2016/06/07 03:00:17
Paul
Hi all, Building a new rig after a fire. Anyone have experience with this new M.2 slot for OS drive? Good or bad? Worth the investment?
 
thanks
paul
2016/06/07 03:36:34
Sycraft
Works fine. It's just 4x PCIe in a different form factor. M.2 drives can be much faster than SATA drives on account of the increased bandwidth. SATA-3 caps out at about 550MB/sec in the real world. M.2 can go up to nearly 4GB/sec.
 
Now does it matter? Well, no, not really. SSDs are "fast enough" basically. The transfer rate of your drive doesn't tend to be the limiting factor for anything so you don't really notice the speed increase. I used to use a Samsung 840 Pro as my system drive and then I moved it over to doing samples and went with a Samsung XP941 as system. I really see no difference in system performance.
 
So basically there's no reason not to do it, so long as you are using Windows 8 or 10, but there's no real reason to prefer it either. If you find one you like and the price is competitive, go for it. However do't worry about using SATA instead.
2016/06/07 03:56:57
Paul
Thanks for that well written reply!
2016/06/07 05:33:42
BRuys
Sycraft
Works fine. It's just 4x PCIe in a different form factor. M.2 drives can be much faster than SATA drives on account of the increased bandwidth. SATA-3 caps out at about 550MB/sec in the real world. M.2 can go up to nearly 4GB/sec.

Actually, the M.2 spec presents both PCIe and SATA 3 interfaces.  Most of the M.2 drives I have installed have actually been native SATA 3.  Not many out there are utilizing the PCIe lanes yet.  Samsung have a couple of PCIe drives, but most others on the market are SATA.  You need to be a little careful, because some motherboards support either SATA or PCI Express M.2 drives while some only support SATA.  You need to double-check what your board is designed to use first and make sure you get the best match.
2016/06/07 08:56:06
Jim Roseberry
If you use a M.2 Ultra SSD (PCIe x4) for your boot drive, you're wasting potential.
  • A standard SATA-III SSD sustains ~520MB/Sec
  • A PCIe x4 SSD sustains ~2500MB/Sec
500+MB/Sec is plenty fast for a boot drive.
Use the PCIe x4 SSD for disk-streaming sample libraries.
 
2016/06/07 13:01:22
vanceen
I've got a 500 GB Samsung M.2 in my M.2 slot and another in a PCI-e slot via an adaptor. They're set up in a RAID 0 array. Very fast.
 
I'm using that for my project audio files. It's usually recommended to use your fastest drive for sample libraries, but I usually freeze my synths pretty early. Plus my samples are on another SSD, although not such a fast one.
 
This is working great for me.
2016/06/07 18:04:48
Paul
Thank you all for taking the time to chime in! Much appreciated

Paul
2016/06/08 08:44:46
Jim Roseberry
vanceen
I've got a 500 GB Samsung M.2 in my M.2 slot and another in a PCI-e slot via an adaptor. They're set up in a RAID 0 array. Very fast.
 
I'm using that for my project audio files. It's usually recommended to use your fastest drive for sample libraries, but I usually freeze my synths pretty early. Plus my samples are on another SSD, although not such a fast one.
 
This is working great for me.




FWIW,
Two M.2 SSDs in RAID-0 nets ~1000MB/Sec.
Unless you're working with hundreds of tracks at high sample-rates, that's complete overkill for projects/audio.
2016/06/09 12:59:06
Starise
What I'm seeing is that many of these  new additions like M.2 are using an existing pipeline. IOW there isn't a dedicated M2 bus. As noted above some use the PCIe bus and some use SATA-3. In some instances this robs a useful slot or two or slows that speed down because you're tapping into that bus. In essence robbing Peter to Pay Paul as they say. An advantage in one area might mean a disadvantage in another area.
 
M2 was developed for laptops because it's a somewhat smaller form factor. Then later it came to be used on ATX motherboards. I would agree that I'm mostly seeing M.2 as a leech on a SATA-3 bus. 
 
I don't see any real advantage to M2 on a SATA-3 bus. There is advantage to an M2 on a PCIe bus. Raid-0 seems to be piggy backing two 520mbps lines together to get the 1000MB/sec. 
 
M.2 atPCIe x4 speed at 2500MB/second is pretty good. Certainly an advantage, but at what cost elsewhere? You're using 4 lanes of PCIe.
 
Seems to be a juggeling act depending on your other requirements and motherboard design. 
 
2016/06/09 17:56:31
Jim Roseberry
Starise
 
 
M.2 atPCIe x4 speed at 2500MB/second is pretty good. Certainly an advantage, but at what cost elsewhere? You're using 4 lanes of PCIe.
 
Seems to be a juggeling act depending on your other requirements and motherboard design. 
 




FWIW,
I'm running 8 internal SATA drives (in addition to a PCIe x4 M.2 SSD - for a total of 9 internal drives)
Also running a GTX-960 video card
 
For most folks, M.2 won't present a resource problem.
Only folks running a "packed house" PC (multiple PCIe x4 SSDs, multiple high-end video cards, etc)
If you are pushing the limits of hardware, you do need to read the fine print.  
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