I don't discriminate on brands, but I laugh at people who still to this day claim that "There isn't a noticeable difference between NVME (m.2) SSDs and SATA SSDs. Do you SATA folks see the Windows logo after a shutdown and a cold boot up after 12 hours of the machine being turned off (even if the PC is unplugged)? I don't. Do you folks still have to 'wait' to get to the desktop? I don't. These are PCIE gen 3 SSDs I use (Samsung 970 EVO drives), PCIE4 is likely to be even more badass, whatever the brand. I'm with the other comments saying 'we need reviews'. SATA SSD reviews are boring because SATA has been out forever, but m.2 SSDs need to be reviewed IMO.
Yeah, I've heard that too. If all you do is browse the internet and check your email I guess there wouldn't be much difference between M.2 and SSD but if you actually use your computer the difference is actually pretty big.
Please don't fall into the PCIe 4.0 trap though, these early drives are not faster then most high quality M.2's like Samsung Evo or even sometimes the Adata 8200 and they are undeniably slower then the Samsung pro . I'll revisit this statement later this year when the Gen2 controllers come out but for right now save your money, they've got some work to do before these are worth purchasing.
What? For the record, If anything, I'm an Adata shill, I use the 8200 in all my builds because the its price/performance ratio is outstanding. Look at real world benchmarks, any of them from Anandtech or toms or Youtube or whatever the Samsung 970 pro is faster in the vast majority of real world benchmarks. It is also way overpriced which why I don't use it.
I agree, if all you need is windows logo and desktop....
But my "work" did go down from 1 minute (850 Samsung) of "load" to 12 seconds with NVME raid. its not a lot of gain overall, but its definitely less annoying.
1. M.2 is a form factor, not a protocol. I agree, NVMe is better than SATA; that is because it was designed to work specifically with flash, not spinning mechanical drives (rotational latency x seek time x (internal xfer rate + external xfer rate)). NVMe doesn't deal with CHS translation overhead, either. 2. Actual difference vs. Perceived difference is a real thing. I have a 8-yr old PC with first gen SSD SATA flash as my primary disk, on which the OS lives. 12-15 second boot time. I just cloned that drive to an NVMe SSD and installed it into a newer Zen system, and now I get booted in about 8 seconds, even though the NVMe SSD is more than an order of magnitude faster than the old SATA SSD. The point is that while I do notice that it is a bit faster and more responsive, it is not nearly as tangible as the migration from HDD to SSD was ten years ago. The same goes for most casual users; only people that really need high-performance for mission critical applications or maybe some games are really going to notice and benefit from the difference between SATA SSD speed and NVMe speed. So while I agree that NVMe is better, for most people, SATA SSD is just fine.
Yes, they're PCI-e 4.0, and yes copying one file from one folder to another will complete very quickly, but it's the random IOPS that makes systems feel "snappy" or "responsive", and these PCI-e 4.0 drives don't particularly have a meaningful benefit in random IOPS over PCI-e 3.0 drives. You'd essentially be paying $50 ~ $100 more for the same capacity just for faster folder copy completions (assuming it's moving from one location on the drive to another), and the system overall isn't any more responsive. I've also heard rumors that the Phison PCI-e 4.0 controller is mostly the same as the PCI-e 3.0 controller, except it's just able to go over the wider PCI-e 4.0 bus.
It's probably a lot wiser to wait for PCI-e 4.0 controllers that are designed with the new standard in mind, and we might see even better sustained read/writes (for whatever that's worth), and possibly better random IOPS.
I think the e18 is their true pcie4 controller, the e16 is just a pcie3 one updated to support pcie4. That's why the random iops are identical to the previous controller.
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DigitalFreak - Thursday, September 12, 2019 - link
I could maybe see Samsung getting away with that price, but Patriot? hahahahahahaRMSe17 - Thursday, September 12, 2019 - link
Yea, looks like the $229 $429 at newegg on 9/12/2019eek2121 - Friday, September 13, 2019 - link
I don't discriminate on brands, but I laugh at people who still to this day claim that "There isn't a noticeable difference between NVME (m.2) SSDs and SATA SSDs. Do you SATA folks see the Windows logo after a shutdown and a cold boot up after 12 hours of the machine being turned off (even if the PC is unplugged)? I don't. Do you folks still have to 'wait' to get to the desktop? I don't. These are PCIE gen 3 SSDs I use (Samsung 970 EVO drives), PCIE4 is likely to be even more badass, whatever the brand. I'm with the other comments saying 'we need reviews'. SATA SSD reviews are boring because SATA has been out forever, but m.2 SSDs need to be reviewed IMO.sygreenblum - Friday, September 13, 2019 - link
Yeah, I've heard that too. If all you do is browse the internet and check your email I guess there wouldn't be much difference between M.2 and SSD but if you actually use your computer the difference is actually pretty big.Please don't fall into the PCIe 4.0 trap though, these early drives are not faster then most high quality M.2's like Samsung Evo or even sometimes the Adata 8200 and they are undeniably slower then the Samsung pro . I'll revisit this statement later this year when the Gen2 controllers come out but for right now save your money, they've got some work to do before these are worth purchasing.
peevee - Friday, September 13, 2019 - link
"Please don't fall into the PCIe 4.0 trap though, these early drives are not faster then most high quality M.2's like Samsung Evo"How much Samsung is paying its shills these days?
sygreenblum - Friday, September 13, 2019 - link
What? For the record, If anything, I'm an Adata shill, I use the 8200 in all my builds because the its price/performance ratio is outstanding. Look at real world benchmarks, any of them from Anandtech or toms or Youtube or whatever the Samsung 970 pro is faster in the vast majority of real world benchmarks. It is also way overpriced which why I don't use it.deil - Friday, September 13, 2019 - link
I agree, if all you need is windows logo and desktop....But my "work" did go down from 1 minute (850 Samsung) of "load" to 12 seconds with NVME raid.
its not a lot of gain overall, but its definitely less annoying.
hrothgar42 - Wednesday, September 18, 2019 - link
2 things:1. M.2 is a form factor, not a protocol. I agree, NVMe is better than SATA; that is because it was designed to work specifically with flash, not spinning mechanical drives (rotational latency x seek time x (internal xfer rate + external xfer rate)). NVMe doesn't deal with CHS translation overhead, either.
2. Actual difference vs. Perceived difference is a real thing. I have a 8-yr old PC with first gen SSD SATA flash as my primary disk, on which the OS lives. 12-15 second boot time. I just cloned that drive to an NVMe SSD and installed it into a newer Zen system, and now I get booted in about 8 seconds, even though the NVMe SSD is more than an order of magnitude faster than the old SATA SSD.
The point is that while I do notice that it is a bit faster and more responsive, it is not nearly as tangible as the migration from HDD to SSD was ten years ago.
The same goes for most casual users; only people that really need high-performance for mission critical applications or maybe some games are really going to notice and benefit from the difference between SATA SSD speed and NVMe speed. So while I agree that NVMe is better, for most people, SATA SSD is just fine.
Someguyperson - Thursday, September 12, 2019 - link
When are you guys going to review some of these PCIe 4.0 drives?JoeyJoJo123 - Thursday, September 12, 2019 - link
I don't personally feel there's much point.Yes, they're PCI-e 4.0, and yes copying one file from one folder to another will complete very quickly, but it's the random IOPS that makes systems feel "snappy" or "responsive", and these PCI-e 4.0 drives don't particularly have a meaningful benefit in random IOPS over PCI-e 3.0 drives. You'd essentially be paying $50 ~ $100 more for the same capacity just for faster folder copy completions (assuming it's moving from one location on the drive to another), and the system overall isn't any more responsive. I've also heard rumors that the Phison PCI-e 4.0 controller is mostly the same as the PCI-e 3.0 controller, except it's just able to go over the wider PCI-e 4.0 bus.
It's probably a lot wiser to wait for PCI-e 4.0 controllers that are designed with the new standard in mind, and we might see even better sustained read/writes (for whatever that's worth), and possibly better random IOPS.
Chaser - Thursday, September 12, 2019 - link
Love my Optane 900P.Jansen - Friday, September 13, 2019 - link
Next gen Optane should launch in the next few months.shabby - Thursday, September 12, 2019 - link
I think the e18 is their true pcie4 controller, the e16 is just a pcie3 one updated to support pcie4. That's why the random iops are identical to the previous controller.