2x 1TB or 1x 2TB (NVMe)

G

Grossi

Member
Looking into a laptop (Ionico 17) but unsure what the 'norm' is for NVMe?

Last time I built a PC you had an 256GB SSD for the OS and everything else on hard drives.

Going to use my laptop for gaming and work.

My work PC I'm using around 600GB of an available 1.81TB (including windows)

I'd probably have similar on the laptop, + several games. My personal/work documents etc are on onedrive & similar.

I doubt much more than 1TB would ever be on my laptop at one time.

What are the benefits of 2x NVMe?

Thank you
 
ubuysa

ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
The main benefit of two physical drives of any type is performance. Windows can have only one I/O operation in progress to each physical drive at any one time, so having a separate drive for Windows/programs and another for user data means that I/Os to user data (which can be quite active in some applications) does not adversely impact the performance of the critical I/Os that Windows and programs may be doing.

For Windows and programs you want the very fastest drive you can afford - that means NVMe of course. Size depends on how many user programs you install and how large they are. Windows 10 itself only requires about 30GB.

For user data, faster is better of course, but the blistering speeds of NVMe are probably overkill for most user data. A slightly slower (and cheaper) M.2 ACHI drive will do just as well for most applications. An NVMe drive will give you the very best performance though.
 
N

NBrooke

Member
I was asking the PCS Discord channel about this for my order, just yesterday evening actually.

What we came down on in the end was that it would be likely best to have a smaller, 500GB, drive for OS and then a second larger drive for all other files. This way you can reinstall windows relatively painlessly, should you need to.

You'll want the smaller OS drive to be as fast as possible, as mentioned above.
 
ubuysa

ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
NBrooke said:
I was asking the PCS Discord channel about this for my order, just yesterday evening actually.

What we came down on in the end was that it would be likely best to have a smaller, 500GB, drive for OS and then a second larger drive for all other files. This way you can reinstall windows relatively painlessly, should you need to.

You'll want the smaller OS drive to be as fast as possible, as mentioned above.
Click to expand...
That's true, but you achieve the same thing by partitioning a larger drive. That doesn't help with performance though - having two physical drives does. :)
 
G

Grossi

Member
Thank you! I've been using your advice of an OS drive and a secondry and playing with different combinations of storage avaliable on the Ionico

The cost difference between having a fast 512GB 970 with a slower 1TB PCS SSD vs a 2x 1TB 970s is not much over £100. Might be overkill for data and games, but personally I don't think that is too much of a cost differnce to turn down.

Only follow up question I have would be power consumpion of these drives, do they tend to use more power?
I can be in meetings that would last 4-5 hours somtimes (usualy just staring at outlook), the more power I can save would be a delight. :)
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top