Hi,
Whilst waiting for my batch 5 FW16, I bought the RAM and a 2280 SSD (SK Hynix P41) for my primary OS. However, I still need to buy the 2230 SSD for my windows OS.
I planned initially on buying a 2TB sn770m, however something popped up in my news feed that now makes me wonder if I shouldn’t wait a bit. Apparently new SSD controllers are coming (E27T specifically), that enable higher consecutive r/w speeds. Something like 7000 vs 5000MBps.
So, I was wondering when do new SSDs start being available in a given calender year ?
(I’m assuming yearly events such as CES push the industry towards a relatively stable release date window from one generation to the next)
And, is it even worth it to have the higher consecutive r/w speed? My main use for that SSD will be booting windows (and Ubuntu for some rare occasions), and running some heavy-ish software such as SOLIDWORKS and Zemax and some other simulation tools not available on Linux. But I will likely need to sometimes read and write relatively large files (10-100 gigs) to/from an expansion storage card, not sure whether the r/w speeds will be particularly limiting here.
Oh, and a specificity about my use case: I plan on also booting into that same Windows OS as a virtual machine from my main Linux OS (for tasks that don’t require too much performance but still need Windows). I have no earthly idea what kind of load that is on an SSD, though I’m assuming it’s not very different from just straight up booting into Windows.
Ah, “sequential”, couldn’t remember the word, thx.
This confirms my understanding that normal use of an SSD to boot and work is random access. My main concern s
Is copying large tar files to and from a storage expansion card, though I assume it will be bottlenecked by the expansion card. And I wasn’t quite sure about what kind of load is booting into an OS install as a virtual machine, though it would make sense for it to be the same as normal use, so, mostly random.
As for buying when I need it, since this is going to house a windows install that will also be somewhat integrated with the Linux one (mounting points, virtual machine…), I don’t want to uproot everything unless absolutely necessary. So, chances are, my setup is going to stay relatively stable for at least 4 years. So, I prefer going the overkill way since I’m any case I’m spending an obscene amount of money. So if newer SSDs are 300€ instead of the 230 the sn770m will cost, and there were a high likelihood of slower simulation speeds on the slower drive, waiting to buy one that maxes out the motherboard speed would’ve been worth it.
Since it does seem unlikely that I’ll reach sequential r/w speeds for any non-negligible amount of time, probably a good idea to stick to the sn770m.
I agree, but it may still be a good idea to try to wait until the new SSDs come out as the previous generation will likely get a nice discount when they do.
Yeah, especially right now, every time I look at the price of the sn770m it gets higher. Went from 210 a few weeks ago to 250 today. Probably due to the Steam Deck OLED and a few other handheld… Not sure when new SSDs are coming out but I for sure am waiting at least a month, maybe the prices will drop
Copying large files is indeed sequential, however the storage expansion card is limited to only about 1000 MB/s, which is far less than the 5150 MB/s (copying from) or 4850 MB/s (copying to) that the SN770M is rated for so the storage expansion card would indeed be the bottleneck.
The SN770M is also rated for 650K IOPS read and 800K IOPS write. IOPS is the number of tiny (4096 byte) files that the SSD can randomly access per second. By comparison the storage expansion card is capable of 41K IOPS read and 62K IOPS write, current top end SSDs like the SK Hynix P41 Platinum, Solidigm P44 Pro (sibling of P41 Platinum, what I’m getting), and Samsung 990 Pro are rated for around 1300-1600K IOPS. The E27T is advertised as good for 1200K IOPS.
Of course those numbers are ideal numbers based on high queue depth random access (high queue depth means that the system gives it a list of several files to randomly access simultaneously). Realistically most loads have much lower queue depths.
At lower queue depths the SN770M drops to 18K read/55K write. By comparison the storage expansion card is capable of 10K read/20K write, and current top end SSDs like the SK Hynix P41 Platinum, Solidigm P44 Pro, and Samsung 990 Pro are around 22-25K read/70-90K write. So on low queue depth random read (arguably the most important metric) the SN770M is not far behind top end drives.
If your referring to the Fifth shipment update, then the contents of the email seem to say the contrary, as they say they are gonna ship as long as no issues arise.
Wow,
Thanks for the very detailed answer, very useful information.
With that in mind, the main advantage of newer drives would be in high queue depth applications. It’s unlikely that any of the software I’ll be using will be able to make use of that. And stuff I write myself definitely won’t.
So, thanks, that helped a lot!
I have yet to see a drive actually saturate the interface in even remotely random reads/write, let alone something like low4K. (which is more or less what an OS actually does). The most expensive non-enterprise drives I have tested only offer maybe 50% more than the cheapest consumer drives, and that’s across like an 7-year gap.
A humble 32GB stick of Optane (not an SSD) on 2 lanes of PCIe2 will eat a sn730 (1TB? 2TB?) for snacks by pushing 171MB/s of low4K.
Manufacturers tout those absurd sequential reads/write, but you only hit those in truly ideal conditions
I just go to a reputable brand, sort by cheap, and find one with capacity I need and a DRAM cache. It’s gonna work.
I have some uh … “Western Digital Internal/OEM 512GB SN530 WDC SDBPTPZ-512G-1012”
I pulled these from a Dell OEM, and I peeled back the sticker on one of them, there’s a small package of DRAM.
Yeah it’s only 512, but it’s also only 1-sided.
yeah SATA can be quite easily saturated, with a max speed of about 550MB/s. Most drives I have can pretty consistently reach speeds over that, on mixed data. On PCIe3/4 it’s not close.
Thanks, I did before starting the thread. I couldn’t find the answer to my question about 2024 drives.
All the info on the sn530 I can find says it’s DRAM-less. And yeah, 512 is not enough.
Yeah, it’s quite likely I won’t be able to saturate it. It’s mostly a case of future-proofing since I really really don’t want to reinstall the system on that drive within the next 4 years or copy it to another drive. So if I can saturate the bus, I would be more serene. But the specs that were listed above have changed my mind, so I’ll likely go with the sn770m
My main OS will be installed on a SK Hynix P41 (2280 drive with DRAM) as mentioned in the first post. My other OS will be installed on the 2230 though.
It won’t be my daily driver OS. I actually will likely boot into it fairly infrequently. But no, don’t really want to have an early adopter experience. I can tolerate a BSOD every once in a while but nothing that would require reinstalling the OS. But are new SSDs really that unstable?
You mentioned that you won’t be using the secondary OS very often, so I guess a cacheless is fine. Anyway you will still able to benefit from the PCIe buffer on the controller itself.
Yeah the 770 look fairly good, although seems to be a tad excessive. For me, at least.
Yeah, it’s likely a bit excessive. But the laptop will cost me over 2000€ without a GPU, so spending a few euros more doesn’t seem like that big an issue.
Also, I can’t find the 740 in stock on amazon or other resellers in the EU.
And bloody hell, the prices just keep getting weirder. A Corsair MP600 2TB 2230 costs 250€, slightly more than the sn770m.
although yesterday i ordered Lexar nm800 pro . should i cancel it
