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PCIe SSDs slowly replacing SATA3 SSD
You know it, in my reviews I have been complaining for a year or so now that the developments for the SATA interface are not progressing. Most SATA3 SSDs these days are limited by the more narrow bandwidth the interface offers. As a result, we've seen SSD NAND storage in the form of M.2. on the rise for a year or two already.
M.2. is making use of the PCIe interface, often using a 2x or 4x PCIe 3.0 lanes ensuring you can even reach the 1 to 3 GB/sec marker compared to the ~560 MB/sec marker SATA3 offers. Sales are now reflecting this dynamic, there is a sharp move towards PCIe based NAND storage. There's another factor involved, NAND is getting cheaper, making fast NVMe PCIe based storage more affordable. PCIe SSDs are expected to become the new mainstream by the end of 2019 with a market share of 50%. Apacer Technology president CK Chang said that with better performance, consumer PCIe SSDs will gradually replace SATA SSDs.
Market sources said that unit price for 512GB PCIe SSD has fallen by11% sequentially to US$55 in the first quarter of 2019, compared to a corresponding price drop of 9% for SATA SSD, with price gap between the two types of SSD continuing to narrow from 30% seen in 2018. The sources continued that current average unit price for 512GB SSDs has declined to the same level for 256 GB SSDs registered one year earlier, and larger price falls for SSDs ranging in capacity from 512GB to 1TB are expected in the remainder of 2019.
Plextor shows new M10Pe PCIe SSD Series - 01/17/2019 10:23 AM
The new series combines advanced 96-layer 3D NAND flash and industry leading controller to deliver awesome sequential read/write speeds up to 3,200/2,500 MB/s and random read/write speeds up to 410,...
KINGMAX PJ3280 Entry-level M.2 PCIe SSD - 09/06/2018 08:47 AM
KINGMAX has consummated its product line of M.2 2280 PCIe NVMe solid-state drives (SSDs), providing users who want to improve their PC performance with a greater variety of choices....
Silicon Power To Release P34A80, P34M85, P32A80, P32M85 PCIe SSDs - 08/29/2018 04:50 PM
As the company recently expanded and innovated its product line, it returns to its area of expertise by releasing the P34A80/PCle Gen3x4 & NVMe 1.2, the P34M85/PCle Gen3x4 & NVMe 1.2 with an a...
ADATA SR2000 PCIe SSD Goes up to 11TB in size, 6GB/s in Speed and does 1Million IOPS for Reads - 06/29/2018 09:33 AM
These puppies are intended for the business segment of the market, but ADATA is releasing the model SR2000 two series PCIe SSDs. The HHHL form factor add-in cards are based on TLC based NAND. The pre...
ASRock introduces Quad M2 PCIe SSD add-in card (with active cooling) - 01/12/2018 05:23 PM
If you have a need for 'moar' M2 SSDs, perhaps this is a solution for you? ASRock is about to release a Ultra Quad M.2 card. It can hold four NVMe M2 SSDs, with the ability to place it into a VROC...
zig11727
Senior Member
Posts: 128
Joined: 2014-07-04
Senior Member
Posts: 128
Joined: 2014-07-04
#5653060 Posted on: 03/22/2019 02:31 PM
I use SATA SSD's in a caddy system on my PC this way I have separate SATA ssd's with different builds of Windows. This wouldn't be possible with M2 SSDs
I use SATA SSD's in a caddy system on my PC this way I have separate SATA ssd's with different builds of Windows. This wouldn't be possible with M2 SSDs
Luc
Member
Posts: 94
Joined: 2017-09-22
Member
Posts: 94
Joined: 2017-09-22
#5653063 Posted on: 03/22/2019 02:37 PM
Now, I don't need another M.2 NVMe, mine is fast and big enough, but my other storage needs are based on reliability, density and price, as my 3 HDD, and none of them saturates a Sata 3 connection, nor a dvd reader does.
So, if we are planning on gaming or working on budget, I don't get why we need so many NVMe. If the answer is yes we need it, then there exist HEDT platforms with many M.2 slots, where to throw the money.
For me the balance is having an ultra fast drive for the OS, programs and on course workloads, and many other many TB big storage discs for data that will last the more the better, and save enough money for the rest of HW, SW, taxes, food, etc.
My case and opinion.
PS: AM4 platform always keeps 4x lanes for M.2 from the CPU reserved.
Now, I don't need another M.2 NVMe, mine is fast and big enough, but my other storage needs are based on reliability, density and price, as my 3 HDD, and none of them saturates a Sata 3 connection, nor a dvd reader does.
So, if we are planning on gaming or working on budget, I don't get why we need so many NVMe. If the answer is yes we need it, then there exist HEDT platforms with many M.2 slots, where to throw the money.
For me the balance is having an ultra fast drive for the OS, programs and on course workloads, and many other many TB big storage discs for data that will last the more the better, and save enough money for the rest of HW, SW, taxes, food, etc.
My case and opinion.
PS: AM4 platform always keeps 4x lanes for M.2 from the CPU reserved.
schmidtbag
Senior Member
Posts: 7152
Joined: 2012-11-10
Senior Member
Posts: 7152
Joined: 2012-11-10
#5653077 Posted on: 03/22/2019 03:09 PM
Don`t ruin implants in consumers` heads - true enthusiast should use only newest hardware.
Well, that sure is a bit elitist...
You can be a hardware enthusiast without buying into "latest and greatest".
Now, I don't need another M.2 NVMe, mine is fast and big enough, but my other storage needs are based on reliability, density and price, as my 3 HDD, and none of them saturates a Sata 3 connection, nor a dvd reader does.
So, if we are planning on gaming or working on budget, I don't get why we need so many NVMe. If the answer is yes we need it, then there exist HEDT platforms with many M.2 slots, where to throw the money.
I agree with all of this. We're reaching a point where there's only 2 reasons to want multiple drives:
1. More capacity than what a single drive is capable of storing.
2. Redundancy.
For the vast majority of M.2 users, a single drive is (or at least can be) sufficient. IMO, RAID1 is a waste of money for NVMe drives in general (regular compressed backups are a more sensible choice). RAID0 will overall hurt everything that gives M.2 a superior performance advantage over SATA, so if all you care about is large capacities with good sequential read/write performance, might as well go with SATA.
So all that being said, since M.2 drives aren't hot-swappable or quick+easy to remove, I really don't understand what the point is of having many of them. You could argue "one could be used for a cache drive" but at that point why don't you just use one big cache drive and then use all SATA storage? The end result will be mostly the same at that point.
For me the balance is having an ultra fast drive for the OS, programs and on course workloads, and many other many TB big storage discs for data that will last the more the better, and save enough money for the rest of HW, SW, taxes, food, etc.
I find a NAS is a great way to store everything that doesn't demand high performance, like media and documents.
Don`t ruin implants in consumers` heads - true enthusiast should use only newest hardware.
Well, that sure is a bit elitist...
You can be a hardware enthusiast without buying into "latest and greatest".
Now, I don't need another M.2 NVMe, mine is fast and big enough, but my other storage needs are based on reliability, density and price, as my 3 HDD, and none of them saturates a Sata 3 connection, nor a dvd reader does.
So, if we are planning on gaming or working on budget, I don't get why we need so many NVMe. If the answer is yes we need it, then there exist HEDT platforms with many M.2 slots, where to throw the money.
I agree with all of this. We're reaching a point where there's only 2 reasons to want multiple drives:
1. More capacity than what a single drive is capable of storing.
2. Redundancy.
For the vast majority of M.2 users, a single drive is (or at least can be) sufficient. IMO, RAID1 is a waste of money for NVMe drives in general (regular compressed backups are a more sensible choice). RAID0 will overall hurt everything that gives M.2 a superior performance advantage over SATA, so if all you care about is large capacities with good sequential read/write performance, might as well go with SATA.
So all that being said, since M.2 drives aren't hot-swappable or quick+easy to remove, I really don't understand what the point is of having many of them. You could argue "one could be used for a cache drive" but at that point why don't you just use one big cache drive and then use all SATA storage? The end result will be mostly the same at that point.
For me the balance is having an ultra fast drive for the OS, programs and on course workloads, and many other many TB big storage discs for data that will last the more the better, and save enough money for the rest of HW, SW, taxes, food, etc.
I find a NAS is a great way to store everything that doesn't demand high performance, like media and documents.
Luc
Member
Posts: 94
Joined: 2017-09-22
Member
Posts: 94
Joined: 2017-09-22
#5653085 Posted on: 03/22/2019 03:25 PM
Well, that sure is a bit elitist...
You can be a hardware enthusiast without buying into "latest and greatest".
I find a NAS is a great way to store everything that doesn't demand high performance, like media and documents.
Shure, I will get one in another place, maybe at home, to backup important data in different places to avoid disasters
Well, that sure is a bit elitist...
You can be a hardware enthusiast without buying into "latest and greatest".
I find a NAS is a great way to store everything that doesn't demand high performance, like media and documents.
Shure, I will get one in another place, maybe at home, to backup important data in different places to avoid disasters
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Senior Member
Posts: 1309
Joined: 2003-09-14
Yesterday i cancelled my order of a 2 tb 660p from intel.
At first i got excited of how cheap it is but then i read how it's speed gets crippled once it gets half full. QLC is cheap for a reason.
MLC and TLC also have this problem.
Its due to the number of memory channels iirc.
There are generally 8 memory channels per ssd, and when you fill up half the drive, you basically lose half of the controllers, because those chips are full.
edit : Its actually because when near full, you have partially filled sectors in the flash chips, and to fill that flash up, it has to copy the actual data, add the new data, and write back. A lot more than just writing.
The problem is only with writes iirc, although I could be wrong.
Reads should be just fine, no matter how much the drive is full.
edit : https://www.howtogeek.com/165542/why-solid-state-drives-slow-down-as-you-fill-them-up/
Link to explanation of why ssd's get slower as you fill them up.