M.2 SSD Upgrade for an Older Machine

[Collider]

Trying to make sense of M.2 SSDs, and to figure out if I should upgrade or not.

Currently I run 2 x Samsung 120GB SSDs in RAID-0 (w/o trim support) and get about 520 MB/s on reads and 250 MB/s on writes (http://screencast.com/t/OSo7rcxF8TkR)

If I understand correctly they come in a variety of interfaces.

My question is two fold:

- Which interface offers best performance?

- Considering being limited to PCI-E 2.0 motherboard (using ASUS P6T Deluxe, full specs in signature) and my current speeds of 520/250 with RAID-0 SSD setup does it make sense to upgrade ?

Please consider workstation type workloads (development, database analysis, etc)

Thanks!

 

[Shmee]

Only if you upgrade your motherboard.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

If I understand correctly they come in a variety of interfaces.

My question is two fold:

- Which interface offers best performance?

- Considering being limited to PCI-E 2.0 motherboard (using ASUS P6T Deluxe, full specs in signature) and my current speeds of 520/250 with RAID-0 SSD setup does it make sense to upgrade ?

Firstly, PCIe drives wins hands down. No contest. As to the interface, they're just methods of physically connecting the drive to the mainboard. The protocol used is either AHCI or NVMe. Be aware that SATA M.2 drives do not perform any better then their 2.5" counterparts.

However with your older mainboard, you'll have very limited options since you can't boot from an NVMe drive on your mainboard.

So in effect you have two choices currently, the Kingston HyperX Predator and Plextor M6e. If you can still find it. Both come with a PCIe-to-M.2 adaptor which you'll need.

As to performance, it's absolutely worth it. Sequentially you'll go to 1400MB/s (read), 600MB/s (write, and even 1000MB/s on the 480GB version) on the HyperX, and the Marvell 9293 controller is no sloth when it comes to random I/O. It performs a bit better then the Samsung XP941. Just make sure you connect it to one of the PCIe slots coming off the northbridge. One of these drives are quite capable of fully saturating the DMI link between the northbridge and PCH.

 

[larryccf]

checking the specs on your board, you're limited to PCIe 2.0 expansion slots

that being said, a) another choice is the samsung xp941 which is PCIe 2.0 x4, which is what i'm running. Speeds i see from it, read/write are 1180/870 MB/s. It's AHCI protocol

You can also run a PCIe 3.0 SSD, like the samsung sm951 or 950 PRO, but your speeds would be limited by PCIe 2.0 slots. The NVMe protocol should still work as a data drive, but will not boot on your board. But still, if/when you do upgrade your mobo, at least your drive is ready.

the xp941, sm951 and 950 PRO are m.2 format (SSD looks like and about the size of a stick of gum) will require an adaptor card (M.2 to PCIE) - addonics and asus both offer them

addonics http://www.addonics.com/products/adm2px4.php
asus M.2 Hyper kit http://www.ebay.com/itm/321873311934?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT



fwiw

 

[Collider]

Thanks for detailed explanations, I now have a much better understanding of these drives.

Seems like HyperX Predator would be ideal choice:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ngston_HyperX_Predator-_-20-104-545-_-Product

But price per MB is a bit much. Also it looks to be about half the performance speed of newer PCI-E 3.0 M.2 drives http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA4P03H20193

Looking at these speeds, 2600 read is insane. Do people actually see such huge impact on RL workloads?

Very tempted to upgrade my mobo.

 

[Collider]

If I understood correctly boot limitation comes from NVMe due to my older board.

How about this drive, it says its AHCI model - if I use an adapter will I be able to use this as a boot drive?

SAMSUNG SM951 M.2 512GB PCI-Express 3.0:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA12K3GB5852&cm_re=m.2-_-20-147-425-_-Product

 

[Insert_Nickname]

How about this drive, it says its AHCI model - if I use an adapter will I be able to use this as a boot drive?

In short, no.

It might be AHCI, but it requires special firmware in the UEFI (BIOS). Which you'll not find outside boards based on the Z97 and X99 chipsets. I don't know about Skylake compatibility. These Samsung drives aren't really meant for retail, the "official" version of the SM951 is the 950PRO.

But if you're willing to do a full upgrade, it becomes a moot point. You can also benefit from a 6C/12T or 8C/16T core CPU too if you go X99.

 

[bigi]

It works great, but it will not boot from PCI-E m.2 ssd as you have to use an adapter.

I store my Lightroom stuff on Samsung 941 which sits in PCI-E adapter. I've done a few symbolic links not to mess my photo folder structure, so basically the m2 ssd is used as very quick ssd for my Lightroom usage (cash, previews, pics, conversion.)

So, now I have SATA SSD for OS, M2/PCI-E SSD for photo stuff and HDD for other storage stuff.

 

[razel]

HardOCP's Fall SSD update has a fantastic cheatsheet that summarizes the current maze. Do your best to go NVMe. It is the future.

 

[myocardia]

Do people actually see such huge impact on RL workloads?

Definitely not, unless you like boot times of around 1 minute*, and prefer having to "rig" case fans to blow onto your SSD, to keep it from frying itself. Do you honestly think you'd notice the difference between 1/8th of a second, and 1/18th of a second, when you aren't doing benchmarks?


*This no longer applies to boards that use the Z170 chipset, so as long as you wouldn't mind losing 50% of your cores/threads, you'd be fine on boot times.

 

[Collider]

Do you honestly think you'd notice the difference between 1/8th of a second, and 1/18th of a second, when you aren't doing benchmarks?

Actually yes - I use this machine for development and database work. Lots analysis of jobs that I run take 15-30 minutes to complete, and sift through millions of records. I multithread the code but am bottlenecked by my drive speed.

So 1/18th of a second when I'm executing a few thousand queries will actually add up.

Another question is, how much of that theoretical speed will actually translate in real world improvement during DB workloads.

 

[larryccf]

not sure what sort of analysis you're doing, but when i installed my xp941, rendering video files (which showed 99-100% cpu usage) dropped from typically 65-75 minutes down to 28-36 minutes

that was a huge, to me, savings in time, especially when it means i can do 3-4 video files in an evening, vs 1-2 files

There are going to be naysayers, and in another thread there were enough of them that it had me wondering if i had been smoking some home rolled cigs, until 3-4 other posters chimed in reporting the same drop in video file rendering times

 

[myocardia]

Actually yes - I use this machine for development and database work. Lots analysis of jobs that I run take 15-30 minutes to complete, and sift through millions of records. I multithread the code but am bottlenecked by my drive speed.

So 1/18th of a second when I'm executing a few thousand queries will actually add up.

You are a prime candidate for a faster SSD, then. That is the type of information that should be in your first post, btw (the being bottlenecked by your RAID 0 drives, I mean).

Another question is, how much of that theoretical speed will actually translate in real world improvement during DB workloads.

Close to 100% of it, if you had a computer as fast as the computer they used to do those benchmarks. With your current system, I'd guess probably well over 50%, and probably closer to 75%, since you are overclocked.

 

[Collider]

Close to 100% of it, if you had a computer as fast as the computer they used to do those benchmarks. With your current system, I'd guess probably well over 50%, and probably closer to 75%, since you are overclocked.

Are you saying that I might be bottlenecked by my CPU?

Even on a 6 core Xeon? I mean its an older CPU but still somewhat comparable to newer i7s considering the OC. No matter how much I push it I rarely even come close to 100% utilization on this thing.

 

[myocardia]

Are you saying that I might be bottlenecked by my CPU?

Even on a 6 core Xeon? I mean its an older CPU but still somewhat comparable to newer i7s considering the OC. No matter how much I push it I rarely even come close to 100% utilization on this thing.

If you are currently being bottlenecked by your SSDs, and you 'solve' that problem with a 250+% faster SSD, that pretty much leaves only your motherboard chipset and your CPU to be the bottleneck, doesn't it?

 

[Collider]

If you are currently being bottlenecked by your SSDs, and you 'solve' that problem with a 250+% faster SSD, that pretty much leaves only your motherboard chipset and your CPU to be the bottleneck, doesn't it?

Ok, theoretically yes.

Curious, what is the typical CPU utilization during heavy disk loads do you see on your newer i7?

 

[myocardia]

Ok, theoretically yes.

Curious, what is the typical CPU utilization during heavy disk loads do you see on your newer i7?

Sorry, I forgot about this thread. I don't have any disks in my main computer, just 3 SSDs, and I don't run anything that puts heavy loads on them, and when I write to hard drives for any reason, I use a USB 3.0 docking station, which "goes through" the CPU (uses CPU cycles). Would CPU utilization while transferring data from one SATA III SSD to another be relevant for you? If so, how many/how large do the file(s) need to be?

edit: BTW, when I said in my last comment that your older chipset & CPU would become the bottleneck, I did not mean its speed/percentage of utilization while writing to drives. I meant that a 3.9-4.0 Ghz overclocked 6-core Haswell-E will actually do the computations for the database analysis that you do considerably faster than your 3.9 Ghz Xeon X5650, since speeding up your SSD by 200-250% will be alleviating your SSD bottleneck.

 

[Collider]

So I've been waiting for a good deal, and came across this on Newegg:

Intel 750 Series AIC 400GB PCI-E SSD
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167363&ignorebbr=1

Thinking about getting this, its cheaper and lists higher speeds than the HyperX Preditor:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...tm_medium=affiliates&utm_source=afc-Skimlinks

Would this cause any issues with my X58 board ? Or is this a sweet deal and I should go for it?

Thanks!

 

[Burpo]

Good review here. It is a fast drive..
http://benchmarkreviews.com/26930/kingston-hyperx-predator-pcie-m2-ssd-review/

Conclusion here..
http://benchmarkreviews.com/26930/kingston-hyperx-predator-pcie-m2-ssd-review/10/

 

[Collider]

You can also run a PCIe 3.0 SSD, like the samsung sm951 or 950 PRO, but your speeds would be limited by PCIe 2.0 slots.

Just curious how much of a performance hit would there be?

950 PRO M.2 512GB version lists up to 2500 / 1500 for speeds - if I run it on my PCIe 2.0 slot what would you estimate can I expect in terms of read / write speeds aprox ?

 

[Insert_Nickname]

950 PRO M.2 512GB version lists up to 2500 / 1500 for speeds - if I run it on my PCIe 2.0 slot what would you estimate can I expect in terms of read / write speeds aprox ?

Its possible to get 15-1600MB/s out of a PCIe 2.0 x4 connection. I wouldn't expect any more then that.

You still can't boot from the 950pro of course.

 

[Collider]

Its possible to get 15-1600MB/s out of a PCIe 2.0 x4 connection. I wouldn't expect any more then that.

You still can't boot from the 950pro of course.

Is that 15-1600 for both read & writes ?

 

[Collider]

Does anyone know if this will boot with x58 board?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...fIREPYS2APRYmEtxoC4vjw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds#close

 

[eddieobscurant]

You probably won't be able to boot from sm951, either ahci or nvme . Try the 950 pro, you may be able to boot, but it's not something given. My p45 can boot from 950 pro but not from the sm951 nvme. I don't think it has anything to do with ahci or nvme.

I've already posted my results on the 950 thread.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?p=37845883&highlight=#post37845883

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?p=37847250&highlight=#post37847250

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Is that 15-1600 for both read & writes ?

Yes. What's more, PCIe is full duplex, so it can send and receive both ways at once.