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All aboard the PCIE express!!!!

B

Brado78

Senior member
Does anybody else here feel that we should wait a few months before we all start investing in PCIE drives? I mean look at the 840 evo????? Everybody jumped on board with that one, and found out that hit had a HUGE design flaw...😛
 
There are good reasons to purchase PCIe SSDs today, but those might not apply to you.
So, if you don't want PCIe based SSDs, at this time, then don't get it.
 
Unless you're running a server, you might ask yourself if you will ever need that kind of speed, or if you just have to have the latest thing. Most applications, including games, are not I/O-bound, and can't even take advantage of the speed of SATA SSDs except for initial loading.
 
there's something to be said for waiting for the technology to mature. Most of the PCie SSDs, or the samsung units, were actually designed for the tablet /ultra notebook market, which aren't platforms most folks look to for serious workloads. And that's evidenced by the thermal limits samsung is now apparently installing on the SM951.

It's also interesting to me, anyway, that Intel chose to not release a M.2 board, instead opting for either the expansion card with a serious heatsink capability, but still requiring, iirc, 100 lfm of air movement, or the 7mm SSD capsule, which also acts as a heatsink.
While, imho, it's the most mature (currently) design for serious use, it's offered in "odd" capacities - the 400 GB size being the smallest - i like to clone my OS SSD regularly, which means having a 2nd 400 (or larger) unit to clone to

Then there's the pricing - $230 for the 256 GB sammy sm951 AHCI unit, is a lot of money for a gum stick sized pc of technology, when the same capacity in a sata SSD is now under $100

that having been said, i couldn't resist the lure of the speed and went for a xp941 when i found one at $182 shipped. Love the speed, even if it is 30-35% slower than the sm951 - but lacking any thermal limits, i've measured temps on the controller, with a non-contact thermometer, at 97C. I forget who, but one review reported 113C temps, so i've installed a small fan directly over the xp941. For whatever reason, the remaining xp941 vendors have upped their pricing to $300+ - go figure.

fwiw
 
The more such drives you want to pay for and use, the more PCI_E slots and lanes that you'll need.

Also, I think I forgot some details. Do these drives have the same bandwidth for PCI-E 2.0 slots as with PCI-E 3.0?
 
RU482 said:
NVMe support maturity would be nice before making that investment
Click to expand...

Yup. While stability is desirable in almost every facet of a computer's function, when people think about it, storage is usually the most important one by a long shot.
 
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Storage is interesting because it is the most important, and the most fragile. I like the way storage is headed, if only because we have the opportunity to be less dependent on a disk that is spinning at 5,000-7,000 PRM 24/7. I think (hope) that SSD will continue to be "where it's at" for this, with future nand increasing exponentially in life span.

When we started to see where SSD was going in PCI-Express, I would be lying if I said I wasn't a little disappointed. But I am not giving up. The bandwidth will come, just may take some time.
 
larryccf said:
talk about "maturing" - the NVMe SM951 has even shipped yet and there's already an update on the controllers - running cooler and showing another leap in read speed

Phison Shows NVMe at 2700 MB/s and 340,000 IOPS



http://www.tomshardware.com/news/phison-ps5004-nvme,29250.html
Click to expand...

Iffem_shut-up-and-take-my-money.jpg
 
larryccf said:
there's something to be said for waiting for the technology to mature. Most of the PCie SSDs, or the samsung units, were actually designed for the tablet /ultra notebook market, which aren't platforms most folks look to for serious workloads. And that's evidenced by the thermal limits samsung is now apparently installing on the SM951.

It's also interesting to me, anyway, that Intel chose to not release a M.2 board, instead opting for either the expansion card with a serious heatsink capability, but still requiring, iirc, 100 lfm of air movement, or the 7mm SSD capsule, which also acts as a heatsink.
While, imho, it's the most mature (currently) design for serious use, it's offered in "odd" capacities - the 400 GB size being the smallest - i like to clone my OS SSD regularly, which means having a 2nd 400 (or larger) unit to clone to

Then there's the pricing - $230 for the 256 GB sammy sm951 AHCI unit, is a lot of money for a gum stick sized pc of technology, when the same capacity in a sata SSD is now under $100

that having been said, i couldn't resist the lure of the speed and went for a xp941 when i found one at $182 shipped. Love the speed, even if it is 30-35% slower than the sm951 - but lacking any thermal limits, i've measured temps on the controller, with a non-contact thermometer, at 97C. I forget who, but one review reported 113C temps, so i've installed a small fan directly over the xp941. For whatever reason, the remaining xp941 vendors have upped their pricing to $300+ - go figure.

fwiw
Click to expand...
What type of fan did you install? Was is some sort of antec spot fan?
 
I'm trying to convince myself that when Skylake comes out there is no reason to get a Intel 750 pci ssd(even a m.2 ssd using nvme) over the Samsung 850 pro I already have other than I want one.
 
phillyman36 said:
What type of fan did you install? Was is some sort of antec spot fan?
Click to expand...

a Scythe fan - awfully quiet and surprisingly decent airflow from it

here's a shot - i simply cut a short 2" pc of thin walled alum angle i had , bored a 50mm opening out on one end, drilled it for the mount screws and mounted it to the expansion port bracket - wish i'd had a pc of 2.5" alum angle as the fan needs to be further out over the xp941

IMG_1757_zpstyg2cxhk.jpg
 
Yeah cooling is always on my mind and I wonder about the logic of putting an SSD directly above the motherboard in the usual M.2 slot. I've seen posts around about the heat issue. So far my 750 PCIe peaks at 40C, although from two different Intel sources the max. temp is either 55C or 85C.
 
the intel 750 was a smart choice - i just wish it came in 256 GB size as i clone my OS drive pretty regularly and just didn't want to have to buy a 512GB SSD (or another intel 750) to clone to

i suspect by 1st or 2nd quarter next year we'll be seeing a lot more well thought out designs

I only went with the xp941 as i was curious about the speed and found it for $182. I couldn't find any info on max temp but one reviewer did measure 113C. The SM951 apparently has a 82C max temp based on it's thermal limiter throttling at that temp in the legitreviews.com review.

at about the 45 minute mark in a video rendering task, i measured my xp941, and right at the controller (under the "IC circle 20" text on the label) it showed 97C with a non-contact (laser) thermometer. With the fan, max temp i've seen is 77-78C. I've been toying with the idea of using some solvent to carefully peel the label off at the front end, to let the heat transfer out faster.

But i went with the addonics expansion card as when it was installed in the M.2 slot with "x2" lanes, read speeds were 770 MB/s, write 570 MB/s. Moving to the expansion card in a "x4" slot, i'm seeing full speed (1203 read, 880 write)
 
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larryccf said:
the intel 750 was a smart choice - i just wish it came in 256 GB size as i clone my OS drive pretty regularly and just didn't want to have to buy a 512GB SSD (or another intel 750) to clone to

i suspect by 1st or 2nd quarter next year we'll be seeing a lot more well thought out designs

I only went with the xp941 as i was curious about the speed and found it for $182. I couldn't find any info on max temp but one reviewer did measure 113C. The SM951 apparently has a 82C max temp based on it's thermal limiter throttling at that temp in the legitreviews.com review.

at about the 45 minute mark in a video rendering task, i measured my xp941, and right at the controller (under the "IC circle 20" text on the label) it showed 97C with a non-contact (laser) thermometer. With the fan, max temp i've seen is 77-78C. I've been toying with the idea of using some solvent to carefully peel the label off at the front end, to let the heat transfer out faster.

But i went with the addonics expansion card as when it was installed in the M.2 slot with "x2" lanes, read speeds were 770 MB/s, write 570 MB/s. Moving to the expansion card in a "x4" slot, i'm seeing full speed (1203 read, 880 write)
Click to expand...

I've seen RAM heatsinks for video cards, maybe a few could be attached to the 941 (something like this). Also does using it for video rendering help? My CPU is always the limiting factor there. At less than $1/GB that 941 is a good deal for these ultra fast drives. I have a limited time at my PC so every little speedup helps.
 
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bradly1101 said:
I've seen RAM heatsinks for video cards, maybe a few could be attached to the 941 (something like this). Also does using it for video rendering help? My CPU is always the limiting factor there. At less than $1/GB that 941 is a good deal for these ultra fast drives. I have a limited time at my PC so every little speedup helps.
Click to expand...
I initially rendered files to a "worktable" partition on the xp941 and saw a 30-40% (approx) faster times - i'm running a i7-4790 w/16 GB of DDR3 ram

on those heatsinks, i'd thought about them, and am still thinking about one on the controller - but to use it you have to remove the label which means the warranty is shot - i've toyed with the idea of playing with different solvents to slowly peel the plastic label back just far enough to uncover the controller, which is where the heat is the greatest - the controller is just under the text "IC circle 20"
​
 
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I prefer sata, it's much easier to get more sata ports than it is to get more PCIe slots and sata is hot swap. I guess these are for rather specialized applications though where it probably would not be used for mass storage.
 
there's already been one controller with read speads of 2700 MB/s announced that will handle 2 TB

the industry is still young, i imagine it won't be long b4 we see boards with vertical m.2 sockets to allow multiple m.2 SSDs and hot swap shouldn't be an issue
 
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