Plextor M6e (M.2), Intel P3500/3600/3700, ?

[Bleser]

After a solid 5-year run on my Intel Core i5 750-based machine, I'm considering a full overhaul of my system. Whenever I look at replacing my motherboard, which requires OS re-install, I also look at storage to get the best bang for my OS-install-buck (time).

I'm currently running an Intel 320 160GB as my boot/OS/app drive and know that there are many faster options out there. I was going to go with the Samsung 840 Pro 1TB, but then I stumbled upon the Plextor M6e and it really raised my eyebrows at options beyond SATA. Since the Plextor drive is really an M.2 drive with an adapter, it seemed like the more obvious choice. I read that the Plextor drive will soon be offered w/o the adapter as well, so you can plug it right into the M.2 port on a Z97 motherboard.

Then I just read the P3700 review, and although insanely expensive (for now), it seems to be the true 'future' of SSD and death of SATA.

My basic question is: when do we expect NVMe drives to be available in reasonable quantity for consumer builds? Are these really going to be server-only products for some time to come? Do we expect M.2 drives to really take off and fill up the consumer demand while NVMe is more of a 2015+ drive option?

All thoughts welcome. Thanks.

 

[Cerb]

M.2 native PCIe+NVMe is going to be awhile. Don't worry about it, for now. M.2 SATA is already taking over with OEMs, but M.2 allowing SATA is allowing for slower roll-out of NVMe. 2015 for some enthusiast products, probably, but 2016 or later is quite possible for (a) widespread adoption and (b) substantial performance gains.

As it is, the P3700 looks like it will be met or bested by fast SATA SSDs for desktop usage, like the Extreme II, or 840 Pro. Faster lower-latency controllers, better drivers, and possibly chipset optimizations, are still in the offing, to make NVMe really shine. It's on the way, but it's not looking like it will be here tomorrow.

See the wonders of the Plextor M6e. Fine drive, but it ranges from middle of the pack to only slightly faster than SATA SSDs, except in big file transfers. There's more work ahead to be done than just putting an SSD on PCIe--that removes one bottleneck, but doing so doesn't magically improve performance. The drive's components and firmwares will still need to be improved to make use of the newfound latency and bandwidth improvements, and probably drivers, too.

 

[Bleser]

Thanks for your detailed response.

I agree that it feels a bit premature, and really showing that NVMe is in the enterprise world only (for now) and the M6e is sort of by itself in its own world (for now). The review you linked to also scared me a bit showing that the M6e really slows down when it reaches 50% capacity.

I think, for this build, the Samsung 840 EVO 1TB is the right route to go. Great capacity (for an SSD) and hard to find a bad thing written about it.

Also, considering that I'm coming from a fairly old SATA 3Gbps drive, it'll be like getting an SSD for the first time all over again (sort of).