I am looking for a 4TB drive for vst's like Superior Drummer (+ others), and music samples.
I have 1 M.2 NVME slot and several Sata slots left available.
I want a long lasting drive and my first thought was Crucial MX500 4TB but I recently seen Lexar NM790 4TB which got me wondering if I should go for the M.2 instead.
The board is Asus ROG Strix Z370-I
It already has 1 M.2 for OS and programs, I have read that adding another in the second slot can detract from speeds or something.
My main objective is to get a good robust drive that will last.
Which would you choose and why?
SATA SSD or M.2 NVME for music samples and vst's
patrick321 on 11/10/2023 - 17:53
Comments
Both M2 sockets are PCIe 3.0 x4 (M2_1 is on front of board, and M2_2 is on back of board).
Check out your manual (PG16, 1-2 & PG31, 1-17):
https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/LGA1151/ROG_STRIX_Z370…I would go with the NVMe, as it is substantially faster (if you get the matched NVMe SSD), for about the same price.
I can't remember exactly what was said, maybe it was if you use the second slot two of the Sata slots won't work. or speeds on slot 1 is shared with slot 2. Not sure if any of it is true.
2.5" SATA SSD 4TB $209
https://www.pccasegear.com/products/62980/team-vulcan-z-qlc-…
I haven't seen an M.2 NVMe 4TB drive close to that.
2.5" SATA SSDs are super cheap right now because no-one wants them. Because everyone gets told to buy an M.2 NVMe drive because they're faster. You don't need fast for music.
You don't need fast for music
True, but you WILL need fast eventually if this drive gets recycled into any other use. Game drive in 5 years' time? I'd definitely regret getting a slow drive now just to save a couple of bucks.
Not much use to OP if its OOS.
Yes future use is what is making me look at the M.2. It can be put in other computers if needed (laptops).
But the Crucial MX500 4TB has a reputation for being a rugged long lasting drive.I think a good recommendation would depend on how intense your read/write demands would be for your use case. I'm not sure how much CPU (GPU? Sound Card?) processing a music sample would need before manipulation, I suppose that would also depend on the format the sample is stored in etc. But a good rule of thumb is, except for very heavy read/write tasks, SSD is SSD. The exceptions are typically photo/video editing, or databases, otherwise you'll typically see a fairly minimal difference between a great SSD and an average SSD.
A good way to check what's limiting your performance is to open up task manager and look at the performance manager. If your Drive is running at 100% or bouncing between something and 100% then you probably want to upgrade to a faster drive. I would guess a SATA SSD is going to be fine. For SATA SSD's around that capacity, TEAMGROUP, PNY, & Samsung have a few offering, and they'll likely all be fine assuming you don't have a particularly read/write demanding use case.
Personally, I'd tend to reserve the M.2 slots for a faster (likely lower capacity SSD) if/when you have the need. M.2 vs SATA really won't make much of a difference unless you are doing something particularly read/write intensive.
If you've got the slot, an M.2 will be a better option since the $/Tb are nearly identical but have better speeds than SATA. Not necessarily a big deal now, but if you're copying several hundred Gb of files in one go (later on) then it'll be quicker overall when the interface isn't the bottleneck.