Thoughts on M2 drives?

[dickiefunk]

Hi,

I'm currently in the process of upgrading my current audio PC and have just bought Crucial MX500 SSD's. However, just been recommended to get M2 drives and I'm wondering what your thoughts are on these?
Will I notice a significant improvement in performance?
Are M2 as stable and reliable as standard Crucial MX500 SSD's?

[Gamma-UT]

The theoretical peak performance of an M2 is higher. Whether you would see a difference in real-world use is another matter. For samples and audio work: probably not. The people who swear by them tend to work on video.

For the system drive, possibly it's a noticeable difference. But bear in mind M2 goes into a PCIe slot - not a SATA port - and will need an adapter (and a free slot). I'm not sure about OS compatibility on PC. The old cheesegrater Macs can take M2s on a PCIe card, so it's probably OK, but it's worth checking your motherboard before diving in.

The good news in that respect is that you can probably bung an M2 in alongside the existing SSDs if you have the budget. But you're probably going to find the existing SSDs are just fine.

[dickiefunk]

Thanks for your post

My motherboard is :-

https://www.asus.com/uk/Motherboards/PRIME-Z390-A/

My CPU is an Intel i9 9900K and I have 32GB DDR4 3000mhz RAM.

[Gamma-UT]

I have zero experience of it, but it looks as though it's designed to handle M2 cards (heatsink and all).

[Vee Nee]

Will the improvement be significant to you depends on how you would use it. Do note that M2 slot actually supports SATA3 and PCI-E interfaces. Most cheap M2 ssd are SATA, so you won't get any improvement using it, check the interface of M2 SSD you are going to buy.

[jdnz]

for a system drive m2 nvme is the way to go - system feels noticably snappier launching applications compared to a sata ssd, and boot times are heaps faster (cold boot to desktop is <5 secs). Since there’s no significant price penarlty in terms of $/gb for m.2 nvme vs m.2 sata vs 2.5” sata (on decent brand ssds anyway - we only ever use intel or samsung) there’s nothing to loose and everything to gain going nvme

[Pictus]

Hi,

I'm currently in the process of upgrading my current audio PC and have just bought Crucial MX500 SSD's. However, just been recommended to get M2 drives and I'm wondering what your thoughts are on these?
Will I notice a significant improvement in performance?
Are M2 as stable and reliable as standard Crucial MX500 SSD's?

SATA vs M.2 vs NVMe
https://www.online-tech-tips.com/comput ... omparison/

Modern SSDs are very reliable, what differs is the speed and endurance.
Samsung 970 EVO Plus/Pro series are the "default" in performance/endurance/reliability,
but other brands can be more cost effective.
The Corsair MP500 series have good speed and *BIG* endurance that
make them good as BOOT drives or drive where we constant write stuff.
https://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/c ... ew,21.html

The HP EX950, ADATA XPG GAMMIX S11 Pro and ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro have
very good read speed that make them especially good for DATA/library drive.
https://www.tweaktown.com/articles/8870 ... ndex3.html

For endurance you can check https://3dnews.ru/938764/page-3.html

[dickiefunk]

Thanks for the replies. My longest load time is Cubase which seems to take much longer than any other program I use! However, I my current old PC my main System/Programs C: is the early Crucial MX100 drive.

As my motherboard has two slots for M2 drives so I'm considering the following

1/ Samsung 970 EVO M2 250GB (C:system, programs)
2/ Samsung 970 EVO M2 1TB partioned (E:Cubase Programs 200GB, NI sample libraries 800GB)
3/ Crucial MX500 1TB (F:Toontrack Superior + SDX's and additional sample libraries)

What are your thoughts on this?

[jdnz]

As my motherboard has two slots for M2 drives so I'm considering the following

1/ Samsung 970 EVO M2 250GB (C:system, programs)
2/ Samsung 970 EVO M2 1TB partioned (E:Cubase Programs 200GB, NI sample libraries 800GB)
3/ Crucial MX500 1TB (F:Toontrack Superior + SDX's and additional sample libraries)

What are your thoughts on this?

look at write cycles chart above and you'll realise the choice is between the 2 samsungs - I'd go for the 1tb, and not bother partitioning it (like what's the point - you're just making life hard for yourself when the 'system' partition gets full)

[Pictus]

Thanks for the replies. My longest load time is Cubase which seems to take much longer than any other program I use! However, I my current old PC my main System/Programs C: is the early Crucial MX100 drive.

As my motherboard has two slots for M2 drives so I'm considering the following

1/ Samsung 970 EVO M2 250GB (C:system, programs)
2/ Samsung 970 EVO M2 1TB partioned (E:Cubase Programs 200GB, NI sample libraries 800GB)
3/ Crucial MX500 1TB (F:Toontrack Superior + SDX's and additional sample libraries)

What are your thoughts on this?

For the price of Samsung 970 1TB + 250GB you can buy a Corsair MP510 2TB.
https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/product/L7J ... 920gbmp510
The Corsair MP510 is very fast and we can install all there without loss of
performance for audio workloads, you can create a small partition on the
2TB SSD for system/programs and a larger one for the rest.

[jdnz]

For the price of Samsung 970 1TB + 250GB you can buy a Corsair MP510 2TB.
https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/product/L7J ... 920gbmp510
The Corsair MP510 is very fast and we can install all there without loss of
performance for audio workloads, you can create a small partition on the
2TB SSD for system/programs and a larger one for the rest.

Mp510 is same speed as the 970evo ( 3.5g/s read 2.5g/s write) - but I know which I’d trust not to curl up and die suddenly ( there’s a reason the corsair is mysteriously cheap).

We long ago learned to avoid drives like this at work - that saving doesn’t seem so good when the ssd dies suddenly with no warning

If you want a well prices 2tb option I’d look at the intel 660p

[Pictus]

For the price of Samsung 970 1TB + 250GB you can buy a Corsair MP510 2TB.
https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/product/L7J ... 920gbmp510
The Corsair MP510 is very fast and we can install all there without loss of
performance for audio workloads, you can create a small partition on the
2TB SSD for system/programs and a larger one for the rest.

Mp510 is same speed as the 970evo ( 3.5g/s read 2.5g/s write) - but I know which I’d trust not to curl up and die suddenly ( there’s a reason the corsair is mysteriously cheap).

It is not the MP510 that is cheap, it is the Samsung that is expensive...

We long ago learned to avoid drives like this at work - that saving doesn’t seem so good when the ssd dies suddenly with no warning

If you want a well prices 2tb option I’d look at the intel 660p

The Intel SSD 660P uses QLC NAND, lower life cycle and slower.

Intel SSD 660P 2TB QLC NAND
Endurance Rating (Lifetime Writes) = 400 TBW
Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) >= 1.6 million hours

Corsair MP510 1.9TB TLC NAND
Endurance Rating (Lifetime Writes) = 3120 TBW
Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) >= 1.8 million hours

[Kaine]

Personally, I tend to stick with companies where I know the internal components can be easily supported. Samsung builds its own IC's, Dimms and the whole kit and kaboodle and then Intel is Micron partnered exclusively as well as doing all the low-level design work. I also use Crucial who is Micron owned.

Why do I do that? Well, historically there was an issue in the early days where a bug managed to screw up a large chunk of the market after a system update. Fixes by companies that made their own hardware were rolled out within 24 hours and quickly resolved, but the guys who buy it all off the shelf had to wait up to a couple of weeks for the solution to be modified and passed over so they could roll it out.

If it's a storage drive then write cycles don't really matter, as you're mostly reading anyway and you won't be overly concerned about write speed other than the initial install.

For me, it remains Samsung for anything that requires fast read/write (OS and scratch drives) and then Intel or Crucial MX's for storage where cost and size are more important.

Also, the Samsungs reliability is undisputed, they are amongst the best units out there when you consider both performance and long term reliability stats.

Current 970 Evo Plus 256GB has shifted a few thousand units in the last 6 months with a fail rate of 0.38%
Current 970 Evo Plus 500GB has shifted double the 250GB version in the last 6 months with a fail rate of 0.41%

The 510 256GB in the same time period of 6 months has sold in the high 3 digits and is running a 2.8% fail rate
The 510 480GB in the same time period of 6 months has sold in the high 3 digits and is running a 1.4% fail rate

The Intel 660P 500GB in double the period of the Evo (over a year) has shipped over a thousand and a run rate of 0.45%
(I can't see a 250GB model, I think it's long gone now)

The Crucial MX500 250GB over the last 18 months has sold a few thousand units and is running a 0.24% fail rate
The Crucial MX500 500GB over the last 18 months has sold a few thousand units and is running a 0.25% fail rate

Anything less than 3% is seen as being better than the industry average, so whilst acceptable, the Samsungs are just in another class altogether. I'm personally fine with 3% as an end-user if I have to be, but more reliability is something I would choose to spend the money on. Certainly, if I have to support the machine in any way I'd rather not using anything over a 1% run rate where possible, it simply means more happy end-users. I have recently started offering the 510s in some setups, but more due to end-user pressure than anything else as it's been getting some interesting performance results. Still, from the figures above you can probably see why I tend to favour the various other models over it.

[Pictus]

For me, it remains Samsung for anything that requires fast read/write (OS and scratch drives) and then Intel or Crucial MX's for storage where cost and size are more important.

Also, the Samsungs reliability is undisputed, they are amongst the best units out there when you consider both performance and long term reliability stats.

True, Samsung is king.

The 510 256GB in the same time period of 6 months has sold in the high 3 digits and is running a 2.8% fail rate
The 510 480GB in the same time period of 6 months has sold in the high 3 digits and is running a 1.4% fail rate

The Phison PS5012-E12 controller can get a bit too hot and a heat-sink
at least in the controller chip is a good idea.
Failure rate in 500 GB is half of 250 GB, if same applies to 1TB
and 2TB may be due to smaller cache in the smaller models, when the
cache runs out the controller may enter in "turbo mode" to compensate
and stays hotter for longer times...
I don't know, just me thinking aloud...
https://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/c ... iew,6.html

[Kaine]

Failure rate in 500 GB is half of 250 GB, if same applies to 1TB
and 2TB may be due to smaller cache in the smaller models, when the
cache runs out the controller may enter in "turbo mode" to compensate
and stays hotter for longer times...
I don't know, just me thinking aloud...

It's not a bad line of thought, probably some truth to it to be fair and whilst we'll always look to use a heatsink internally, I obviously can't comment on drives out in the wild. One thing I will note is that the 1TB and half TB have almost equal failure percentages.