Discussion Ultimate OS Only SSD in 2019?

[Mr.Vegas]

I have bunch of SSDs, but mostly used for storage, i like for each drive be it SSD or HDD to do single function: Downloads, Games, OS, Movies, etc etc
I sold my 480Gb Optane because its kinda waste of money and Im looking for Ultimate OS/Windows SSD between 1Tb and 500GB.
Please dont mention Optane [I know its the best, too expensive, sold mine and I need M.2 format]

I assume Soemthing like Samsung 970 Pro since its MLC, but in some benchmarks it loses to EVO Plus, so its important to hear from people that either benchmark for this web site or have personal experience, which one is really better.
As far as otehr brand, we have Phison E12 or SM2262EN [WD Black is not bad either] as main competition, but no matter how many benchmarks i see its confusing, they win some, lose some, but which is the best to be Windows drive?
The PCIe Gen4 drives are identical to Gen3 with higher sequential, so is there any benefit to pay more for Gen4 for an OS drive? [I plan to get x570 with 16 core or wait for TR3 which also has Gen4]

So please throw some ideas, which SSD [any, doesnt have to be the ones I mentioned] is the best as Windows drive?

 

[whm1974]

All I know since I've been using the same two 1TB SSDs from 2013 is that both your OS and applications highly benefit from using SSD storage. However said SSD(s) need to be from decent brands and models. AS far as swap is concerned you are better off with getting more memory. The exception to the last is if you require more RAM is then your system can have due to large programs and/or data set and workloads.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I don't always buy the highest-performing SSDs, I tend to go more for bang-for-buck, rather than absolute performance or higher capacity.

That being said, I would imagine, that the new PCI-E 4.0 x4 M.2 NVMe SSDs would be the fastest. They're also like 2X the price, currently, of a performance PCI-E 3.0 NVMe SSD.

My current "high-end" rig, is an R5 3600, on a B450 chipset (no X570 yet), and using 2x PCI-E 3.0 x4 NVMe SSDs in RAID-0. (So, kind of sort of like a single PCI-E 4.0 NVMe SSD, but not quite.) Using 2x Intel 660p 1TB drives, that I got open-box special at a discount, and turned out to be BNIB. Not a bad deal at all. So far, they've been reliable, although I did have ONE "hard-hang" - even holding down the power button didn't power-down and fix it. (That's a REAL hardware-level HARD HANG.)

 

[Mr.Vegas]

I don't always buy the highest-performing SSDs, I tend to go more for bang-for-buck, rather than absolute performance or higher capacity.

That being said, I would imagine, that the new PCI-E 4.0 x4 M.2 NVMe SSDs would be the fastest. They're also like 2X the price, currently, of a performance PCI-E 3.0 NVMe SSD.

My current "high-end" rig, is an R5 3600, on a B450 chipset (no X570 yet), and using 2x PCI-E 3.0 x4 NVMe SSDs in RAID-0. (So, kind of sort of like a single PCI-E 4.0 NVMe SSD, but not quite.) Using 2x Intel 660p 1TB drives, that I got open-box special at a discount, and turned out to be BNIB. Not a bad deal at all. So far, they've been reliable, although I did have ONE "hard-hang" - even holding down the power button didn't power-down and fix it. (That's a REAL hardware-level HARD HANG.)

Hey, I have a specific question about your situation, are you using motherboard raid or windows 10 software raid?
If you use Motehrboard RAID, what happens when you do a bios update? Do you need to rebuild the raid, do something at all or everything just works?

 

[VirtualLarry]

If you use Motehrboard RAID, what happens when you do a bios update? Do you need to rebuild the raid, do something at all or everything just works?

It's the AMD BIOS NVMe RAID support. When I update the BIOS, I had to re-configure the RAID settings in the BIOS, I didn't need to re-build it (thankfully), once I got the settings correct again. Mostly just works, but I can't run Crystal Disk Info, it hangs the system HARD for some reason. It's not the rest of my hardware, as if I disable NVMe RAID in the BIOS, and boot off of a SATA SSD, CDI works fine.

 

[aigomorla]

intel 660p 2TB NVMe for under 200 dollars.
https://www.amazon.com/Intel-660p-2-0TB-80mm-978351/dp/B07GCLLKDC
Capacity > Speed under most consumer conditions.
Trust me you want WAY MORE CAP over SPEED, unless your in enterprise, or your a CrystalMark Junkie and u want to flaunt those uber high reads/writes scores.

Yes its not the fastest NVMe, but its still extremely FAST.
And at 2TB id sacrifice the speed over capacity unless you absolutely need the speed, which i cant see why those couple of seconds at most would "make the paint on the wall start to peel" so to speak.

 

[Mr.Vegas]

intel 660p 2TB NVMe for under 200 dollars.
https://www.amazon.com/Intel-660p-2-0TB-80mm-978351/dp/B07GCLLKDC
Capacity > Speed under most consumer conditions.
Trust me you want WAY MORE CAP over SPEED, unless your in enterprise, or your a CrystalMark Junkie and u want to flaunt those uber high reads/writes scores.

Yes its not the fastest NVMe, but its still extremely FAST.
And at 2TB id sacrifice the speed over capacity unless you absolutely need the speed, which i cant see why those couple of seconds at most would "make the paint on the wall start to peel" so to speak.

Last week I got Intel 4Tb P4500 brand new, got it for awesome price, 360USD, made a mistake and another guy snatched all 10 for 300$ each [seller had 11], was new ebay seller from India, so i wanted to test him first, what a mistake i could re-sell them myself and keep 2, already got the SSD so seller was legit, was sealed in box and inside sealed in static bag.
Ill be using it as game drive, its not the fastest but its better then QLC, 1600 write and 3300 read and its enterprise.
I sldo found good deal for 8TB SATA SSD also enterprise and also new in nylon, looks like ultimate game drive to keep one SSD for everything not just game installs but game archive, totally replacing the need for HDD