Do M.2 NVMe drives make any noticeable difference to performance?

Hi, I am interested on views about the real world performance of NVMe drives. The headline speeds are blistering but I have seen some reports that in real world use the improvement that you will see as a user is negligible. Has anyone replaced a SATA ssd with an NVMe drive in the same machine and observed the improvement or seen any reliable benchmarks where this has been done? If you do use an NVMe drive where do you see the improvement? Does it have a noticeable impact to boot times?
 

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
Hi, I am interested on views about the real world performance of NVMe drives. The headline speeds are blistering but I have seen some reports that in real world use the improvement that you will see as a user is negligible. Has anyone replaced a SATA ssd with an NVMe drive in the same machine and observed the improvement or seen any reliable benchmarks where this has been done? If you do use an NVMe drive where do you see the improvement? Does it have a noticeable impact to boot times?
There are 2 types of M2 drives, SATA which are exactly the same speeds as a normal SATA SSD, and NVME which is a much faster drive.

NVME drives are seriously fast in real world performance, you'll notice it in general windows performance if you have the OS on it (which would be the norm), so programs opening, general windows navigation, any kind of copy paste action, basically absolutely everything. Most people willl have it as their game drive and it vastly improves games loading times.

You may have been referencing older drives that weren't as fast as current drives, or were SATA M2 drives.

BUT yes, there's a major, noticeable improvement when you have an NVME drive in a build.
 

Scott

Behold The Ford Mondeo
Moderator
Everything is relative. If you're loading up MP3s you're unlikely to notice any difference. If you are doing mass transfers then you will notice a HUGE difference. It's different horses for different courses.

Windows boot times are now around 10 seconds with fast boot switched OFF using fast NVME drives. That's from power on to desktop. Some systems will load up in around 5 (mine included). It's insane.

SSD SATA drives had their place up until very recently, IMO. They were cheaper than the M2 NVME equivalent and thus were still relevant. Now, the only relevance they have is when the M2 slots are used up and MORE additional fast storage is required.
 

ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
An SSD outperforms an HDD most noticeably with large files that must be loaded quickly, like hi res images, large databases or spreadsheets, because file fragmentation is not an issue on an SSD. They also improve access to smaller random and frequently accesd files like dlls and exe files because seek and latency is not an issue on an SSD.

Where an SSD offers no improvement is with music and video files, because these are processed in real time and the extra speed of loading the next buffer is irrelevant.

SSDs come in several flavours....

Some use the SATA interface and the ACHI protocols, these have max R/W rates up to 600MB/s - limited by the SATA speed. The speed improvement over an HDD is small but noticea

Some use the M.2 interface and the ACHI protocols, these have max R/W rates up to about 1500MB/s - limited by the ACHI protocol.

The best use the M.2 interface and the NVMe protocols - limited by the PCIe bus speed (4GB/s potentially].

In contrast a decent HDD (using the SATA interface and the ACHI protocols) has a R/W rate of around 160MB/s - limited by the data density on the disk.

For those files that benefit most any SSD is of benefit but the M.2 NVMe SSDs make a massive difference.

Sent using Tapatalk
 

ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
BTW Most user data (documents, etc) is in small files (less than 1MB) and the difference in load time between a fast SSD and a properly managed HDD is measured in milliseconds and thus not very noticeable.

An SSD does not improve access to all files but for those that benefit from it an SSD makes a very worthwhile difference.

Sent using Tapatalk
 

Scott

Behold The Ford Mondeo
Moderator
Bear in mind this video is a little old now and NVME drives are even faster these days, but it gives you a good idea of real world tests.


Good watch that. Highlights the difference in the prices then too, compared to now when they are effectively nil (ADATA).
 
Good watch that. Highlights the difference in the prices then too, compared to now when they are effectively nil (ADATA).
I am interested in your comment about price. on PCS NvMe drives still cost twice as much as Sata SSDs if a not a little more

1TB Samsung 860 QVO SATA SSD adds £108 to my build (inc VAT) so that's £0.108 £/GB where as
1TB Samsung 970 EVO M.2 adds £226 to my build (inc VAT) so that £0.226 £/GB

Can you point me at a significantly cheaper source on NVMe drives?
 

ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
I am interested in your comment about price. on PCS NvMe drives still cost twice as much as Sata SSDs if a not a little more

1TB Samsung 860 QVO SATA SSD adds £108 to my build (inc VAT) so that's £0.108 £/GB where as
1TB Samsung 970 EVO M.2 adds £226 to my build (inc VAT) so that £0.226 £/GB

Can you point me at a significantly cheaper source on NVMe drives?
Performance costs I'm afraid. That said a decent NVMe drive will do 3000MB/s compared to 550MB/s from a SATA drive, that's over a five fold improvement!

Sadly we can't direct you to anyone other than PCS, these are their fora after all. [emoji3]

Sent using Tapatalk
 
Performance costs I'm afraid. That said a decent NVMe drive will do 3000MB/s compared to 550MB/s from a SATA drive, that's over a five fold improvement!

Sadly we can't direct you to anyone other than PCS, these are their fora after all. [emoji3]

Sent using Tapatalk
Fair point :) was just intrigued by the no price difference point made by The_Scotster
 

Scott

Behold The Ford Mondeo
Moderator
As above, the SX6000 is what I'm referring to. There's also the SX8200 pro, that should hopefully be coming to PCS soon. I bought one of them before Christmas, £98 for a 1TB M2 drive with 3500/3000 read/write speeds.

Don't think there are many standard sata options less than that.

I have the 970 Evo but I think it's overpriced now with the Adata options being available.
 
Thanks I like the look of the sx8200 pro. Pity pcs don't offer it

I contacted PCS and they are able to provide the Sx8200 pro. Just needed an exchange of messages using the account send message feature. Then they created a sub order to the order. The cost was about £2 more than the drive costs on Amazon, but without the hassle of fitting post delivery.
 

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
I contacted PCS and they are able to provide the Sx8200 pro. Just needed an exchange of messages using the account send message feature. Then they created a sub order to the order. The cost was about £2 more than the drive costs on Amazon, but without the hassle of fitting post delivery.
Welll worth it, you'll be amazed when you get the system at just how fast it is.
 
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