Storage Solutions Advice on a decent PCIe NVME Gen3 M2 SSD -WITH- DRAM Cache

R

Rickyk

Skilled
I have a 6 year old PC and want to try out an M2 drive as stated above. Have no plans to upgrade anytime soon so not sure if its worth it buying a Gen 4 drive now in anticipation of a future PC. If the price difference is trivial then its fine otherwise no.

Undecided on whether I will go for a 500GB or 1TB drive. Budget is 5K for a 500GB & 8K for 1TB . Can be extended in both cases if required though I'm hoping that wont be necessary as I dont want the absolute "bestest" drive but rather a good VFM drive.

My requirements are -
  1. Must have DRAM Cache.
  2. Should have a TBW rating (300/600 for 500GB/1TB) or higher
  3. A 5 year warranty
  4. Prefer brands like Samsung & Crucial but am open to other options as well.
  5. Looking for a brand new drive only
  6. Would prefer to buy it off Amazon.

Thanks in advance...
 
If you're going for an NVME drive, the DRAM doesn't matter. The WD Blue SN570 will suit your needs just fine. The 1TB SN570 goes for around 5.5k on Amazon.
 
Weird that you want dram cache… without super capacitor power backup dram cache doesn’t make sense and is a very specialized hardware. Not a regular consumer hardware.
 
@OMEGA44-XT
My motherboard (GA-Z170X-Gaming-3) though 6 years old apparently does support Dual PCIe Gen3 x4 M.2 Connectors with up to 32Gb/s Data Transfer (PCIe NVMe & SATA SSD support).

Thank you for the Samsung 970 Evo plus recommendation. This drive looks very good.

@asmlit & @booo
I have never bought an NVME drive before.

However from Videos I saw on Youtube and reviews on websites, I got the impression that if you can afford a NVME drive with DRAM you should opt for it for 3 main reasons. One better speeds (debatable whether this is noticeable or not) two potentially longer product life & three lower thermals.


Or am I overlooking something here? Any advice appreciated.
 
Rickyk said:
@OMEGA44-XT
My motherboard (GA-Z170X-Gaming-3) though 6 years old apparently does support Dual PCIe Gen3 x4 M.2 Connectors with up to 32Gb/s Data Transfer (PCIe NVMe & SATA SSD support).

Thank you for the Samsung 970 Evo plus recommendation. This drive looks very good.

@asmlit & @booo
I have never bought an NVME drive before.

However from Videos I saw on Youtube and reviews on websites, I got the impression that if you can afford a NVME drive with DRAM you should opt for it for 3 main reasons. One better speeds (debatable whether this is noticeable or not) two potentially longer product life & three lower thermals.


Or am I overlooking something here? Any advice appreciated.
Click to expand...
Great, get 970 evo plus for 6.5k or SN570 for 5.5k depending on how much you want to spend. Realistically, you won't observe any difference between them for normal usage or gaming, but 970 is better.
 
@Rickyk Honestly, SN570 is more than apt for your needs and won't see any slowdows in day-to-day scenarios. DRAM ones only make sense for servers and high performing systems which can't compromise on the throughput.

The 1TB SN570 has a TBW of 600TB and backed with 5 years warranty which already exceed of what you were looking for in the first place.
 
Rickyk said:
@OMEGA44-XT
My motherboard (GA-Z170X-Gaming-3) though 6 years old apparently does support Dual PCIe Gen3 x4 M.2 Connectors with up to 32Gb/s Data Transfer (PCIe NVMe & SATA SSD support).

Thank you for the Samsung 970 Evo plus recommendation. This drive looks very good.

@asmlit & @booo
I have never bought an NVME drive before.

However from Videos I saw on Youtube and reviews on websites, I got the impression that if you can afford a NVME drive with DRAM you should opt for it for 3 main reasons. One better speeds (debatable whether this is noticeable or not) two potentially longer product life & three lower thermals.


Or am I overlooking something here? Any advice appreciated.
Click to expand...
clearly bunch of marketing bs. to put the caching concept in simple terms, when you use something like DRAM for caching, the problem comes when you lose power and the data that resides in the cache need to be flushed to the drive. otherwise, you will get corrupt drive. so usually the controllers have super capacitors which act like battery to keep the power until the flush happens to the underlying disk. LSI megaraid controllers implement this. read more here: https://docs.broadcom.com/doc/12351953
Now in the above video, he talks about dram acting like cache but technically, you can do it only for read cache without supercaps. but operating systems at a higher level implement much more sophisticated caching strategies. so dont waste money on marketing buzz. IMO.
 
booo said:
when you use something like DRAM for caching, the problem comes when you lose power and the data that resides in the cache need to be flushed to the drive. otherwise, you will get corrupt drive...

you can do it only for read cache without supercaps. but operating systems at a higher level implement much more sophisticated caching strategies. so dont waste money on marketing buzz. IMO.
Click to expand...
While what you say is technically true, sudden power loss is outside the standard/safe operating conditions of a computer. The disks can get corrupted whether it is DRAM SSD w/ write cache, DRAM-less SSD or good old HDD. Laptops have batteries, but desktops need a UPS, else you'll lose unsaved work, let alone corrupt drives.

What sets apart DRAM write caching is it will minimize Write Amplification and extend SSD life (TBW). DRAM-less SSD may also implement this via Host Memory Buffer where they use part of the system RAM to act as cache (read and/or write). Even though this is the cheaper option, you're paying for it in terms of system resources.
 
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