Right, finally thinking of getting SSD, partly because my HDD is lining the bucket up and is about to kick it... Now, partly out of laziness, by which I mean I can't be arsed loacting the screws and cables required to mount a 2.5"-er in my case, i'm looking at an M2 SSD... Now my choice is one of 3, but i'm unsure which to go for, partly as i'm unsure if my MoBo supports one of them... So my options are these, to go into an ASUS Z97 Pro [the model with wifi if that matters] - 250GB Crucial MX200 - M2/SATA 120GB Samsung SM951 - M2/PCI-E 120GB Samsung SM951 NVMe - M2/PCI-E [This is the one i'm not sure my board supports] or go rooting for the fittings and a regular 2.5" MX200 So, if it was your money which would you buy?
Asus says, "1 x M.2 Socket 3, , with M Key, type 2260/2280 storage devices support (both SATA & PCIE mode)" So I don't see any reason why the SM951 wouldn't work. Asus doesn't say how many PCIe lanes are available to the M2 slot though so the SM951 may not work at full speed. Also, one thing to bear in mind is that you'll need a UEFI compatible OS (Win8+ I believe) to be able to boot to a M2 SSD. Pocketdemon is the SSD expert and he'll be able to provide more info
My bad, I was referring to the NVMe model of SM951 [edited my OP] when saying 'i'm not sure about this one'..., I'm pretty sure the non-NVMe one would be fine.
All Asus Z97 boards support NVMe, http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/asus-x99-and-z97-motherboards-support-nvm-express-devices.html However, you may need to update the bios.
*bump* - anyone else got any thoughts on this? [yes this is a not so subtle attempt to get PocketDemon's input]
Ummmm... Right... Let's think what i can add here that might be useful off the top of my head. 1. Well, as noted by others, the m.2 interface on your board takes M key SSDs - so it's a 4 lane connector that can use both nvme & sata m.2 SSDs. 2. Now, my opinions on the current real life advantages (or rather the lack of them) of the faster m.2 SSDs vs standard 2.5" SATA ones are here - so it's up to you to look at your usage to see both whether you'd be bottlenecked by some major task that you have if you only used a 6Gb/s 2.5" sata SSD, & if that usage actually justifies any extra expense. So i'm certainly not saying that they're a waste of money for everyone, but for most casual users & gamers & whatnot atm it'd largely be akin to suggesting to someone who is only ever going to play games at 1080p that they *must* go out & buy a 980Ti or something - where it'd be complete overkill & a total waste of money. Obviously this is on the basis of the better nvme m.2 ones currently being notably more expensive - as when there's more competition &, ultimately, m.2 effectively takes over from SATA, the prices for decent ones will drop to the point where there'd be no sense in not buying one... ...but we're certainly not there yet. 3. Then, with 2.5" SSDs, there is absolutely no need to screw them onto anything in the case, unless you're going to be transporting it as it could damage something by being loose, as there's no moving parts & they're not sensitive to vibration or whatever. So, since i bought my first SSD in 2009, none of mine have ever been screwed into/onto anything in my own machines. (naturally, for my folks & doing things for friends & whatnot then i do screw them down simply in case the machine in question is moved of knocked awkwardly or whatever) 4. Going back to what you were asking though, the biggest problem i can see is that you're only looking at 128GB capacities. Now SSDs work by accessing 1 or more nand die over (typically) up to 8 nand channels - effectively working internally as a R0 or R00 array (the exception to this being the 2nd gen SFs, though we're obviously not looking at them). This means that for a given controller & die capacity, there are specific capacity points that give noticeably better performance than smaller ones... ...& for most 6Gb/s sata drives this is still 240/250/256GB - however for some drives, & this particularly includes the later Crucial drives, it's at 480/500/512GB. So, to spell this out, this means that, as examples using 2.5" drives (that are reasonably decent but on the cheaper middle end of the scale) - there are noticeable gains between the 120GB & 250GB Samsung 850 Evos - whereas between the 250 & 500 there's a fairly negligible difference... ...& there is a noticeable gain between the 250 & a 500GB Crucial BX drives - whereas between 500GB & 1TB it's fairly negligible. [NB (a) the 850 Evos have an overall performance advantage whilst the BX have a price one for a given capacity. (b) things will change so that it's higher capacities with other drives that will be optimal, so, for example, the 512GB 950 Pro is clearly significantly faster than the 256GB one - & this is for the same reason.] 5. Oh, & as a completely separate advantage, as there's only a single m.2 slot on your board, if you bought a very small capacity one now then you'd need to either completely replace it or buy a pcie adapter card (both price & using extra pcie lanes) if you wanted to upgrade... ...whereas you're less likely to have this issue with a 2.5" sata as you can obviously connect far more standard sata drives to your board. Conclusion. Right, so anyway, my honest opinion is that unless you've got some odd usage that could materially benefit from the extra speed (which seems highly unlikely with you only looking at very small SSDs) then ignore m.2 SSDs entirely... (*unless* you can find a better performing one than the same capacity 2.5" sata one for the same money naturally) ...& instead put your money into something that's reasonably decent (within your budget) but has more capacity. (obviously taking on board my notes about capacity & performance) That said, it's obviously your money & your choice - & so *if* you desperately want to go with m.2, i'd wait for the Samsung 950 to be reviewed & in stock to then re-evaluate your options... ...as whilst it'll be pricey, it 'may' alter the pricing on the slower/cheaper models. [Edit] Oh, & if my input's actually wanted on a SSD thread by anyone (as i am fully aware that some people find my style of writing to be far too verbose & a little intense at times), by all means PM me to attract my attention. Well, i've been deliberately trying to sit back somewhat of late unless something's inherently interested or annoyed me - rather than leaping in on every SSD thread going... Not least as people's understanding has seemed to have gotten much better in the main.
Verbose is fine good sir! Been eye-balling the Samsung SM951 512Gb for a bit, but cannot justify the €250+ pricetag. Hopefully the new 950 release will help with the market prices.
Verbose is fine, even if the structure is a little hard to read at times. But to respond to your comments - The reason i'm 'only' looking at 120/128GB PCI-E SSDs [and 256GB SATA] ones is right now, they're all i can afford however when i checked, the price difference wetween the NVMe and not SM951s was negligible [budget is ~£80], the main question really was was the speed increase of the PCI-E models worth the loss in capacity and based on your comments here and elsewhere the answer is 'probably not'.
The problem was that the only 250GB SATA drive you were talking about is a poor performing one - as the number of nand die is ~50% of what would be optimal d.t. Crucial having doubled the capacity per die with their later models. Whilst the 500GB BX is a decent budget drive (& would be great, for example, for sticking lots of games on if someone's on a budget), an ~£80 budget puts that out of reach for you... ...so i'd seriously recommend you spend the extra £11-12 & go for a 250GB 850 Evo, as it will be noticeably faster for a reasonable array of tasks. Oh, & to be straight about thing, there is a current issue with Samsung's Magician s/w, where the Rapid mode, which can improve speeds still further, doesn't yet work with Windows 10 for some stupid reason. (a 'stupid reason', as people have reported either using very old versions or editing things & it apparently can be made to work without issue) That said, it's still a faster drive anyway & Rapid, as a memory caching thing, adds a little to the risk of losing data in the event of a power outage... Though there's no one reporting major issues with this, so it's just about being aware that there is this slightly elevated risk.
