M.2 drive or 2.5 SSD

[Lost4words]

Is it worth spending the extra for an m.2 drive over a normal 2.5 ssd? Would i see any real world difference?

Looking for a 500gb for a system i want to build. Gaming (not a lot) and general everyday tasks.

[philehidiot]

I've read a lot on this and basically no, not for your use. Yeh the throughput numbers are a lot higher but realistically for your use, you're better off ensuring what you get has a good controller, ample overprovisioning and enough capacity. I would not waste your money on M2.

[Lost4words]

Thank you.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Try to go for as big a drive as possible. However,since you are building a mini-ITX system,use the M.2 slot,but just go for a SATA drive not a PCI-E one.

[Lost4words]

500gb, any recommendations? Link? Thank you

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

500gb, any recommendations? Link? Thank you

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Crucial-MX5...ywords=m2+sata

Something like that should do the trick - its a SATA M.2 drive,so its probably around £10 more than a normal full sized one.

If you slot that into the M.2 slot on the mini-ITX motherboard,it means less cabling mess and more free space in your system.

[Lost4words]

Awesome. Thanks Cat. And thats much faster than a 2.5 SSD. Even so, no cabling to worry about! Thanks

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Awesome. Thanks Cat. And thats much faster than a 2.5 SSD. Even so, no cabling to worry about! Thanks

The 2.5" is just the form factor. So the SATA M.2 SSDs and SATA 2.5" drives are the same speed,but the former is just smaller.

The M.2 drives also come in PCI-E versions,which are faster than SATA ones,like these ones:

https://www.cclonline.com/product/24...Drive/SSD0678/
https://www.cclonline.com/product/25...Drive/SSD0813/

So if the slot supports PCI-E,it can be much faster,but you pay more monies.

Since space is at a premium in a mini-ITX build the M.2 drives help save on space,meaning you can add more drives.

[Lost4words]

Ok, so m.2 is the way forward. Is the extra cost worth going pci-e?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Ok, so m.2 is the way forward. Is the extra cost worth going pci-e?

For me I am only considering it due to the fact that some of the stuff I do is very storage intensive. However for most normal usage I found not much difference between a 6 year old SSD and the newer ones I used.

[ik9000]

what cat said, PCI-E will only make a difference if you regularly do latch batches of file writes eg high-res photo dumps and large volumes of big files like 3D FE and CAD. If you're often sat watching the green bar telling you there is another day remaining while 30GB-100GB of files copy across then PCI-E is your friend. Otherwise a SATAIII speed SSD is perfectly sufficient for boot and general use (including gaming).

[Lost4words]

Ok, so get the Sata one that screws to mobo?

[ik9000]

screws? qe? not the standard SATA ones I've seen, unless your mobo has a funky thing going on.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

They are talking about the SATA M.2 drive.

[wysiwug]

Studying the same subject at the moment.. As i use premiere pro to create motorcycle videos i need fast data transfer rates. What i have found is if you purchase a M.2 NVMe PCIe 3.0 (x2) it seems to be the same throughput as an SSD but will cost more, if you purchase M.2 NVMe PCIe 3.0 (x4) then you get far better transfer rates but again the price goes up slightly over the M.2 NVMe PCIe 3.0 (x2).