get a 1tb SSD with PCI Generation 4 yet?

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Question what do you think is it better to get a 1tb SSD with PCI Generation 4 support which means speeds up to right now over 5,000 /MB second even though I only have PCI 3.0 slots right now, which would only give about 3,500 MBS, but I will be upgrading my motherboard in a couple years probably.
Or do I get a bigger capacity 2 terabyte SSD at like 3000 megabytes per second max at something roughly equal to the same price.
 
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For gaming?

Definitely the 2TB, you wont notice the extra speed in gaming. Even if your transferring large files I’d still go for the higher capacity. 1TB just isn’t that much nowadays and the extra speed isn’t worth the lower capacity imo.
 
There's plenty of cars that go over 200MPH now, but on what roads are you going to do that on a regular basis?

Maximum theoretical sequential read/write is great for daily transfers of large chunks of data, or for bragging rights, but most of us here won't ever use that speed. There's a few things to look at:

1) Random I/O speed: This is going to be more related to real world performance, so you'll want to check specs and reviews. Depending on the drive, a PCI 3.0 could be much faster than a 4.0 in this area.

2) Longevity: How many total writes can it take before the drive may die. Usually measured in TBW. You'll find some large Intel (or others) SSDs selling quite cheaply. It's because they use a different type of NAND that is not designed to allow as many writes. The theory is the average desktop user is not adding and deleting gigabytes of files on a daily basis, so this might be totally fine for some. But bigger doesn't always mean better. If you're a power tech user, you'll want something with a higher TBW rating so it will last.

There's other stuff to think about like Provisioning, but that's another topic. Quick rule is if you don't know how your drive handles provisioning, try and get a bigger size drive and plan to keep 10 to 20% of the drive free at all times.

For the average gamer here, top speed is not what they're looking for. A good quality drive, with a good TBW rating, and good IO performance, then get the largest size that your budget allows.
 
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Currently you should throw away slow HDDs and replace them with capacity as high as possible SATA3 SSD(s).
Wait for pricedrops on PCIe SSDs.
 
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PCIe4 is an intereface; if the ssd can't take advantage of the increase speed in the interface why spend the extra cash?
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Most of hte pcie drives are MLC which makes them more expensive than the cheaper TLC drives. However, there are a few TLC drives that are pcie and are not much more expensive than their sata equivalent. Those are probably worth buying - however i am unaware of any that would perform better with pcie4 over pcie3.
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MLC drives tend to be both more durable and faster than tlc drives they are also a *lot* more expensive. Only you can decide if the extra cash spent is worth it (hint: it won't be because your games are a lot faster).

Question what do you think is it better to get a 1tb SSD with PCI Generation 4 support which means speeds up to right now over 5,000 /MB second even though I only have PCI 3.0 slots right now, which would only give about 3,500 MBS, but I will be upgrading my motherboard in a couple years probably.
Or do I get a bigger capacity 2 terabyte SSD at like 3000 megabytes per second max at something roughly equal to the same price.
 
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By the way here is a not too expensive 2tb drive; note that it requires a m.2 interface:
https://www.newegg.com/intel-660p-series-2tb/p/N82E16820167461
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You should double check benchmarks but my memory is that it has very good read speeds but sustained write speeds are slow (burst writes are fast)

Those are the Intel SSDs I was talking about with the QLC NAND. 400 TBW is more than an average SATA SSD, but it's still well below today's average NVMe. I think it would be better cost per dollar to pay an extra say $75 and get something that doubles the lifespan. But again, depending on use case, might not matter that much.
 
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Probably more than $75. The 970 EVO (which is a tlc drive with 3x more write durability) is nearly twice as much @ 400. Hum the patriot vpn100 has a rated endurance of 3000TBW and is around $289. Not sure what crucial or wd might have. Crucial/Corsair tends to be price leaders so they might have something.

Those are the Intel SSDs I was talking about with the QLC NAND. 400 TBW is more than an average SATA SSD, but it's still well below today's average NVMe. I think it would be better cost per dollar to pay an extra say $75 and get something that doubles the lifespan. But again, depending on use case, might not matter that much.
 
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Sabrent 2TB Rocket NVMe 4.0 Gen4 PCIe M.2 Internal SSD Extreme Performance Solid State Drive

NVMe M.2

PCIe Gen4 x4 Interface. PCIe 4.0 Compliant

NVMe 1.3 Compliant.

Data Transfer Rate 5,000 Mb per second

link


PCIe4 is an intereface; if the ssd can't take advantage of the increase speed in the interface why spend the extra cash?
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Most of hte pcie drives are MLC which makes them more expensive than the cheaper TLC drives. However, there are a few TLC drives that are pcie and are not much more expensive than their sata equivalent. Those are probably worth buying - however i am unaware of any that would perform better with pcie4 over pcie3.
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MLC drives tend to be both more durable and faster than tlc drives they are also a *lot* more expensive. Only you can decide if the extra cash spent is worth it (hint: it won't be because your games are a lot faster).
 
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"can reach up to 5000 MB/s (read) and 4400 MB/s (write)"

I wonder what actual real life performance is realized.
Sabrent 2TB Rocket NVMe 4.0 Gen4 PCIe M.2 Internal SSD Extreme Performance Solid State Drive.
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Ok amazon reviews suggest they are getting very good performance.
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I can't find if warranty impacted by write cycles.

NVMe M.2

PCIe Gen4 x4 Interface. PCIe 4.0 Compliant

NVMe 1.3 Compliant.

Data Transfer Rate 5,000 Mb per second

link
 
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There actually has been a video from German Overclocker Der 8auer (english video) basically explaining that you should avoid PCIe4 drives for now.
The gist:
1. You will not realize any performance gain in most applications over PCIe3 (while much slower also has hardly any improvement in games over SATA SSDs)
2. Due to the increased heat, it might throttle itself down, basically dropping to PCIe3 speeds
3. More expensive for almost no gains

 
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Sabrent 2TB Rocket NVMe 4.0 Gen4 PCIe M.2 Internal SSD Extreme Performance Solid State Drive

NVMe M.2

PCIe Gen4 x4 Interface. PCIe 4.0 Compliant

NVMe 1.3 Compliant.

Data Transfer Rate 5,000 Mb per second

link

Speed is well above what you can even use. These are for sustained large file transfers. Games and programs are going to be random I/O, which will be much slower:

- Your average Gigabit LAN is going to be 110 MB/s so transferring to another computer is out (even if you had a 10 Gigabit LAN for some obscure reason, you're still capped at 1250 MB/s)

- Transferring to another disk at those speeds, means you'd need 2 x PCIe 4 drives on the same bus.

- Maybe transferring to another folder on the same drive, but that's if you're copying same data to the same drive, and not moving, which is relatively instantaneous through a move command anyways.

- The only scenario where it might be useful is backing up very large files (video editing perhaps?) to an external Thunderbolt drive, which would require the same read/write speeds. And even then, that's only if you're doing multiple large transfers a day, would it be worth it. And even then it still would only be about half it's rated speed max.

7606dd1442b1d558799827fa5fee2364098225bf943a79728e4e1f960e1fb24a.jpg
 
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Actually the random iops i looked up was pretty decent on these drives. Not sure you need pcie4 for the iop rate.

I'm more concern about heat and write durability. I'm not interested in this data with regards to games but more or less advancement in technology. I personally would stick with simple sata dirves for now due to convenience.
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Btw you can get these drives with a usb-c caddy.

Speed is well above what you can even use. These are for sustained large file transfers. Games and programs are going to be random I/O, which will be much slower:
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Actually the random iops i looked up was pretty decent on these drives. Not sure you need pcie4 for the iop rate.

I'm more concern about heat and write durability. I'm not interested in this data with regards to games but more or less advancement in technology. I personally would stick with simple sata dirves for now due to convenience.
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Btw you can get these drives with a usb-c caddy.

I actually have a USB-C adapter that I use for NVMe drives (so I can grab data off dead laptops), and while not quite Thunderbolt speeds, they're still fast and handy.

Hmm, you're right, not bad performance. The heat-pipe style heat-sink is a nice option too.

Also, it looks like there's a premium price to go to 2TB (although it usually comes with an increase in speed and better provisioning). Now might not be the time to go that size, and stick with the 1TB sweet spot (or even buy a couple for less than 1 x 2TB) if one has the slots available.

When I built my main new rig this year, I decided to go for the Corsair MP510 (960GB). Jack-of-all-Trades but master of none. And durability is quite high (1700 TBW). The 2TB version goes for less than $300 if you can find one, and has a TBW rating of over 3000.
 
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Right now I'm using old sandisk drives for boot disks in my linux and windows every day machines. The linux box i'm not too concern (though you would be amazed how many write cycles chrome and thunderbird put on the disk - quite amazing. Hum just check the smart data - already up to an average of 52 earse count per block with 847 failed blocks - guess I better keep an eye on it - it is only been in use for 2 years - so realistically 2 years left. Hum… will this system is 11 years old - will probably upgrade it in 2 years with something bit more energy efficient.
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Anyway for myself the boot disk is always sep. from the rest - on windows a lot of saves got there but i'm assuming it is not too harsh. For linux well just covered that - home directory et all are not on the boot disk but i symlink chrome and thunderbird to that disk and they sit there and write all day long 24 hours a day.
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Btw for the better drives the actual durability is usually much much higher than the warranty threshold. At least for earlier drives there were some tests that suggest that it is often 10 times higher. Don't know about newer drives.
 
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