NVMe vs SATA SSD Real World Performance

[Ian]

Do we have any members here using NVMe drives for their boot/OS drive? I've had an old Intel 240GB SSD for something like 6 years now, and as soon as the next generation of Ryzen CPUs is released, I'll be upgrading.

I'll definitely go for an NVMe for the OS drive, but I'm interested in how much of a performance difference people have found vs a SATA SSD. I use NVMe drives as cache on a server, but that is my only experience of them so far.

Any thoughts from 1st hand experience?

 

[Abraham Andres Luna]

Would you be able to run your own benchmarks using free software? Unless you have some apps that you've paid for that could do the job.

 

[muckshifter]

I have an M.2, which is supposed to be NVME, but I think it's just SATA ... I "see" no difference between it and the SSD. Both Samsung EVO range.

No benchmarks conducted. It's bloody quick, that'll do me. I'm not needing the fasted drive on the planet.

EDIT:
just checked, it's a 3D VNAND.

 

[Ian]

Would you be able to run your own benchmarks using free software? Unless you have some apps that you've paid for that could do the job.

I would do if I had an NVMe drive I could use on my PC, unfortunately the only one I have is used as a cache drive on a server that I can't remove. Once I do finally get an NVMe drive, I'll post some benchmarks here .

I have an M.2, which is supposed to be NVME, but I think it's just SATA ... I "see" no difference between it and the SSD. Both Samsung EVO range.

No benchmarks conducted. It's bloody quick, that'll do me. I'm not needing the fasted drive on the planet.

EDIT:
just checked, it's a 3D VNAND.

Is that the Samsung Evo 850? If so, I think it's a SATA m.2. Still damn fast .

 

[muckshifter]

Is that the Samsung Evo 850? If so, I think it's a SATA m.2. Still damn fast .

yup, the 950s are NVME ... and yes, still FAST!!

 

[Abarbarian]

Do we have any members here using NVMe drives for their boot/OS drive?

Yup.

https://www.pcreview.co.uk/threads/skylake-we-have-lift-off.4069430/page-2

Look at posts 40 an 42.

In a real world situation all I can say is they are fast.

I could have installed mine on the mobo, but installed to a PCI-E add-on card as I thought it would get better cooling, they do get rather hot.

 

[floppybootstomp]

I have an NVME drive in my main machine and all the time I've been using it I didn't realise what it was, I thought it was a plain old SATA M.2 SSD.

How did I find out? I thought I'd change my main drive so purchased an M.2 SSD and carried out a fresh install of Windows 10. This install went without problems except that it was an overnight process for Win 10 to install the million and one updates/new builds.

Right from the start I noticed a hit in performance, it was decidedly slower. It also froze frequently and games also took a hit in performance. When I eventually decided to have a look at the drive I'd removed there were the letters 'NVME'. Cue me slapping forehead with palm and exclaiming 'Doh'.

So I put the original drive back - luckily I hadn't formatted it - and all was hunky dory again.

What surprised me was how much difference it made and an ordinary M.2 SSD did not run well with my setup. Here's the specs of that machine:

Intel i5 Coffee Lake 6 core 3.6Ghz
16Gb DDR4 RAM
MSI Z370-A Pro Motherboard
MSI GTX 1060 6Gb Graphics card.

The new M.2 SSD is now housed in an external 2.5" type housing and being used for external storage.

 

[Ian]

That is strange, I wonder why the SATA m.2. was so slow? It should be slower, but not anywhere near that bad. It looks like if you use a SATA drive in the m.2. slot on that motherboard then it would disable the drive using the SATA1 header - did you happen to have anything plugged in to this at the time. I wonder if that could be causing the problem.

 

[floppybootstomp]

It was very odd, performance was actually so bad I thought I may have been infected with a virus.

The motherboard has just the one M.2 slot and in each config had either the original NVME SSD or the newer m.2 SSD both of which worked alongside a couple of SATA HDDs, 4Tb & 2Tb which together with a Pioneer Bluray BDRW drive were connected to the regular SATA ports.

No external drives connected throughout all of this activity.

 

[Ian]

It may be worth looking inside the case and see if any of the HDD SATA cables are connected to the port marked SATA 1, as that could be the culprit. If so, try moving the cable from SATA 1 to something else and see if that improves the m.2. SATA performance. It's a shot in the dark, but it could explain it. Then again, if you're happy with how things are, may be not worth the hassle.

 

[ChristopherP]

I have the Samsung Evo 960 M.2 NVME drive as the sole drive in my machine - pictured below, its the one that goes straight into the motherboard. Tiny little thing.

It flies. As for actual metrics comparing difference over a regular SSD I wouldn't be able to say, but if I click something things happen generally immediately.

 

[Ian]

You appear to have a motherboard attached to your cooler . What a beast

I think I'm going to go for one of the Samsung NVMEs once I upgrade .

 

[Abarbarian]

You appear to have a motherboard attached to your cooler . What a beast

I think I'm going to go for one of the Samsung NVMEs once I upgrade .

Bet that cooler runs quiet with that Arctic fan.

 

[ChristopherP]

Bet that cooler runs quiet with that Arctic fan.

It's not too bad, I think this was actually one of the cheapest coolers I could find. That particular CPU didn't come with a stock cooler which was annoying!