For those who are using / will use 2 M.2s (a 2280 and a 2230 size) in your FW16, what ones will you be pairing together and why did you choose them? Where will you put the OS, etc. Any types of combos that should be avoided and why? Inquiring minds want to know!
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I am using a Solidigim P44 Pro 1 TB as my 2280 and an Inland TN446 512 GB as my 2230.
I chose the Solidigim P44 Pro because it is a top of the line drive in terms of performance while being significantly more power efficient than other high end drives.
I chose the Inland TN446 because it has decent performance/efficiency and was on sale.
I have Windows on my 2280 and Fedora Linux on my 2230.
There can be some physical clearance issues with some double sided drives. See here for info about those.
Other than that I donāt think thereās anything that should really be avoided.
I hadnāt considered clearance issues. But the Corsair MP600 CORE Mini fit perfectly fine with my WD Black SN850X.
So for SSD type disks, what they do most, is idling around.
Second, the NVMe PCIe interface is gen 4. Gen 4 devices tend to heat up quite a lot when used a lot. So if sandwiching 2 disks on top of each other, I decided to take the followin into account:
- Fast disks using PCIe Gen4 NVMe interfaces
- Low idle power
- Low heat dissipation (also, configure use PCIe 3 when on battery mode).
With this, I came up to the following disks:
2280: SK Hynix Platinum P41 SSD 2TB Disk
2230: SABRENT 2230 M.2 1TB disk
When looking at my system average temps, the disks are at around 38ā°C, are really fast and give me a long on battery time.
Not sure Iāll be using a 2230, but using the Solidigim P44 Pro for the general very good performance and lower heat & power usage overall. Also single side so I can get the 2230 in later if I want.
And the P44 Pro is basically the SK Hynix P41 with slightly different firmware, after SK Hynix spun off storage as Solidigim.
Still considering if I actually need more storage in the 2230 slot, but something to keep in mind is power efficiency, so look for good reviews that look at actual power usage. Something like the Corsair MP600 Core Mini 2TB (if you want 2TB) seems to do well in ASPM enabled idle and read/write power usage
I plan to use a WD SN740 2TB for the 2230 and a 4TB MoveSpeed PCIe 4.0 for the 2280 (1 side nand, I donāt remember the exact model, is not like that kind of brands has a very clear naming)
Hi @Keith_Andreano,
I chose to use a Samsung 990 Pro 2TB in the 2280 slot and a Micron 2400 1TB (Which is the same as the Sabrent and several other models) in the 2230 slot.
The Samsung is mind blowing fast and actually very efficient; WD drives have always burned me in years past and I am always hesitant of their products, just my personal opinion though.
The Micron 2400 drive is quite power efficient and will idle most of the time.
Windows 11 Pro installed on the 2280 drive and when I read up on a clear guide to install Ubuntu without Windows blowing away the UEFI entries the next time Windows boots I will be a happy camper.
Left a big chunk for storage on the 2TB drive for Unix files. The 1TB drive will host Ubuntu OS and act as the primary backup for what is critical on the 2TB drive to be backed up.
It is an odd combination however the 2230 drives just can not match the long term speed that a 2280 drive can (heat being the limiting factor). Also, 2230 drives just do not have the real estate for larger chips so they are currently limited to 2TB whereas you can get 2280 drives all the way up to 4TB single sided if memory serves me correctly.
My thoughts are to spend the money on a great 2280 drive as the 2230 drive is just a bonus slot for either another operating system or literally a backup drive to the files that are critical on your 2280 drive. I have always ran RAID setups in my personal machines and this is the closest you can get without sacrificing too much and still being portable! The FW16 is incredibly quick and it will only get better with time as they optimize this platform like they did with the FW13.
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Very interesting, the pair I was planning on using (a SAMSUNG 990 PRO SSD 4TB PCIe 4.0 M.2 2280 with a WD_BLACK 2TB SN770M M.2 2230) will (in theory) fit just fine, but I had not considered thermals. I was going to put Windows 10 on the 2230 and data / games on the 2280. Any recommendations for an improvement here? Thanks!
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990 Pro is a bit on the hot side, although not too crazy. Itās also more power hungry, even at idle, although itās not completely terrible The Solidigm 44 Pro is, from what I can see, generally about the same performance while being somewhat cooler and non-trivial lower power consumption.
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Looks good, just wish there was a 4tb version.
Thanks!
This is the exact pairing I have, runs great. OS on the WD, code and data on the 990
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Awesome, so no thermal issues then? Thanks!
I havenāt noticed anything at allā¦ the normal temp for the SN770M is 51c and the 990 Pro runs at 50cā¦ zero time above warning temp
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These are the temps of my SSDās (2280: SK Hynix Platinum P41 SSD 2TB Disk and 2230: SABRENT 2230 M.2 1TB disk) after a little bit of load (Ripping some of old childhood movies converted from 8mm to mp4)
nvme-pci-0400
Adapter: PCI adapter
Composite: +34.9Ā°C (low = -0.1Ā°C, high = +82.8Ā°C)
(crit = +84.8Ā°C)
nvme-pci-0600
Adapter: PCI adapter
Composite: +39.9Ā°C (low = -0.1Ā°C, high = +85.8Ā°C)
(crit = +86.8Ā°C)
Sensor 1: +33.9Ā°C (low = -273.1Ā°C, high = +65261.8Ā°C)
Sensor 2: +34.9Ā°C (low = -273.1Ā°C, high = +65261.8Ā°C)
Over all, pretty low.
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