Opinions on the drive config for new build please

[Sol_Badguy]

Hello everyone,

I would like your opinions on the drive configuration for my new build.
Taking into account the purpose/destination, the performance numbers and the prices I've settled on the following:

1 x Kingston Fury Renegade 2 TB -> for use as a main OS drive
1 x Kingston Fury Renegade 2 TB -> for use as a secondary drive for work files
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2 TB (ST2000DM008) -> for use as a torrenting drive
1 x Seagate IronWolf Pro NAS 4 TB (ST4000NT001) -> for use as a storage drive

The 4 TB HDD will have to do for now, I don't have the money for two of them in order to make a RAID1 setup so I'll just have to rely on faith that nothing bad will happen.
Any opinions on this model?

Regarding the 2 TB torrenting HDD are there any objections to this option?
Just to be more specific, it's intended to be primarily a seeding drive (gotta build up that ratio) rather than a media library/collection, so the inherent slowness isn't a con for me in this scenario.

Moving on to the Fury Renegade SSD. Is there any special mention about the fact that it's double sided?
To save some money I am planning on getting bare drives, will the included mobo heatsinks* provide adequate cooling?
In the sense that I don't know if double-sided Gen4 drives are hotter than single-sided ones and if they are by how much?
Also a clarification about the thermal pads, because it's double-sided does it perhaps need thermal pads on the bottom side as well?

*Right now I don't have the mobo, but my wish is getting the ASRock X870E PG Nova WiFi if I can get it at a reasonable price.
If not I'll be looking at weaker, more affordable options such as the Gigabyte X870E Aorus Elite WiFi or even cheaper than that going towards X670 or maybe B650E.
But because I'm getting two M.2 SSDs the mobo will have to include the big heatsink that covers the secondary drives so that narrows down the possible options.
In short will a typical heatsink that's found on most midrange boards handle the Renegade?

Below is an explanation on why I chose the Renegade:

Spoiler

As we all know prices vary more or less depending on the country/region. I'm from Romania and I will buy from stores based in my country so I have to work with the available offer.
Lowest prices for a few examples as of today:
Kingston FURY Renegade 2TB M.2 (SFYRD/2000G) - 140 € (heatsink version is 160)
Western Digital SN850X 2TB M.2 (WDS200T2X0E) - 156 € (heatsink version is 180)
Samsung 990 PRO 2TB M.2 (MZ-V9P2T0BW) - 168 € (heatsink version is 174)
Crucial T500 2TB M.2 (CT2000T500SSD8) - 169 € (heatsink version is 165, cheaper yes, it's mind boggling)
In the USA The Crucial T500 has similar price to the Renegade, but that's not the case in my country. Performance wise I was leaning towards the T500 (at a similar price to the Renegade) but after seeing this:

[FW Update Mod] For Crucial T500 NVMe SSD Users ONLY

Just to be clear for everyone use it at your own risk Let me say it again... use it at your own risk If you are willing to continue then please be careful and mindful on each step.... I'm not responsible for any damages that result from the use of those files I'm sharing that I will be...

www.techpowerup.com

I'll steer clear of it, it's not like I'm benching SSDs to notice any difference. The way Crucial seems to be handling the issue doesn't inspire confidence.

Thank you.

 

[dgianstefani]

Swap two 2 TB for a single 4 TB. It's not really necessary to have a 2 TB just for OS.

Unless you're doing something like Optane, a single drive is better than two, for the same capacity.

You're not really making redundancy unless you go RAID, so essentially just doubling chance of failure and taking more PCIe lanes/slots.

 

[A Computer Guy]

The 4 TB HDD will have to do for now, I don't have the money for two of them in order to make a RAID1 setup so I'll just have to rely on faith that nothing bad will happen.
Any opinions on this model?

If you get a good drive then don't worry so much about RAID 1 just have a good backup strategy which will be more useful than RAID 1 if you can't afford it right now.

 

[Deslok]

I'll second getting a single large drive over two 2tb ones, the motherboard heatsinks will be fine, the fact that the drives are double sided is mostly an issue for some(very) thin and light laptops not for a desktop. Is there something specific that has you looking at the fury renegade? It's not a bad drive just nothing special either.

 

[kapone32]

The OP could do RAID 0 on those drives and enjoy double the sequential as well as some other improvements.

 

[Sol_Badguy]

@dgianstefani

Sorry perhaps I was unclear, not JUST for the OS but also for all the programs.

The idea for a secondary drive was from reading some recommendations (either YT videos or forum posts) for video editing rigs that suggested a secondary SSD for work files/ current projects, assets etc.
Example: https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/understanding-storage-for-video-editing-2286/
I want to start a YT channel hence the video editing "requirements" so to speak.
So the secondary SSD is not meant for backup. If I'll back up some files they'll go on the 4 TB HDD.

My reasoning is this: by going this route I'll have less trouble if one drive fails.
Let's say the main drive with the OS + programs fails. OK I still have the one with my current work, so it's just the hassle of getting a replacement and reinstalling my OS + software -> assuming that I don't have an system image backup.
If the secondary one fails, well at least I have the main one so I can get back to rebuilding my lost work after replacing my dead drive -> again assuming nothing was backed up.

I know that ideally everything has to be backed up but that costs money, money which I prefer to spend on the rest of the system.
I can't spend too much money on extra storage (for redundancy) when I'm just beginning this journey and I don't even have data to back up. In time, when I start accumulating some data I'll make sure to buy extra storage and to start backing up. I'll opt for a NAS so I don't improvise whatever setup with multiple drives in my case and using every port on my mobo.

Am I right with what I'm saying or I am completely off?

@A Computer Guy

So is the ST4000NT001 a good option?

@Deslok

Well the general consensus about the KC3000 is that it's good and reliable. And the Renegade is an updated/slightly improved version of the KC3000 so I figured that based on the reputation of the KC3000, the Renegade's performance numbers and its price compared to the competition it's a solid choice. I know it's not the star of the show as far as "Top xx SSDs" etc. but I have to pick from what's available in my country.
Do you have other suggestions, I can look them up and see if they're available in my country and at what prices.
Thank you.

@kapone32

Nah, I don't see the point of giving up 2 TB of capacity just to gain speed. But Linus seems to think otherwise. ))

 

[Carlyle2020hs]

It hurt to see data hoarders choose amd for the past 5 years.

And it will hurt at least until 2027-AM6.

AMD CPUs are only connected to the peripherals with measly 4x4 pcie lanes.

One old pcie4 sdd is enough to saturate that connection to its fullest.


Intels CPUs are connected via 4x8 lanes.
Intel is therefore the only platform capable to speed up 2x m.2 pcie4 ssds to get raid0 spcie5 speeds.

AMDs Raid 0 works on paper only. I simply doesen´t have the lanes to benefit from it.
Its Raid 1 is somewhat usable but feels more taxing in resources than the intel version.

Half of the m.2 slots of the mentioned board share lanes down to 4x2.

And a mechanical harddrive to seed radom data bits?

If raid 0 is needed/wanted i highly suggest an intel z690/790/890 board and a cheap stata ssd as a seed drive.

 

[kapone32]

It hurt to see data hoarders choose amd for the past 5 years.

And it will hurt at least until 2027-AM6.

AMD CPUs are only connected to the peripherals with measly 4x4 pcie lanes.

One old pcie4 sdd is enough to saturate that connection to its fullest.


Intels CPUs are connected via 4x8 lanes.
Intel is therefore the only platform capable to speed up 2x m.2 pcie4 ssds to get raid0 spcie5 speeds.

AMDs Raid 0 works on paper only. I simply doesen´t have the lanes to benefit from it.
Its Raid 1 is somewhat usable but feels more taxing in resources than the intel version.

Half of the m.2 slots of the mentioned board share lanes down to 4x2.

And a mechanical harddrive to seed radom data bits?

If raid 0 is needed/wanted i highly suggest an intel z690/790/890 board and a cheap stata ssd as a seed drive.

Interesting. I currently run 3 RAID 0 arrays.

1 2 BX500 2 TB SSD 2 SATA Ports
2. 2 TB 4.0 drives in RAID 0 2 NVME slots on MB
3. T700 2 1TB 5.0 in RAID 0. 2nd PCIe lane x4x4 at 5.0.

In reality AMD actually has plenty of lanes.

You mention Z690 and those boards have less lanes.

 

[_roman_]

Well the general consensus about the KC3000 is that it's good and reliable. And the Renegade is an updated/slightly improved version of the KC3000 so I figured that based on the reputation of the KC3000,

I have the kc3000 2tb one. It'S a good drive. I also know it is renamed to another name.

04:00.0 Non-Volatile memory controller: Kingston Technology Company, Inc. KC3000/FURY Renegade NVMe SSD [E18] (rev 01)

I would buy a 4TB one. A brand without issues. WD / SANDISK / SAMSUNG had quite often too many issues in my personal point of view.
For central europe there exists 4TB KC3000

Kingston KC3000 PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD 4TB ab € 279,29 (2025) | Preisvergleich Geizhals Österreich

✔ Preisvergleich für Kingston KC3000 PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD 4TB ✔ Bewertungen ✔ Produktinfo ⇒ Kapazität: 4TB (entspricht ca. 3725.29GiB bzw. 3.64TiB, weiterführende Informationen hierzu ) • Bauform: … ✔ Solid State Drives (SSD) ✔ Testberichte ✔ Günstig kaufen

geizhals.at

I'm not sure if you really have a demand for two such small drives.
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2 TB (ST2000DM008) -> for use as a torrenting drive
1 x Seagate IronWolf Pro NAS 4 TB (ST4000NT001) -> for use as a storage drive

I would use partitions and a bigger harddrive. It depends on the operating system, file system and what kind of data you intend to move.

--

I would also look in the X670 / X670E mainboards. You can add in an add in card to get usb4 to some x670 mainboards for example.

 

[qxp]

@dgianstefani

Sorry perhaps I was unclear, not JUST for the OS but also for all the programs.

The idea for a secondary drive was from reading some recommendations (either YT videos or forum posts) for video editing rigs that suggested a secondary SSD for work files/ current projects, assets etc.
Example: https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/understanding-storage-for-video-editing-2286/
I want to start a YT channel hence the video editing "requirements" so to speak.
So the secondary SSD is not meant for backup. If I'll back up some files they'll go on the 4 TB HDD.

So I disagree with the Puget Systems link. Their advice makes sense when you have spinning disk.

Unlike SATA spinning disk drives, NVME SSD connected via PCI Express (not SATA) have multiple queues and, at least on Linux, can service multiple independent requests simultaneously. I have several of my systems configured with swap space and the response is reasonable even under a heavy swapping load due to computing something several times the size of RAM in parallel on all the threads.

For video editing and regular application usage you are not going to see any difference. And I don't think there are any video editing apps that would saturate a 4TB SSD if they do anything beyound copying raw frames.

All of the drives I bought are Samsung, I got both 2 TB drives and newer 4 TB drives. Good thermals, good endurance, decent speed. I think all my systems are still PCIe 3.x.

 

[_roman_]

I think we do not discuss it, when you can not use tools to readout what disks you have in the box. e.g. smartctl -a / lshw / ....

Claming PCIE 3.0 ...

I saw big difference with PCIE 3.0 and PCIE 4.0 only for offline backups with mixed data. Even with encryption and logical volume there were big differences.

That those subchips on X670 hinder themself. Is a known fact. Post #7 very well explained the fact.
Note: this applies for anything similar to x670.

... and still KC3000 2TB rules nearly all SAMSUNG drives for a general purpose nvme. Maybe there is an exception, as always. But that one drive ...
PCIE 5.0 will have maybe in future a decent drive, which does not overheat, which is better, which does not need a bulky cooler, which has lower power consumption, ...

--

I saw several times tech articles that it matters where you put your nvme in the mainboard. Some slots are slower. Fact. Proven quite often on different sites.

 

[Sol_Badguy]

@Carlyle2020hs

Spoiler

Oh c'mon I can hardly be called a data hoarder considering the amount of TBs I'm slinging. )))

And yes I'm choosing AMD, 7950X to be more specific, and that's because at least in my country Intel acts as if it dominates the market and the prices are quite high, for example the 265K is exactly the same as the 9900X, but if I look at the MSRPs the 265K's price should be 88% of the 9900X's price.
If Intel would stop with the arrogance and cut the prices then I would reconsider my options. I'm not a fanboy in the slightest.
Even if the local retailers are to blame, Intel should step in and re-establish the order down the supply chain, because it means the last link in the chain is hurting their sales by trying to scalp the consumers.
End of rant.

@_roman_

I have both the KC3000 and the Renegade available in 4 TB. Same price for bare drives - 276 €
Hmmm I would have expected a slightly lower price compared to the 2 TB one, bigger models should have a better TB per currency unit ratio than smaller ones. Scalpers everywhere...

The reasoning for the two HDDs is the following.

Spoiler

1 TB would have sufficed for torrenting but because the 2 TB models have much better value (TB per currency unit) I decided to fork a few extra € and get twice the capacity.
Why I am getting two separate drives?
Because the torrenting one is not essential, if it fails then so be it, the data that will be on it is not important, also it has a basic 2-year warranty and thus it's cheap. Also it will be heavily used so I'm not going to cut it any slack.
The 4 TB one is about 3 times the cost, has a 5-year warranty and I'm not going to write data on it all the time, so it will see limited use in the hope of prolonging its life. So the data that goes on it goes there for a long time. I'm not going to write, then erase, then write some more etc.
If I get a bigger one and make partitions, the partition used for torrenting is going to have different usage than the other one. And I'm assuming that this imbalance is unhealthy.

USB4 is not a must for me. I am considering at least one X670 board from Gigabyte which isn't that great but it's reasonably priced. How good the value (price to features ratio) is remains to be seen.

@qxp

Well I wouldn't know given I'm a beginner at these things.

I'm not sure if you're referring to the situation Linus describes at 08:20:

Spoiler

But again the reasoning for having two separate drives is that in the case of a fail I don't lose everything at once and not for better performance.

Regarding Gen3 I'm not saving a lot of money by buying down so to speak if that was perhaps a lowkey suggestion, I mean yeah there are some savings but I don't feel it's worth it. If I go that route then the next step down is the second hand market.

 

[qxp]

I think we do not discuss it, when you can not use tools to readout what disks you have in the box. e.g. smartctl -a / lshw / ....

Claming PCIE 3.0 ...

I saw big difference with PCIE 3.0 and PCIE 4.0 only for offline backups with mixed data. Even with encryption and logical volume there were big differences.

You'll also see it for anything that actually uses the SSD. Like llama.cpp with RAM smaller than the model.

--

I saw several times tech articles that it matters where you put your nvme in the mainboard. Some slots are slower. Fact. Proven quite often on different sites.

Well, it is a digital interface so the only thing that is important is how it is connected. Some slots have fewer lanes allocated, some go through a PCIe bridge.

@Carlyle2020hs

I have both the KC3000 and the Renegade available in 4 TB. Same price for bare drives - 276 €

Sounds good. In USA I am getting Samsungs for $300 with a little bit.

The reasoning for the two HDDs is the following.

Spoiler

1 TB would have sufficed for torrenting but because the 2 TB models have much better value (TB per currency unit) I decided to fork a few extra € and get twice the capacity.
Why I am getting two separate drives?
Because the torrenting one is not essential, if it fails then so be it, the data that will be on it is not important, also it has a basic 2-year warranty and thus it's cheap. Also it will be heavily used so I'm not going to cut it any slack.
The 4 TB one is about 3 times the cost, has a 5-year warranty and I'm not going to write data on it all the time, so it will see limited use in the hope of prolonging its life. So the data that goes on it goes there for a long time. I'm not going to write, then erase, then write some more etc.
If I get a bigger one and make partitions, the partition used for torrenting is going to have different usage than the other one. And I'm assuming that this imbalance is unhealthy.

Partitions are all from the OS viewpoint. The SSD manages its entire space as one unit regardless of how you partition it. So if you have more writes to one partition then it will start exchanging blocks with space used by the other partition.

You can think of SSD drives as raw storage (flash) plus a super-RAID in the controller chip. The chip not only manages redundancy and error correction, but also runs a constant repair program to make sure you only get good blocks. It does it on a drive as a whole, so the bigger the drive the better.

USB4 is not a must for me. I am considering at least one X670 board from Gigabyte which isn't that great but it's reasonably priced. How good the value (price to features ratio) is remains to be seen.

@qxp

Well I wouldn't know given I'm a beginner at these things.

I'm not sure if you're referring to the situation Linus describes at 08:20:

Spoiler

No, what I am saying is that PCI Express SSD can service several requests at once, something a SATA drive cannot do. This makes it behave more like a storage array (see the super-RAID comment above). So you have one physical device to plug-in but it works like several drives.

The slowdown they talk about is just the result of internal drive optimizations and they apply to writes only (read reviews for specific drives to find out how they work, some are good like Samsungs, some are bad). When you are loading data or applications there is no slowdown.

But again the reasoning for having two separate drives is that in the case of a fail I don't lose everything at once and not for better performance.

Applications you can reinstall - you only need to worry about the data you can't replace. And then a real backup strategy is better.

Regarding Gen3 I'm not saving a lot of money by buying down so to speak if that was perhaps a lowkey suggestion, I mean yeah there are some savings but I don't feel it's worth it. If I go that route then the next step down is the second hand market.

I just mentioned this to make it clear what I have used. I am sure faster speeds of PCIe 4.x and 5.x provide a welcome speedup.

 

[John Naylor]

I always include a 2nd drive .....with a copy of the OS on it. Let's me get into the machine if primary drive goes south ...Started this back in the day when SSD reliability was not what it is today... and given cost / size factor of today's drives failures, I can't see a reason not too.

As for RAID 0, I have been looking for a reason to use RAID for decades and other the benchmark bragging rights and very specialized applications ... haven't found a reason to use on desktops or laptops. Back in the last millennium, I has a SCSI RAID setup for AutoCAD but it's been decades since storage was the bottleneck for that application. That doesn't stop people from using it, but then again folks find a need to use a 32 core CPU for the single threaded AutoCAD application.

For backups, RAID 1 provides one way of doing it, but I use a free backup application that makes daily backups to a network drive, backups to an inexpensive SSD and backups to an SSHD in a socking station that is taken off site.

And yes, for video editing and other high and apps, a separate "Working" drive is oft recommended by folks who do this kinda thing "for a living: . Can' help you there as a) I don't have any applications that would benefit and the bookmarks that I'd refer to folks in the past who had more knowledge on the subject no longer are maintaining their websites. Fortunately, it's not a lot of work to test this out for yourself.