Question Is there any real world benefit to go fully NVME?

[James3shin]

I don't know if I'm just over thinking things and just trying to distract myself but I'm going to be putting together a new build based on B550 and 5600x. I'll be primarily using this rig for work, some gaming, and photography. I recently picked up a 1TB SK Hynix P31 and was thinking about getting a second NVMe. The other possibility is to just go with the P31 and reuse my current set of drives.

This set includes:

1. 500GB Samsung 860
2. 1TB mechanical HDD
3. 128GB Samsung 830

My rationale for the 2 NVMe scenario is just simplicity and I might as well try to recoup some money from the older drives while I still can. Any real world benefits to consolidating this set of drives into just 2 NVMe's?

 

[Justinus]

Eliminating that hard drive will be a massive gain for applications or games.

NVMe drives like the P31 will generally have lower latency than SATA drives, but whether you really notice it will be up to your workload. I tend to notice them to be snappier in windows in general vs sata drives like the 860 Evo.

Also the benefit of not having any SATA cables and being able to leave out the modular SATA power cable from your power supply.

Not having to fragment your files, games, or applications across 3 different drives in addition to your boot drive would also be a convenience and simplicity benefit.

If you can afford it, it's worth it in my opinion.

 

[MalVeauX]

Heya,

If you don't need the significantly higher capacity of a HDD (4TB or greater) then really you have everything to gain (or simply not lose) to using NVMe M2 drives. Just make sure they have DRAM caching if you want the most from them for various uses. Other advantages is that you no longer have spin up time if a disk is asleep, nor errors due to disc spinning issues, you also don't have the issues that come from a disc spinning 24/7 when powered on, no cables, no SATA power cables, faster everything, total silence, no vibration, etc. You just compromise capacity and max SATA ports (but if your goal is to not use SATA, then this is a moot point). The other compromise is that you can only have a few NVMe drives natively on a board without getting PCIe cards that expand that.

My Steam Box is 100% NVMe drives. It's a gaming box so it has no need for mass storage capacity and it's on my network with a big 44TB (HDD's) redundant storage pool on my NAS for capacity needs. My OS is on one SSD and the game install library is on the other SSD.

Very best,

 

[Igo69]

The only negative about it is the astronomical price.

 

[Justinus]

The only negative about it is the astronomical price.

With newer upper mid-range PCI-e 3.0 drives like the P31, SN750, and P5 being just over $100/1 TB I would not call the price "astronomical".

 

[MalVeauX]

Agreed, $100~150 for 1TB is not astronomical in the context of what you get. That context is not maximum capacity.

Very best,

 

[Justinus]

Agreed, $100~150 for 1TB is not astronomical in the context of what you get. That context is not maximum capacity.

Very best,

The brand new high end PCI-e 4.0 drives would qualify as "expensive", however, at $200+/1TB and $400+/2TB. Still not astronomical. That's reserved for the likes of the Optane 900P/905P and enterprise hardware.

 

[MalVeauX]

The brand new high end PCI-e 4.0 drives would qualify as "expensive", however, at $200+/1TB and $400+/2TB. Still not astronomical. That's reserved for the likes of the Optane 900P/905P and enterprise hardware.

Agreed, still affordable in the context of use. Just like someone needing high capacity 12~16TB drives with good reliability are going to pay $300+ and it's not astronomical, it's quite affordable, for what it is.

Everyone wants $50 "perfect."

Very best,

 

[Lopoetve]

Done this for a while, outside of servers and NAS - quieter, cooler, less vibration issues, smaller cases, etc. I still use spinners in my PLEX and NAS systems due to capacity concerns (not many NVMe NAS systems out there yet, and that would be mighty expensive for a home user), but that's about it. Every system now at least gets a 1TB NVMe 3.0 drive for its primary. Some get more. Great for almost everything, except storing massive large files (I do all my video work long-term storage on NAS or 7200RPM spinners).