M.2 SSD's

[Brado78]

Are all M.2 SSD's way overkill for most users, including the new 960 evo?

Thanks

 

[UsandThem]

Are all M.2 SSD's way overkill for most users, including the new 960 evo?

Thanks

Some M.2 drives are simply SATA SSDs in the M.2 form factor.

But most PCIe M.2 drives (like the 960 EVO) are mostly overkill for most people outside of enthusiasts and people who work with large files like video editing, or constantly moving large files and such. One day I imagine the mainstream workloads, programs, and games will take advantage of all that extra speed and bandwidth, but we're nowhere near that right now.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Some M.2 drives are simply SATA SSDs in the M.2 form factor.

But most PCIe M.2 drives (like the 960 EVO) are mostly overkill for most people outside of enthusiasts and people who work with large files like video editing, or constantly moving large files and such. One day I imagine the mainstream workloads, programs, and games will take advantage of all that extra speed and bandwidth, but we're nowhere near that right now.

For me, I have this curiosity about a "need for speed." I don't need the speed so much, but it's the objective. Every few years, I try to build the best PC ever. It doesn't have the be the fastest ever, but fast is part of the plan.

So we have been through several threads over the years going back to 2011 and the Z68 release with the ISRT feature of Intel IRST. I've been working with Romex PrimoCache since 2014.

And I have several HDD spinners. SATA SSDs are relatively cheap now -- for instance, the ADATA SP550.

With Primo, I can use SSD-caching for HDDs in an overall tiered approach using RAM cache. At first, I thought I would do this with a spare ~100GB SATA SSD. But it dawned on me that I could put the OS on an NVMe M.2 drive so there would be an extra 100 GB of unallocated space. And I can see using that to cache everything else that's slower -- including SATA SSDs.

I just . . . can't . . . . help . . . . myself. Have to wait and see what the 960 Pro looks like, save some pennies, and watch for a price.

 

[biostud]

On one hand I would like a 960 EVO, but I'll wait to see what intel can do with their 3Dxpoint Optane drives. I can see a scenerio where you use an optane drive as caching for other drives including SSD's or intel creating a nvme drive with a large 3Dxpoint cache. The 3Dxpoint seems to be able to get high speeds at very low queue depths.

 

[corkyg]

Duck, . . . what you are experiencing is "technolust." Enjoy!

 

[ch33zw1z]

Lol I like that term, technolust....

So true. I find myself having to walk away from the computer from time to time, or pit the phone down for the same reason.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Duck, . . . what you are experiencing is "technolust." Enjoy!

well, judging from Biostud's reply, yours and cheese-whiz, there's not any total revulsion to the idea of it.

I've been following "certain principles" since I became "hardware obsessed" earlier in the last decade, and I follow these principles because my episodic explorations and chump-change spend-thriftiness drove me in certain directions -- learning from mistakes.

Principle #1: Clever solutions more likely include simplification outweighing complication. [This is why -- once again -- I've abjured water-cooling even with an AiO.]

Principle #2: Squeeze as much use out of old hardware as you can without limiting yourself. [I have SOOO many good HDD spinners sitting in storage -- some brand-new.]

There are other principles -- like "Reduce your power bill," and "reduce the wear and tear on parts."

I've been using PrimoCache now for more than two years. I'd used ISRT for close to three years; acquired some Marvell controllers that had the Hyper-Duo option which I never tried. Primo is agnostic to storage mode, so you can cache both AHCI and RAID configurations under two different controllers to the same cache.

I just have high hopes for this, which is still a calculated experiment. If you use an SSD-cache of greater than 100GB, you'll incline to fill all your RAM slots, because there is "overhead" in addition to RAM-caching. But 100GB is just right for a rig with >= 16GB (and "=" seems to be just fine.)

And it may be techno-lust, indeed.

EDIT: about the cache size and overhead. I've determined that DDR4 XMP speeds mean that RAM caching by itself requires half as much RAM as with DDR3 speeds to get higher benchies or the same.

So it now occurs to me I could probably reduce the size of an anticipated SSD-cache on the NVMe drive, and trim the RAM-caching allocation even further.

Maybe I'll bookmark this thread, and report back when I feel like spending the money when the "price is right."

 

[Redstorm]

No need for a cache with 950 Pro, 960 Pro or 960 Evo. (they all have their own on board DRAM Cache)

How well does PrimoCache survive a sudden unexpected loss of power?

You say simplification, but by adding in PrimoCache you have actually complicated matters by adding a software based volatile cache layer between your long term storage.

 

[adamantine.me]

Yeah for most people it won't matter too much. I got a motherboard with M.2 but bought a SATA ssd anyway.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

No need for a cache with 950 Pro, 960 Pro or 960 Evo. (they all have their own on board DRAM Cache)

How well does PrimoCache survive a sudden unexpected loss of power?

You say simplification, but by adding in PrimoCache you have actually complicated matters by adding a software based volatile cache layer between your long term storage.

It would cause no more problem than having disk writes take place without the SSD cache. The only way it would become more risky than that would be to set the deferred writes feature of the cache in Primo.

You could either have the contents of the RAM cache disappear on shutdown/restart, or they could be written to disk. However, the Windows hibernation feature apparently restores the cache anyway, so that feature is only relevant to a shutdown-bootup or restart.

You are correct here in the respect that one is adding a software complication, but it simply shifts data from slower to faster and stores it for quicker access to data sourced ultimately from the slowest device.

I wouldn't be doing this if I hadn't been using the program on about four computers over a 30-month period. I've never had a problem with it. Once here or there, some incorrect choice of setting or the power interruption you mentioned would auto-trigger a complete CHKDSK and report.

I've never had HDD corruption or anything like that. It reduces wear and tear on the electro-mechanical devices. The RAM must be rock-solid, but if so, there is no more risk to data with cautious settings than you'd have without it.

Again, I had all the concerns you mention, but familiarity with the program and attention to how it is used seems to make its use exclusively benign, and I can't tell the difference between SATA speed and HDD speed. If I use a 960 EVO 256 GB split in half, it would only be the most balanced use of storage resources with the best overall performance whether I feel it or not.

Curiosity may have killed the cat, but I don't think it will kill my computer, OS, programs or data.