M.2 SSD Thoughts

[Stano]

Below is my current build im waiting for. As you can see I have played around with it a lot since ordering! (Whoops). I was wondering how much of a difference the Samsung 980 would make in comparison to the 970 in terms of having the OS installed on it. Would the speed difference be very noticeable?

Was wondering if it would be worth going for the 500gb 980 for OS alongside a 1TB 970 for games?

Case	CORSAIR iCUE 465X RGB GAMING CASE Change to: CORSAIR OBSIDIAN SERIES™ 500D SE CASE
Processor (CPU)	AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 12 Core CPU (3.7GHz-4.8GHz/70MB CACHE/AM4)
Motherboard	Gigabyte X570 GAMING X: ATX (USB 3.2 Gen 1, PCIe 4.0) - ARGB Ready! Change to: ASUS® ROG STRIX X570-F GAMING (USB 3.2 Gen 2, PCIe 4.0) - ARGB Ready!
Memory (RAM)	32GB Corsair VENGEANCE RGB PRO DDR4 3200MHz (4 x 8GB)
Graphics Card	10GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 3080 - HDMI, DP (Delivery before Xmas not guaranteed)
1st Storage Drive	3TB SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 64MB CACHE Change to: 4TB SEAGATE IRONWOLF PRO 3.5", 7200 RPM 128MB CACHE
1st M.2 SSD Drive	1TB SAMSUNG 970 EVO PLUS M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3500MB/R, 3300MB/W) Change to: 2TB SAMSUNG 970 EVO PLUS M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3500MB/R, 3300MB/W)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive	NOT REQUIRED
Memory Card Reader	USB 3.0 EXTERNAL SD/MICRO SD CARD READER
Power Supply	CORSAIR 850W AX SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® TITANIUM Change to: CORSAIR 1000W AX SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® TITANIUM

 

[AgentCooper]

The 500GB 980 is a fantastic idea and I fully recommend it. The 1TB fast storage one is less important for it’s just for gaming. If you were doing lots of photo editing I’d say keep the 970, if it’s going to be purely game storage, the 1TB PCS M.2 is a more than acceptable alternative 👍

 

[Stano]

The 500GB 980 is a fantastic idea and I fully recommend it. The 1TB fast storage one is less important for it’s just for gaming. If you were doing lots of photo editing I’d say keep the 970, if it’s going to be purely game storage, the 1TB PCS M.2 is a more than acceptable alternative 👍

Yes so my theory was swap out the 2TB 970 for a 500gb 980 and a 1TB 970. Therefore im losing some storage space over all but comes out at the same price. I was thinking having the OS on the 980 rather than 970 would be worth the sacrifice of space as long as it made a noticeable difference?

Just to add this is purely for gaming and general use so no photo editing etc.

 

[AgentCooper]

Worth it. You’ll have a blazingly fast boot time. And if you need to do a clean install of Windows at any point, it’s only the OS drive that’ll get wiped. All your files and games on the second M.2 remain safe. Even NVMe drives will start to slow down a touch when they get around 80% full so, for me, it’s worthwhile having that separation 👍

 

[Tom_P]

It depends on how much of a difference you think you'll notice - both are really fast drives compared to standard HDDs. I don't know the exact boot timings, but there's a law of diminishing returns here - if you take a 30s boot time from an HDD as a baseline, then if you half that moving to a SATA SSD you've saved 15s - half it again moving to a 970 M.2 you're down at 8s - half it again to the 980 you're at 4s. So going from the HDD to SSD, that's a BIG difference - SATA SSD to M.2, smaller difference - M.2 to faster M.2, probably wouldn't notice unless you were booting them side-by-side / back-to-back.

I guess my thinking is that yes, your boot times and file movement etc. will be faster with the 980 compared to the 970 - but if "faster" means you save a few seconds of boot time, or a few seconds of game load time, will you notice? It's an entirely personal choice though!

*edit - just to add, those boot times and the halving for each drive - complete guess, just to illustrate the point a bit better!

 

[Stano]

Is there any reason i can't rock the 250gb 980 and only have the OS on it? windows is no more than 30gb no?

 

[AgentCooper]

No, but if you look at the difference in the read/write times between the 250GB and 500GB, you’ll see why I went for the 500GB 😀

 

[Gavras]

The other thing I have found great about a fast M.2 drive, is when downloading games from Steam, Epic.

Coupled with 1gb broadband and a fast M.2, downloads really do move.

its not just about boot times, which while I love are not end of world.

For me it’s game load times, game download times etc is where the real benefit is.