PCIe SSD (M.2), just not worth it for me correct?

[KyleGates]

Putting together a new build in the next month or two. Looking for an SSD for a Steam library. In my current build I have a 1TB 840 evo and its been a great drive. But it is also full so I plan to add another in the 500GB realm (500/512).

Question is, should I stick with an 850 evo or get an M.2 drive? I am thinking (for Gaming) its probably not worth the extra $200+ but figured I would ask for some additional opinions.

Rest of the build will probably be an x99 board with a 5930k and a couple Pascal/Polaris cards unless they end up both very underwhelming.

 

[Brado78]

If the computer is used for gaming then the 850 evo will do you fine. The 950 pro is for extreme enthusiasts. If you are doing heavy graphic editing or designing games then yeah. The 950 pro is a bit overkill for most users . Mainstream use and web browsing, then definitely not, save the extra $200 and buy a good graphics card..

 

[KyleGates]

Thx, thats pretty much what I was thinking. The build will be pretty high end but gaming is the primary use (only graphical editing I do is removing the red-eye from the family Easter photos lol).

 

[BSim500]

Question is, should I stick with an 850 evo or get an M.2 drive? I am thinking (for Gaming) its probably not worth the extra $200+ but figured I would ask for some additional opinions.

I looked at the same thing a while back. For real-world gaming load times (outside of synthetics), there's nothing in it regarding premium 950 PRO vs budget 850 EVO / Crucial MLC drives:-
http://techreport.com/review/29221/samsung-950-pro-512gb-ssd-reviewed/4

For storage for a large number of games, the choice between a 512GB 950 PRO vs 1TB 850 EVO is a total no-brainer.

 

[nanaki333]

i regret my M.2 drive. stupid thing causes random lockups in applications since i switched from an 850 pro to SM951. could just be bad luck on my part (which most likely is) but i'm not happy with its performance.

 

[KyleGates]

i regret my M.2 drive. stupid thing causes random lockups in applications since i switched from an 850 pro to SM951. could just be bad luck on my part (which most likely is) but i'm not happy with its performance.

Bummer. On a side note...that is a HELLUVA system you gots there.

 

[VirtualLarry]

i regret my M.2 drive. stupid thing causes random lockups in applications since i switched from an 850 pro to SM951. could just be bad luck on my part (which most likely is) but i'm not happy with its performance.

Hmm, what OS? I'm using a pair of SM951 128GB AHCI PCI-E M.2 SSDs (bought new). Seems to work OK for me, but as you mentioned, they're not as high performance as they are made out to be. My 4K random QD32 read scores are barely better than a high-end SATA6G drive. (But sequential read is off the charts, nearly 2GB/sec.)

 

[nanaki333]

Hmm, what OS? I'm using a pair of SM951 128GB AHCI PCI-E M.2 SSDs (bought new). Seems to work OK for me, but as you mentioned, they're not as high performance as they are made out to be. My 4K random QD32 read scores are barely better than a high-end SATA6G drive. (But sequential read is off the charts, nearly 2GB/sec.)

Running Windows 10 Pro with it. When I had my 850 PRO there were no hiccups at ALL. Now, even bringing up task manager, gives me a couple second pauses. When I'm actually WORKING, i expect everything to open in less than a second so it's quite annoying and slows me down. My work computer with a Vertex 4 (yes, still works!) flies and the 850 in my wife's PC now runs on Windows 10 Pro perfectly too.


Do you know of any firmware updates? I searched but found no actual firmwares. I got this drive because the 950 wasn't out yet and the stats are pretty similar.

Bummer. On a side note...that is a HELLUVA system you gots there.

Thanks. Best part is, I don't pay a penny for my parts! Muwahaha!

 

[mnewsham]

I can't comment on the 951, but my 950 doesn't have those problems, it's very responsive in windows.

I'd make sure drivers are installed and maybe try the samsung magician tool to see if it can optimize anything.

 

[nanaki333]

I can't comment on the 951, but my 950 doesn't have those problems, it's very responsive in windows.

I'd make sure drivers are installed and maybe try the samsung magician tool to see if it can optimize anything.

Magician, unfortunately, doesn't pick up the SM951 (OEM) drives.


Back on topic, you wouldn't notice a difference at all between the M.2 and SATA 6.0Gb. Unless you get a great deal and it's the same cost, may as well get the M.2. I'm just butt-hurt about my experience so far. I was going to request an SM961 but this 951 left a bad taste in geekmouth.

 

[Pheran]

I'm struggling with the same issue. I'm in the process of building a Skylake PC and I was lusting after a Samsung 950 Pro, but I just can't justify spending >$300 for 500GB. I think I'm just going to get an 850 Evo or similar, then wait for the new Samsung SM961/PM961 drives to come out. Hopefully the PM961 will be more reasonably priced, or perhaps these will cause a price drop on the 950 Pros. Then I'll add an M.2 drive and double my storage.

 

[Shmee]

I must admit, as cool and well priced for an NVME SSD that the 950 pro is, it isn't really noticeably faster than the 850 Evo.

 

[shabby]

I must admit, as cool and well priced for an NVME SSD that the 950 pro is, it isn't really noticeably faster than the 850 Evo.

I think it'll be a long time before we start noticing differences between sata3 ssd's and pcie ones in normal every day tasks. The bottleneck doesn't seem to be in the ability to read more data quicker anymore, its what to do with it when you get it, and intel has been slacking off in that department for the last few years.

 

[TemjinGold]

I've been wondering this as well. So to be clear, it would NOT be worth it for me to do a full system upgrade (since my mobo doesn't support NVMe) just to get an M2 PCIe drive? Am I better served just getting another TB sata and calling it a day (I want to finally retire my spindle, which is like 10 years old)?

 

[FFFF]

Not only a PCIe SSD will delay boot compared to a SATA one but unless you're working with very big files frequently it's mostly a waste of money. I don't expect to buy one myself for at least 5 years when prices will no doubt get closer to SATA SSDs.

 

[guskline]

I must admit, as cool and well priced for an NVME SSD that the 950 pro is, it isn't really noticeably faster than the 850 Evo.

Interesting! I have 2 850 EVO 500G in Raid 0 and they are very fast.

 

[mnewsham]

Interesting! I have 2 850 EVO 500G in Raid 0 and they are very fast.

RAID 0 on SSDs does very little besides increase your pure read/write speeds, and 95% of people using an SSD are never even hitting those limits anyway because they are more I/O bound(and RAID doesn't do shit for I/O), so your SSD spends most of it's time not taking any advantage of that RAID speed, unless you're doing HUGE file transfers or have a 10 or 40gbps fiber connection able to use more than 1 or 2gbps write speeds.


Unless you are actively doing work that utilizes those RAID speeds, you'll get far better use by having them run on their own not in RAID.

 

[Pheran]

The pricing on these is still too high, but I'm really happy that Samsung is finally getting some competition in the PCIe SSD market.

The Toshiba OCZ RD400 (256GB, 512GB, 1TB) M.2 PCIe SSD Review