Advantages/Disadvantages of using an M.2 SSD as a boot drive?

[OakIris]

I am going to be building a new gaming system in spring of 2017. The boot drive in my current system is an 80 GB SSD drive and I plan to buy a new, larger SSD drive for the boot drive in my "to be build" system configuration. I have been out of the loop for a while - last computer build was in 2010 - and had never even heard of M.2 SSD drives until I started researching for parts for my new build. Guess I have been living under a rock.....

I - obviously - need a motherboard with M.2 capabilities that supports using an M.2 drive as a boot drive. Before I even start looking for such a motherboard, I would like to know if it is worth the extra cost to get a motherboard with "bootable" M.2 ports. Some things I have read said that the M.2 drives are faster, others say there is no discernable difference, especially for a boot drive.

If all an M.2 drive does is save some room and drive bays in the system case, I don't need it as I have a Corsair Obsidian Series 800D case with lots of room for expansion. Hoping that someone with real world experience will be able to tell me what, if any, the advantages and disadvantages are to adding an M.2 drive to a desktop system, in general, and/or to using it as a boot drive in specific.

Holly

 

[Valantar]

m.2 drives are faster as long as they're not m.2 SATA drives. You need an NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express) drive to see speed gains, as SATA is SATA wether it's through a cable or an m.2 connector. m.2 is simply a form factor, while SATA/AHCI and NVMe are communications protocols. Yes, this does get somewhat confusing.

m.2 SATA drives are mainly made for laptops that want mid-priced storage in a compact form factor. They usually cost slightly more than similar models of 2,5" SATA SSDs.

There are currently few m.2 NVMe drives out there, and they are (mostly) expensive, but (mostly) perform 4-6x (or more, in terms of random IO) better than SATA SSDs. I say "mostly" constantly due to recent influx of low-end NVMe drives like the Intel 600p and MyDigitalSSD BPX (if you're in the US) and midrange models like the Patriot Hellfire. The high-end is owned by Samsung, with their 950 PRO and brand new 960 PRO. A 960 EVO (midrange to high-end) is also upcoming.

Low-end NVMe SSDs like the Intel 600p still outperform any SATA drives, although in the Intel's case it's not by much. According to Tom's Hardware, the MyDigitalSSD BPX is a far better purchase - faster at a lower price. The 960 PRO comes close to doubling the price per capacity of these drives, but has the performance to match.


Wether you'll notice a performance difference anywhere near the added investment is another question entirely. I'd argue that for most users, it's a clear no. If you do data-heavy work on your PC (video editing, database work, probably a lot of stuff I don't know of), then probably. A 960 PRO as a scratch disk for video editing would be fantastic. If you use your PC for gaming and web browsing, I'd argue for putting that same money into a larger, cheaper SSD rather than paying through the nose to shave 1-2 seconds off your (already tiny) Windows boot time or a few seconds off game load times. But that's just me, of course. OTOH, the 600p and BPX are competitively priced with some SATA SSDs, and as such look like decent investments regardless of use case.

 

[Hossain84]

Thanks Valantar

 

[OakIris]

Just the kind of information I needed, Valantar; thank you very much.

I may still get a motherboard with M.2 capabilities, just in case there becomes a compelling reason for me to get an M.2 drive in the future, but I will stick with a "regular" SSD for my boot drive as I had originally planned. I don't think that anything I want to do with my computer can take advantage of the M.2's capabilities and I certainly don't need to spend unnecessary money, especially since my budget is already rather limited.

Holly

 

[coercitiv]

I don't think that anything I want to do with my computer can take advantage of the M.2's capabilities and I certainly don't need to spend unnecessary money, especially since my budget is already rather limited.

When it comes to SSDs on a budget, a simple rule of thumb would be to always buy only as much as you need for the next 1-2 years. This type of storage is evolving quickly, and you can safely assume that in 2 years you'll be able to buy 2x more capacity and an increase in speed for the same price. (or same capacity and speed for a fraction of the initial cost).

 

[BonzaiDuck]

For a dual-boot system, my own idea is to get the fastest 1TB M.2 NVMe I can afford. there is no hurry. I plan to migrate my system partitions to two 400GB volumes, and use 200GB remaining for two 100GB volumes.

The 100GB volumes will then be used for each OS respectively in SSD-caching. Since the NVMe drive spec shows a 4x increase over an SATA SSD, I can cache both SATA SSDs and HDDs through a single 100GB caching volume.

I want to see how this works out. If it's either troublesome or the benchmarks don't prove out, I can simply delete the caching volumes. But I've had enough experience with this now that it looks promising. Whether the real-world performance matches the benchmark performance, I'll have to see. It depends on usage patterns.

But it's benign; the caching program is very dependable with a jack-knife-full of tweaking features. The faster the RAM (DDR4-3200) and with the caching volumes at 100GB, I neither lose much in the way of persistent storage (the NVMe drive) nor does it require much in the way of RAM. The RAM requirement should be less, because of the NVMe speed spec.