Data drive: M2 vs SSD vs HDD

Bucketfoot

I've just picked up a PowerSpec G439. This is my first new computer in 8-9 years, so my first experience with anything other than a traditional HDD or SATA SSD.

I want to add a second drive for all of my data. My use case is that I do a lot of amateur video production and multi-track audio recording/mixing. If I am not overly concerned with price what is the best type of a storage device to use?

I will add that I have a NAS that will be used for all of my archival storage and my motherboard is an MSI Pro Z690-A DDR4.

Thanks!

Rye_Bread

Heya, Bucketfoot! The G439 is one of my favorite gaming PCs that we sell! I would recommend going with another M.2 drive, as your particular computer has two additional easy to access M.2 slots on the bottom of the motherboard. As for which one—if you're not super concerned with price—the Samsung 980 Pros are by far the most popular ones and are roughly ~$100 a terabyte. Alternatively, you could go with the 970 EVO Plus which are still very solid (I've yet to have any issues with mine) but are a tad slower than their 980 Pro counterpart yet a little less expensive. Samsung released their 990 Pro not too long ago, which is the next step up from the 980 Pro. I've seen great things about them but I have yet to use one myself. I'd personally go with a 980 Pro, since they're priced pretty well at the moment. I'll link a 970 EVO Plus and a 980 PRO in 2TB for you to take a peek at! Can't go wrong with either, though.

https://www.microcenter.com/product/601601/samsung-970-evo-plus-ssd-2tb-m2-nvme-interface-pcie-30-x4-internal-solid-state-drive-with-v-nand-3-bit-mlc-technology-(mz-v7s2t0b-am)

https://www.microcenter.com/product/633342/samsung-980-pro-ssd-2tb-m2-nvme-interface-pcie-gen-4x4-internal-solid-state-drive-with-v-nand-3-bit-mlc-technology-(mz-v8p2t0b-am)

As a quick heads up, the G439 also has two 3.5" hard drive bays on the bottom front of the case, so you can also throw full size hard drives or 2.5" SSDs if you want even more storage. Still, the M.2 outperforms their 2.5" cousins and aren't too much more expensive right now.

Hope that helped! Best of luck, and congrats on your new PC! Let us know if you need anything else :)

Rs199208

you might have a problem running another m.2 nvme because of available PCIe lanes. you'll have to reduce the gpu available lanes to run another nvme. I'm just not sure how much performance you would actually lose with a 3070ti running only 8 lanes instead of 16. maybe not much but might be different for creative work? ill see if i can find out the loss while rechecking available lanes you have total.

I've never ran more than one nvme or more than one drive since i switched to SSD from HD's so i don't know a lot about current multi nvme drive settings.

edit: i watched the latest gamers nexus video on pcie 4x16 vs pcie 3x16 with a 4090. (pcie 3x16 is the same as pcie 4x8).

in gaming they saw avg 1-4% performance loss with a outlier at 15% loss in performance.

site testing the same pcie gens against each with a 3090 while post production and video editing saw a loss of performance also but its mainly with how long it takes to send data over the pcie lanes. if you run out of PC ram and using gpu ram the difference in performance is much larger because of the time it takes over slower lanes.

with a 3070ti the difference might be smaller because of less vram then obviously you would benefit more from more ram possibly.

you need to know which slots to place additional nvme because certain slots disable other slots that you might need for editing eventually.

don't run the gpu at 4x4 lol!

depending on your current nvme i would recommend a samsung 990 pro as the main drive and move the oem drive to another slot but if not interested in that much work then i would think you could get away with a dramless nvme as a secondary but i have no idea if the sizes you require have dramless. dramless are cheaper but not the best for a OS/app drive though this too might be slightly different for video editing?

Rs199208

looks like the oem nvme drive is a WD most likely unless they had to use a different brand because of available stock at time of build. I'm sure it isn't any where near as fast as a 990 pro which is why i suggested moving it to the secondary if you wanted to spend the time on that. plus, the slower drive would be better as secondary since you don't need faster than OS drive. need you current drive info?

i see 1TB gen 4 nvme starting at $79 at Microcenter.

1TB gen 3 starting at $50 but much slower than gen4. after that $50 model prices of 1TB gen3 jump to equal of gen4 so might as well go gen4 if not getting the $50 model.

also keep in mind sizes below 1TB of the same exact models but smaller storage amount will be slower than the 1TB and up.

edit: found answer on current installed drive under the Q&A on MC product page of your model PC:

"This model is equipped with an MSI M370 SSD or a WD Blue SN550 or SN570 SSD. All of these are PCIe 3.0 x4 drives."

so you are running a much slower OS drive than i thought.