATA while everything else is in the same ballpark (i.e. not the same, but not dramatically improved). And then NVMe can only sustain the sequential transfers for as long as it doesn't overheat.

So yes, if you look at NVMe through the right benchmarks, it can be made to look stellar. Meanwhile, the rule for buying a SSD hasn't changed: get the biggest one you can fit in your budget. Avoid planar TLC if you feel picky.


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## fullinfusion (May 24, 2017)

i started with an intel 600p series and moved up the food chain to a Samsung 960 NVMe pcie x4 and the performance is exceptionally better..

Personally I'd never go back to Sata ssd's again.. where I live it was about a $35 difference in price for the NVMe vs the same sized ssd capacity so to me it's a win all around.. 

Tiny form factor, it's hidden away behind the chipset cover on my mobo, and just rocks at whatever you toss at it. Encoding is faster, image editing faster, load times faster ect ect...


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## Dethroy (May 24, 2017)

I love the M.2 form factor. Having said that, it doesn't need to be an NVMe drive (yet) in particular, as its biggest benefit is the absence of cables imho.


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## biffzinker (May 24, 2017)

bug said:


> It comes down to NVMe only improving on sequential transfers overs SATA


Pretty sure NVMe also provides a kick in the pants on low quence depth (1-4) transfers, and random 4KB transfers over a SATA SSD. 

Sequential transfers only get you so far were as the small random transfers should provide a noticeable improvement.


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## Gasaraki (May 24, 2017)

Mussels said:


> the downside is that my motherboard is too old to have a native M.2 slot, stupid modern technology.



I have an X58 mobo and I boot off of an MyDigitalSSD M.2 SSD. It's not an issue if you try hard enough.


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## Gasaraki (May 24, 2017)

alucasa said:


> The practical tests don't show much of an improvement. Boot time is a second or two max faster which is, really, nothing. File transfer is a tricky test because you'd need to move files from a nVMe to another nVMe to see the real speed but quite frankly how many would have two nVMe and how often would one transfer files to one another?
> 
> The only real life application that would benefit from nVMe's strength is hosting Minercraft server on it. That game loves I/O. And, maybe, if you are doing SQL, that, too, requires nice I/O. I guess video editing will also benefit from it. It might kill the drive quickly though.
> 
> So, you can't really show it off unless you do the benchmarks.



It's attitude like this that holds technology back. "No one NEEDS more than 640KB of memory."
What about access times? My M.2 SSD has a .03 sec access time. NVMe is more efficient than AHCI.


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## Tomgang (May 24, 2017)

I have been on SSD like since 2011 and besides the Oldes Crucial C300 64 GB i sold years ago i am still rocking and own every one of them. But its only 3 months ago i jumped to M.2 SSD, but i have no regrets so far. The jump from sata SSD to an M.2 SSD whas not as big a jump as it where with the jump from a HDD to a sata SSD back then. But i still feel a more snappy and faster responding pc with M.2 over sata. But that might be because the old X58 system has sata 3 but with a crappy marvel controller that is not giving full true sata 3 speed.

Right now i own these SSD:

Samsung 950 PRO 256 GB M.2 NVMe SSD
Samsung 850 EVO 250 GB sata SSD
Crucial MX300 275 GB sata SSD
Crucial M4 64 GB sata SSD

Besides that i like M.2 small size as well the fact that it is fast and easy to install compare to sata SSD + no cables are needed and off cause the higher speed. In my opinion M.2 is a welcome peace of teknologi that is far better than sata. only the higher price takes it down a bit but i think its only a matter of time before prices drops on M.2.

I think for future plans on SSD. M.2 is gonna be for my OS and games and then cheaper sata can be used for storage. I am really looking for to the day that SSD gets to a point where they can be owned for little money and i can finnaly say permanent goodbey to old, noisy and slow HDD.

Just to prove that M.2 can work on old tech as well. Here is a screenshot of my system:









Gasaraki said:


> I have an X58 mobo and I boot off of an MyDigitalSSD M.2 SSD. It's not an issue if you try hard enough.



Nice to se a fellow X58 user also enjoying M.2  and yeah new tech is not a problem, you just need an PCIe m.2 adaptor. So what that guy cries about you comment to, i can not se the problem.


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## bug (May 24, 2017)

biffzinker said:


> Pretty sure NVMe also provides a kick in the pants on low quence depth (1-4) transfers, and random 4KB transfers over a SATA SSD.
> 
> Sequential transfers only get you so far were as the small random transfers should provide a noticeable improvement.


You'd think, but NVMe is only 10-20% faster in 4k QD1 reads/writes. 20% faster means if it took 5s on SATA, it takes 4s on NVMe; or if it took 1min on SATA it takes 48s on NVMe. Better, but not by much.


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## biffzinker (May 24, 2017)

Any one else knew about the new 1.3 specification just published at the being of the month?
http://www.anandtech.com/show/11436/nvme-13-specification-published-new-features


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (May 24, 2017)

I think I would find it hard to see a difference ,samsungs caching software is pretty good for free , i wish it was different and ill buy one anyway but im not expecting too much.


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