M.2 SSD

[Crusher]

I was satisfied with having the speed of a 500 GB SATA III Samsung NAND SSD for six years. However, I wanted to personally see if the hype that has proliferated on the Internet about M.2 PCI-e NVME SSD/s was true in real life gaming and video production. I can verify, yes the hype is real. BUT. If you already own a 500 GB to 1 TB SSD SATA III you're already in great shape. The only reason a person would own an M.2 SSD is for their Primary Drive, which in most cases is the C:Drive. Also, your motherboard would have to be designed to accommodate an M.2 SSD and the UEFI BIOS would need to be able to be adjusted to x4. The M2. SSD of your choice is IMHO best for new builds or new custom orders. The reality of versatility with a SATA III SSD is excellent. They can be used with USB Adapters as an external drive, making backing up of files or creating system images with ease. Very little heat is generated with SATA III SSD. Whereas M.2 SSD run around 50 Celsius.

Does the M.2 help programs load faster? Yes it does. But when you have already owned the latest model of Samsung SATA III SSD 960 EVO and it's your Primary Drive, there honestly is no need to buy an M.2 SSD to replace it. Once you own two internal SSD for System Image backups, that when you experience file transfer speeds that will make you say "wow!". An HDD is a snail in comparison, even with the new Optane Memory that is suppose to boost the functionality of an HDD.

Bottom line: 500 GB to 1 TB primary drive be it M.2 or SATA SSD is most likely the best investment you can make for a new build. Desktop users can keep their old HDD 1 TB or larger for their secondary internal drive for fast backups. If you want blazing fast, then add a SATA III SSD 500 GB or 1 TB. Just be sure to keep the secondary internal drive the same size as your Primary Drive. System images take up a lot of space but are priceless when the time comes to recover your system.

Benchmarks before M.2 SSD
Benchmarks After M.2 SSD
NVMe explained

Now you have a hands-on testimonial of a Perfect Golf enthusiast as well as very accurate stats from userbenchmark.com.

Yeah, it's super fast! And...mine is not even an expensive model.

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