NVMe upgrade

[Mr G]

Currently have an ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro 512GB NVMe and looking to replace it with a 1TB drive not just for Windows but games too.

I have a budget of £120/£130.

 

[Mesai]

Sabrent Rocket (not the Q) is a really good boot drive for the price, and uses TLC NAND, which is the higher quality option.

Seen it as low as £100 but even at £125 it's not bad.

 

[Mr G]

Sabrent Rocket (not the Q) is a really good boot drive for the price, and uses TLC NAND, which is the higher quality option.

Seen it as low as £100 but even at £125 it's not bad.

I've seen it around £92.50 elsewhere, thought about it and looked at the WD Black 750.

 

[MaXxBoulton]

Currently have an ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro 512GB NVMe and looking to replace it with a 1TB drive not just for Windows but games too.

I have a budget of £120/£130.

pcie 3 or 4? what motherboard do you have

also dont forget an heatsink

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x Crucial P1 1TB M.2 2280 PCI-e 3.0 x4 NVMe Solid State Drive= £104.99
• 1 x EK Water Blocks EK-M.2 NVMe Heatsink - Black= £10.99
• 1 x Samsung 980 Pro 500GB M.2 2280 PCI-e 4.0 x4 NVMe Solid State Drive= £149.99

Total: £274.67 (includes shipping: £8.70)​

​

 

[Mr G]

pcie 3 or 4? what motherboard do you have

also dont forget an heatsink

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x WD Blue SN550 1TB NVME M.2 2280 PCIe Gen3 Solid State Drive (WDS100T2B0C)= £99.95
• 1 x Crucial P1 1TB M.2 2280 PCI-e 3.0 x4 NVMe Solid State Drive= £104.99
• 1 x EK Water Blocks EK-M.2 NVMe Heatsink - Black= £10.99

Total: £224.63 (includes shipping: £8.70)
​

I've got a B550 Tomahawk.

 

[MaXxBoulton]

I've got a B550 Tomahawk.

no real world differance in any way but you can use pcie 4.0 if wanted
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/sams...-4.0-x4-nvme-solid-state-drive-hd-247-sa.html

personly i would save £50 and get a gen 3
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/cruc...-3.0-x4-nvme-solid-state-drive-hd-06q-cr.html
**Dont forget an heatsink**



Why not get a 2.5" drive for games and keep the m.2 you have for boot.
you can pick up 2tb sata ssd's for £150 now.

and in the real world there is only of seconds difference in load times

 

[Mr G]

no real world differance in any way but you can use pcie 4.0 if wanted
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/sams...-4.0-x4-nvme-solid-state-drive-hd-247-sa.html

personly i would save £50 and get a gen 3
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/cruc...-3.0-x4-nvme-solid-state-drive-hd-06q-cr.html

**Dont forget an heatsink**

Don't need a heatsink with the Tomahawk, preferred a 1TB.

 

[MaXxBoulton]

Don't need a heatsink with the Tomahawk, preferred a 1TB.

sorry linked wrong drive the 1tb gen 4 is over £200
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/patriot-viper-vpn4100-gen4-1tb-ssd-vp4100-1tbm28h-hd-016-pa.html


Why not get a 2.5" drive for games and keep the m.2 you have for boot.
you can pick up 2tb sata ssd's for £150 now(if you look around).

and in the real world there is only of seconds difference in load times
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/sams...-solid-state-drive-mz-77q2t0bw-hd-244-sa.html

 

[Mr G]

sorry linked wrong drive the 1tb gen 4 is over £200
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/patriot-viper-vpn4100-gen4-1tb-ssd-vp4100-1tbm28h-hd-016-pa.html


Why not get a 2.5" drive for games and keep the m.2 you have for boot.
you can pick up 2tb sata ssd's for £150 now(if you look around).

and in the real world there is only of seconds difference in load times
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/sams...-solid-state-drive-mz-77q2t0bw-hd-244-sa.html

I've got 2x 1TB Samsung SSD's but wanted a 1TB drive for boot and games I play regularly.

 

[Chaos666]

wait for black friday and get sabrent 1tb.... these seem to sell for around 90£ on sales very often..

 

[Ree]

i would wait till black friday as nvmes etc always go on sale. if you cant the 1tb version of the s8200 for £110 should do the trick.

 

[Mr G]

i would wait till black friday as nvmes etc always go on sale. if you cant the 1tb version of the s8200 for £110 should do the trick.

Funny you mention that, looking at the RGB version which is a little more but I'm close to the price of the WD.

 

[EsaT]

At the moment WD Black SN750 is the best priced full speed PCIe v3 NVMe in OcUK's stock.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/wd-b...-solid-state-drive-wds100t3x0c-hd-55v-wd.html

And WD Blue SN550 bang per buck budget drive.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/wd-b...-solid-state-drive-wds100t2b0c-hd-56l-wd.html

**Dont forget an heatsink**

Zero need for any SSD heatsinks in gaming, because of drive activity being short bursts or at far from full speed of the drive.

And there's even less sense in paying from PCIe v4 hype from overpriced brand, when even budget NVMes have huge amount on unutilized performance.

 

[Mr G]

At the moment WD Black SN750 is the best priced full speed PCIe v3 NVMe in OcUK's stock.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/wd-b...-solid-state-drive-wds100t3x0c-hd-55v-wd.html

And WD Blue SN550 bang per buck budget drive.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/wd-b...-solid-state-drive-wds100t2b0c-hd-56l-wd.html



Zero need for any SSD heatsinks in gaming, because of drive activity being short bursts or at far from full speed of the drive.

And there's even less sense in paying from PCIe v4 hype from overpriced brand, when even budget NVMes have huge amount on unutilized performance.

Sound advice, I'm leaning towards the WD at this moment. Don't think it'll be any cheaper come black Friday.

 

[JollyJamma]

You don’t need pci-e Gen 4.

 

[MaXxBoulton]

Zero need for any SSD heatsinks in gaming, because of drive activity being short bursts or at far from full speed of the drive.
And there's even less sense in paying from PCIe v4 hype from overpriced brand, when even budget NVMes have huge amount on unutilized performance.

what about downloading, installing and updating games. for the cost of an heatsink just get one.
you can find them for £5

 

[geekyadz]

what about downloading, installing and updating games. for the cost of an heatsink just get one.
you can find them for £5

That motherboard has a M.2 heatsink already:

 

[MaXxBoulton]

That motherboard has a M.2 heatsink already:

yep we have already been over that one, read the thread..

my response was to this post

Zero need for any SSD heatsinks in gaming, because of drive activity being short bursts or at far from full speed of the drive.

 

[EsaT]

what about downloading, installing and updating games. for the cost of an heatsink just get one.
you can find them for £5

Doubtfull anyone here has fast enough internet connection for it to stress NVMes in any way.
Install process would be only one with potential for that.
But possible data decompression and other processing might limit write speeds.

And when writing data increased temperature would actually lower the wear of NAND...
While data is retained better at lower temperature.

As always, there is a technical explanation to the data retention scaling. The conductivity of a semiconductor scales with temperature, which is bad news for NAND because when it's unpowered the electrons are not supposed to move as that would change the charge of the cell. In other words, as the temperature increases, the electrons escape the floating gate faster that ultimately changes the voltage state of the cell and renders data unreadable (i.e. the drive no longer retains data).
For active use the temperature has the opposite effect. Because higher temperature makes the silicon more conductive, the flow of current is higher during program/erase operation and causes less stress on the tunnel oxide, improving the endurance of the cell because endurance is practically limited by tunnel oxide's ability to hold the electrons inside the floating gate.
https://www.anandtech.com/show/9248/the-truth-about-ssd-data-retention​

Problem is controller heating up during activity.

 

[MaXxBoulton]

Doubtfull anyone here has fast enough internet connection for it to stress NVMes in any way.
Install process would be only one with potential for that.
But possible data decompression and other processing might limit write speeds.

And when writing data increased temperature would actually lower the wear of NAND...
While data is retained better at lower temperature.

As always, there is a technical explanation to the data retention scaling. The conductivity of a semiconductor scales with temperature, which is bad news for NAND because when it's unpowered the electrons are not supposed to move as that would change the charge of the cell. In other words, as the temperature increases, the electrons escape the floating gate faster that ultimately changes the voltage state of the cell and renders data unreadable (i.e. the drive no longer retains data).
For active use the temperature has the opposite effect. Because higher temperature makes the silicon more conductive, the flow of current is higher during program/erase operation and causes less stress on the tunnel oxide, improving the endurance of the cell because endurance is practically limited by tunnel oxide's ability to hold the electrons inside the floating gate.
https://www.anandtech.com/show/9248/the-truth-about-ssd-data-retention​

Problem is controller heating up during activity.

i know we have all see the numerus posts about that subject. but the outcome of all testing shows an heatsink(none active) will not lower the temps to a state that will damage or reduce the lifespan of anything, buy gives you protection on the controller and will removed any chance of throttling.