NVMe SSDs vs SATA SSDs

[mainer]

While on the topic of SSDs, would I see a noticeable increase in data transfer if I replaced my current SSD with a NVME SSD? I'm thinking strictly gaming benefits. Maybe I should post this over in the hardware section (?), but it seemed relevant to post here, as I've been thinking about possible upgrades to a nearly 4 year old gaming PC.

I moved this discussion from General Gaming to the Desktop Hardware section as I felt it was distracting from Zed's original post. Is there a visual difference between using a NVMe SSD or a SATA SSD when it comes to gaming? If I were buying or building a new gaming PC now, I would definitely choose the NVMe SSD. But what about upgrading an older PC, is it worth the time & money to upgrade? Current "C" drive & gaming drive is a Samsung (sorry Zed) i1TB 860-Pro SATA SSD.

I'm looking at this NVMe from a recent PCG article and is on sale:
One of our highest-reviewed NVMe SSDs is the cheapest it's ever been | PC Gamer
Seagate 2TB FireCuda 530 PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe M.2 ZP2000GM3A023 B&H (bhphotovideo.com)

I was concerned that my current MOBO, (MSI Z390 Gaming Edge AC) being almost 4 years old, wouldn't have an M.2 slot, but apparently it has two:

https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/MPG-Z390-GAMING-EDGE-AC/Specification

I consider myself an experienced gamer, but my tech knowledge leans towards the Neanderthal era. The above NVMe seems like a great deal to me, but am I actually going to see a benefit when it comes to gaming?

 

[WoodenSaucer]

On paper, there is a pretty big difference. But in actuality, I'm not sure how perceptible it is. Some of my computers use SATA SSDs, and one or two use NVMe. I have a program I frequently use that takes a while to load, and I'm not sure I can feel a big difference between the two. I've never actually measured, though. But I can definitely tell a difference coming from a 7200RPM HDD, though. Even a SATA SSD feels way faster than an HDD.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

I have games on an NVME and a SATA SSD. Theres no perceptible difference. All the testing I've ever seen bears this out. Just Google Youtube SSD vs NVME and youll find a dozen side by side videos showing a second or two difference in load time for games, boot times not much different either.

Having said that, theres not much reason to get SATA SSD's new anymore because the price is almost the same as NVME and NVME are better in every way even if its not all that much different practically speaking.

Outside of gaming there might be more difference depending on the application, but I dont know much about any professional use cases.

If youre running out of space anyway theres no reason anymore not to get an NVME drive though.

 

[givemejalapenos]

Oh cool I have a 860 as well. 500GB capacity. I'm not sure if there's a noticeable difference but I just wanted to tell you about DirectStorage since it requires a NVME SSD. There's currently only 1 game that uses DirectStorage right now and that's Forspoken. If it's a feature you want to use then you need a NVME drive.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Good point, should have mentioned Direct Storage here, I did in the thread this all came from. It'll be coming in more and more to reduce load times even further.

 

[mainer]

But I can definitely tell a difference coming from a 7200RPM HDD, though. Even a SATA SSD feels way faster than an HDD.

Absolutely. Thinking back to all the different PCs I've owned over the years, there are two "Wow!" moments (as Todd Howard likes to say) that stand out to me from making upgrades. Installing my first ever graphics card, one of the early Voodoo cards and playing the original Tomb Raider, the graphical detail and smoothness of gameplay was just amazing. Going from an HDD to an SSD (SATA) gave me a dramatic decrease in load times, for everything, but really noticeable in games.

If youre running out of space anyway theres no reason anymore not to get an NVME drive though.

Drive space has become an issue. I would never have thought a few years ago that I would ever need to worry about drive space with a 1TB drive. I like to keep some games permanently installed, and some games, especially newer games can easily take up 60+ GBs of space. There are also some games that I like to mod and those mod folders often contain more data than the game itself.

So I splurged and bought that Seagate 2TB NVMe drive listed in the PCG Article last night. A highly rated 2TB NVMe drive, with a heatsink, at $220 off the normal price, so it seemed like the perfect time to upgrade (I can rationalize just about anything when it comes to gaming).

So I plan to make it my dedicated gaming drive and transfer all my games, game launchers, and mods to that drive. While there probably won't be a noticeable difference in load times (as you mentioned), it won't be any worse, plus it will give me a lot more space to work with. Once I install it, I'll probably come back and ask for help in the transfer process, as it's something I've never done before.

 

[Colif]

mentions Forspoken

difference is not massive. Only drives that are way behind are SATA HDD. Not solid state.

Main differences between SATA & PCIe are:

• Nvme drives use 4 lanes to read data, max speed SATA drives can run is 550mb/s, whereas pcie gen 4 drives are around 7000mb/s
• PCie drives can power off when not in use. The real age of my 2 drives is the same. My nvme thinks its 409 days old, my hdd installed on same day shows 547 days. Nvme is boot drive.

NVMe vs M.2 vs SATA vs PCIe: What are these SSDs?

Confused about M.2, PCIe, SATA and NVMe SSDs? The experts at Crucial explain all you need to know about form factors, physical interfaces and more.

www.crucial.com

they should be measured in write speeds, as read isn't all you do with drives... write speeds aren't as glorious though.

I don't use space. I have only used about 300gb on my 1tb nvme, and about 200 gb on my 3tb hdd. I don't know how I would fill it... but I recall thinking same thing about a 500mb hdd way back in the 1990's long before people thought of things to fill them with besides documents.

 

[Brian Boru]

"Wow!" moments

Hmm, might make a thread on that

help in the transfer process

If I recall correctly, you're mostly on Steam?

How do i move steam games

My second ssd drive that i use to store games is getting full so i plan to get this. Amazon.co.uk : WD 4 TB My Passport Portable Hard Drive with Password Protection and Auto Backup Software - Black I am choosing an external one as i dont want to start messing around inside my case. How do i...

forums.pcgamer.com

 

[mainer]

If I recall correctly, you're mostly on Steam?

Mostly, yes. I've got about 25 mostly old games on GOG, and Diablo 2 Resurrected on Battle.Net. Fortunately I repurchased all my Origin games (mostly Dragon Age & Mass Effect) on Steam, but I'll still need the EA App to run them. And them I have my mod managers and their associated mod folders that are all linked to various games, so those links must remain intact. Not to mention all the different places that games decide to store the save game data.

So it wigs me out a bit when I think about moving all that data and maintaining the links so that everything works like it does now, and it may take me awhile to work up the courage to attempt all that.

Speaking of that NVMe drive, I ordered it from B&H at about 11:30 PM on Saturday night, and got it today (Monday) before 3:00PM, that's what I call fast shipping, and free at that. Put's Amazon to shame.

 

[Brian Boru]

mod managers and their associated mod folders that are all linked to various games, so those links must remain intact.

Sounds like a case of cloning your existing drive, should be straightforward if you only have one logical drive, and fairly straightforward otherwise. Shout when ready, our experts will chip in—it's probably a decade since I cloned a drive, apart from my monthly imaging.

Question - Cloning software

I have a new Samsung SSD in my laptop and I want to clone my hard drive to it. Unfortunately Samsung's software won't work because it has issues with OEM partitions. So I am looking for recommendations for a free cloning program. Any suggestions? Thanks!

forums.pcgamer.com

 

[WoodenSaucer]

Speaking of that NVMe drive, I ordered it from B&H at about 11:30 PM on Saturday night, and got it today (Monday) before 3:00PM, that's what I call fast shipping, and free at that. Put's Amazon to shame.

Whenever I build a PC, I always use PCPartPicker to put the list together. It shows you who is selling each part in your list for the lowest price. I'm pretty sure I've bought a couple of parts from B&H in the past because of that, and I think I was pretty happy with them. I had never heard of them before that, so I was skeptical. But they ended up doing me well.

 

[Brian Boru]

B&H … I think I was pretty happy with them

Yeah, we've got photo and computer gear from them—good stuff, good service.

 

[mainer]

Shout when ready, our experts will chip in—it's probably a decade since I cloned a drive, apart from my monthly imaging.

Thanks, I know I will, once I buckle down and finally get around to it. Cloning does seem to be a way of getting everything moved and working. I just got the NVMe installed this evening and it actually went pretty smoothly (for someone who doesn't build their own PCs), except for the fact that the heatsink makes the drive a bit thicker, so the MOBO M.2 screw wasn't long enough to secure the drive. Fortunately I had a box of spare parts that Origin sends when they build your PC, which included a bag of assorted screws, and two of them had the same thread size and were just a tad longer so I used one of those.

I'm pretty sure I've bought a couple of parts from B&H in the past because of that, and I think I was pretty happy with them. I had never heard of them before that, so I was skeptical. But they ended up doing me well.

Yeah, we've got photo and computer gear from them—good stuff, good service.

Back when I was still doing freelance photography, I used to get most of my equipment, film, and other supplies from them. Good prices (even for items not on sale), excellent service, and they pack what they ship you really well.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

Wow. I'm doing the research for my PC build in a couple of weeks, and I'm actually looking at all of the specs of hardware comparisons. I'm finding out that all NVMe SSDs are definitely not created equal. The one I'm probably going to get is PCIe 4.0 compatible, and it has read speeds of up to 7,000 MB/s and 6850 MB/s write speeds. As I look around, I'm seeing most of them are like 3500 MB/s read and slower. My motherboard will support up to PCIe 5, so I'm glad I'm paying attention. That's a huge difference. And it's not any more expensive than the slow ones.

 

[Brian Boru]

it's not any more expensive than the slow ones

That's the main draw.

7,000 MB/s and 6850 MB/s

Really MB, not MegaBits? 7gigs per second can't see a need for such transfer rates for a while yet—my network drive …USB in router… runs at a snappy 10MB/s!

Back in early SSD days, I got a couple of duds, so I recommend looking at reliable longevity as a main feature.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

Really MB, not MegaBits? 7gigs per second can't see a need for such transfer rates for a while yet—my network drive …USB in router… runs at a snappy 10MB/s!

Yeah, that's what it says. Crazy, isn't it? That one video or website that said that different types of SSDs don't make a noticeable difference probably didn't try out one of these. Haha

Here's the one I'm looking at. It does say Megabyte and not Megabit. Even backwards compatible with PCIe 3.0, it's getting reads of 5000 MB/s and writes of 4300 MB/s. This thing is a beast.

Inland Performance Plus 2TB 3D TLC NAND PCIe Gen 4 x4 NVMe M.2 Internal SSD - Micro Center

Get it now! Get SSD speeds and inject new life into your laptop or desktop PC with a solid state drive from Inland Performance. With a fast, reliable Inland Performance SSD, you will experience quicker bootup and shutdown, and quicker application response and data transfer speeds than with a...

www.microcenter.com

 

[Brian Boru]

different types of SSDs don't make a noticeable difference

Well it wouldn't be "noticeable" whether say textures load in 0.01 seconds or 0.05 seconds. Not to me anyway, maybe to a few eagle-eyed players, if any.

It do be crazy

 

[WoodenSaucer]

Well it wouldn't be "noticeable" whether say textures load in 0.01 seconds or 0.05 seconds. Not to me anyway, maybe to a few eagle-eyed players, if any.

It do be crazy

Probably noticeable in booting up Windows, or loading an entire game from start, though.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Theres a big difference on paper I know

In the real world for loading the difference in 95% of games is a second or two.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COofLeqk_tM&t=350s

Acer Predator GM7000 4 TB Review

The Acer Predator GM7000 is finally available in a 4 TB version. In our review we thoroughly test this M.2 NVMe drive that's built using the Innogrit IG5236 controller paired with Micron's 176-layer 3D TLC NAND. While $450 for the 4 TB version isn't exactly cheap, it's much more affordable than...

www.techpowerup.com

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rm_h0xSqtc0


Rollercoaster Tycoon it might be 365 seconds vs 380 for some monster level. But thats an outlier.

You dont want to buy just any drive though. There are big differences in endurance with different flash types, and drives without a DRAM cache while cheaper arent as good for boot drives. Not the end of the world though if you need to save for other components.

For Photoshop and so on, there is a real world difference, so you'd want to look into testing specifically for whatever programs you want to use outside of games.

Direct Storage is coming which will further help with load times, even there testing shows its not a huge difference between 3.0 and 4.0 and even 5.0 so far in reality.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/directstorage-testing-shows-pcie-3-drives-are-basically-as-fast-as-pcie-5

On paper this means that the PCIe Gen3 drive is 32% slower than a PCIe Gen5 SSD, but in reality the difference is unnoticeable across seven scenes. Meanwhile, raw data throughput supported by a PCIe 5.0 x4 interface is about four times higher compared to a PCIe 3.0 x4 interface. So DirectStorage compression not only works, it also blurs the line between different SSDs.

It comes down to price like Brian said. If you can get a 4,0 drive for a reasonable price then theres no reason not to get the theoretically faster one. Just dont expect it to be much faster for gaming.

 

[mainer]

Out of curiosity, what do you guys think the about the average lifespan of SATA SSDs vs NVMe M.2 SSDs? I did some searches on this before I bought the Fire Cuda NVMe, and while I ran across conflicting information (as most searches do), it appeared to me that the lifespan of either type of drive, in general, is the same, about 8-10 years on average. I say in general because as @Kaamos_Llama stated there can be a big difference in quality and features between drives.

I think the "average lifespans" are a bit understated in my opinion. I've never had an internal drive fail, whether SSD or HDD (though I can't say the same about external drives).

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

For general gaming use I think they'll still last a very long time, we arent writing gigabytes of data to and from them every day in the way some might for professional use.

You bought a higher quality one anyway. It has a DRAM cache and uses TLC rather than the less durable QLC. Specs are for 1250 TBW (Terabyte writes) meaning in theory its designed to have 1250 TB of data written to it before it starts to become unstable. That's way more than average, something like the Sabrent Rocket Q 1Tb has 260TBW for example.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Just remembered about Backblaze. Its a cloud storage company that has reported on failure rates for different models of drives they use for many years. Unfortunately they dont have many NVME drives as of yet, but interesting reading anyway if you want to know more about storage reliability.

The SSD Edition: 2022 Drive Stats Mid-year Review

Andy Klein's much anticipated 2022 SSD Midyear Drive Stats Report is here. Read on to see the findings.

www.backblaze.com