SSD M.2 vs SATA is the speed difference noticeable in Big Box?

[Mr. RetroLust]

I'm planning to go from HDD to SSD in the future. I'm looking for current prices and speeds a bit, the big difference I see is 3.500MB/s read (and up) on M.2 drives and 560MB/s read on SATA drives, that is quite a difference. Can anyone tell me if you'll really notice these speed differences  much in Big Box speeds (loading the media on screen)? I'm not even sure if I've got a second M.2 slot though but I do have SATA that I know.

[skizzosjt]

1 hour ago, Mr. RetroLust said:

I'm planning to go from HDD to SSD in the future. I'm looking for current prices and speeds a bit, the big difference I see is 3.500MB/s read (and up) on M.2 drives and 560MB/s read on SATA drives, that is quite a difference. Can anyone tell me if you'll really notice these speed differences  much in Big Box speeds (loading the media on screen)? I'm not even sure if I've got a second M.2 slot though but I do have SATA that I know.

My experience suggests you will not notice any real world improvements in this regard when comparing a NVMe SSD to a SATA SSD. There have been a handful of tech youtubers who did some "real world" tests with game loading times for an experiment. Telling people something like "load up this game on PC A (running SATA III), and then load it up on PC B (running NVMe), etc".....the majority of them couldn't tell a difference because statistically, load times are only going to be fractionally better if at all. (my game loaded in 12.5 secs instead of 13 secs....woo hoo lol) The difference between going from a HDD to a SSD, whether SATA or M2, will be a huge noticeable improvement. It will make your system feel like a new one I bet! My recommendation would be if the purchase is made to be used for Big Box and/or game storage, then I would go with a 2.5" SATA SSD over a M2 NVMe drive. Of course, I'm assuming that NVMe is going to be more expensive than SATA though. If they are the same or close enough price per GB then I sure wouldn't blame anyone for going with NVMe. It seems like NVMe drives get utilized to their utmost potential when they are used for working with large creative work flows, such as video editing where you really need fast speeds for a good experience. For storing and loading games, there isn't a real world benefit as of right now.

Check out your motherboard's manual if you're curious if you got a spare M2 slot or need to know how it operates. Some M2 slots when populated will disable SATA ports or PCIe lanes. Warning you about that because you could find yourself installing a new M2 drive and then wonder why one of your other SATA disks that you didn't even touch all of a sudden is no longer being detected.  I mentioned the how it operates part because some work different depending on what type of M2 drive is installed. There is M2 SATA and M2 NVMe. M2 SATA is going to be basically a 2.5" SATA SSD but in the M2 form factor so speeds and capability is the same as traditional 2.5" SATA SSD at around the 560MBps you mentioned. But this will surely take up existing SATA ports, as in, it will disable 1 or more normal SATA ports when populated. M2 NVMe is the type with the 3.5 GBps+ speeds and these may take up PCIe lanes, and/or disable SATA ports.

If you don't know about this page, check this out. It an excellent source to use to compare various PC components. You can narrow your search down using the filters on the left hand side and sort with the columns on the right.

https://ssd.userbenchmark.com/

[Mr. RetroLust]

29 minutes ago, skizzosjt said:

My experience suggests you will not notice any real world improvements in this regard when comparing a NVMe SSD to a SATA SSD. There have been a handful of tech youtubers who did some "real world" tests with game loading times for an experiment. Telling people something like "load up this game on PC A (running SATA III), and then load it up on PC B (running NVMe), etc".....the majority of them couldn't tell a difference because statistically, load times are only going to be fractionally better if at all. (my game loaded in 12.5 secs instead of 13 secs....woo hoo lol) The difference between going from a HDD to a SSD, whether SATA or M2, will be a huge noticeable improvement. It will make your system feel like a new one I bet! My recommendation would be if the purchase is made to be used for Big Box and/or game storage, then I would go with a 2.5" SATA SSD over a M2 NVMe drive. Of course, I'm assuming that NVMe is going to be more expensive than SATA though. If they are the same or close enough price per GB then I sure wouldn't blame anyone for going with NVMe. It seems like NVMe drives get utilized to their utmost potential when they are used for working with large creative work flows, such as video editing where you really need fast speeds for a good experience. For storing and loading games, there isn't a real world benefit as of right now.

Check out your motherboard's manual if you're curious if you got a spare M2 slot or need to know how it operates. Some M2 slots when populated will disable SATA ports or PCIe lanes. Warning you about that because you could find yourself installing a new M2 drive and then wonder why one of your other SATA disks that you didn't even touch all of a sudden is no longer being detected.  I mentioned the how it operates part because some work different depending on what type of M2 drive is installed. There is M2 SATA and M2 NVMe. M2 SATA is going to be basically a 2.5" SATA SSD but in the M2 form factor so speeds and capability is the same as traditional 2.5" SATA SSD at around the 560MBps you mentioned. But this will surely take up existing SATA ports, as in, it will disable 1 or more normal SATA ports when populated. M2 NVMe is the type with the 3.5 GBps+ speeds and these may take up PCIe lanes, and/or disable SATA ports.

If you don't know about this page, check this out. It an excellent source to use to compare various PC components. You can narrow your search down using the filters on the left hand side and sort with the columns on the right.

https://ssd.userbenchmark.com/

Thank you so much for all this info and help, this'll really help me on my way

I have another question if you don't mind, I have 8gb of ram and it works great as it is for me but will Big Box load the media on screen faster with 16gb? I'm wondering if I need to upgrade both or just go SSD. I will only play games up to gamecube and maybe Wii so game loading times aren't an issue, I just want Big Box itself to be as fast as I can make it on my machine.

[skizzosjt]

Just now, Mr. RetroLust said:

Thank you so much for all this info and help, this'll really help me on my way

I have another question if you don't mind, I have 8gb of ram and it works great as it is for me but will Big Box load the media on screen faster with 16gb? I'm wondering if I need to upgrade both or just go SSD. I will only play games up to gamecube and maybe Wii so game loading times aren't an issue, I just want Big Box itself to be as fast as I can make it on my machine.

You're welcome! You probably already know if you need more RAM, without even knowing it. Even if your system has room for it, does the program or task at hand actually benefit from the additional and/or faster RAM? So you are in the right mindset to be wondering does it make a difference to Big Box. My understanding is likely not and I say that because of the earlier comment, you probably already know if you need more. Do you ever get pop up warnings stating your system is "out of memory" or "memory is low" etc type of errors? If you do, yea you need more RAM. If not, the amount of RAM is likely sufficient. So any improvement would need to be made from faster RAM. But I'll admit, I'm not sure, but learning towards "no" that faster RAM would make a noticeable improvement for Big Box. It's more likely you would already be disappointed with the performance of your system if the amount or speed of the currently installed RAM was insufficient. If you're happy currently, I'd say leave it as is, since you being able to ENJOY using your PC is really what counts in the long run! My thought process here is the longer you stretch out the dollar you spent on your current system, you will then have more funds saved up to spend on the newer system when it comes time you really need an upgrade bc the current one is no longer capable of what you need it to do.

I've learned the hard way specifically with RAM. My last audio workstation, still have it setup as my backup, is a 2009 Mac Pro and I put 48GB in there to find out the Pro Tools version I was running at that point doesn't even utilize more than 8GB, which is what I had in there originally 🤦‍♂️. I had to upgrade the Pro Tools version (aka more $ spent) which can utilize all the RAM installed. So yea I can say it's easy to spend on something that sounds good on paper, but there is some asterisk making it more or less like "wtf I just spent how much $ to get no improvement!". Just sharing to say, learn from my mistakes 🤣

 

[Mr. RetroLust]

2 minutes ago, skizzosjt said:

You're welcome! You probably already know if you need more RAM, without even knowing it. Even if your system has room for it, does the program or task at hand actually benefit from the additional and/or faster RAM? So you are in the right mindset to be wondering does it make a difference to Big Box. My understanding is likely not and I say that because of the earlier comment, you probably already know if you need more. Do you ever get pop up warnings stating your system is "out of memory" or "memory is low" etc type of errors? If you do, yea you need more RAM. If not, the amount of RAM is likely sufficient. So any improvement would need to be made from faster RAM. But I'll admit, I'm not sure, but learning towards "no" that faster RAM would make a noticeable improvement for Big Box. It's more likely you would already be disappointed with the performance of your system if the amount or speed of the currently installed RAM was insufficient. If you're happy currently, I'd say leave it as is, since you being able to ENJOY using your PC is really what counts in the long run! My thought process here is the longer you stretch out the dollar you spent on your current system, you will then have more funds saved up to spend on the newer system when it comes time you really need an upgrade bc the current one is no longer capable of what you need it to do.

I've learned the hard way specifically with RAM. My last audio workstation, still have it setup as my backup, is a 2009 Mac Pro and I put 48GB in there to find out the Pro Tools version I was running at that point doesn't even utilize more than 8GB, which is what I had in there originally 🤦‍♂️. I had to upgrade the Pro Tools version (aka more $ spent) which can utilize all the RAM installed. So yea I can say it's easy to spend on something that sounds good on paper, but there is some asterisk making it more or less like "wtf I just spent how much $ to get no improvement!". Just sharing to say, learn from my mistakes 🤣

 

Lol thanks man! I once bought exactly the same 8gb ram module (to up it to 16gb) only to have realy big problems with my system later on, i didnt knew what the problem was so I reinstalled the entire system etc. Long story short; the new ram module was broken and I couldnt get a refund because I didnt knew anymore where I bought it from. So because of this I'm honestly scared to try that again. As you said I don't have any problems with the system or get notifications about it neither. SSD it'll be then thanks again for all your help, much appreciated!