Boot drive or game drive for the Samsung 990 Pro?

[ZeekAncient]

So, I got a Samsung 990 Pro 2TB drive coming in this week. I have my operating system on a Samsung 970 Evo Plus. Should I migrate the 970 Evo to the 990 pro, or just leave the 970 Evo as the boot drive, and make the 990 Pro a game drive?

Obviously, the 990 pro is faster, so I am going to migrate the 970 Evo over to it, the 970 Evo is staying in the PC regardless, as a storage drive, but I figure, will the OS really notice a difference it being on the much faster 990 pro. Sure, the 990 pro is theoretically twice as fast, but how much will that really make a difference with the operating system? They are both still staggeringly fast.

Why I question whether this type of speed is capable of being tapped by the OS, yet. I will migrate the 990 pro and that will be my system drive. But would any of you not migrate 970 Evo and just use the 990 pro as a storage drive?

[plat]

If one has PCI-e v. 4 then absolutely, I would put the 990 Pro on as a boot drive. Windows 11 will run very nicely also. You will get 6500-7000 mb/sec read and writes--maybe more. On PCI-e v. 3, I get 3500 mb/sec w/ my 980 Pro.

I have a 970 EVO plus running Windows 11 and I can absolutely tell the difference betw. that and the 980 Pro running Windows 10. The latter runs slightly better.

[Illusion of Progress]

You won't notice the difference for general OS use/gaming, no. Even measured, the difference for OS/game performance will basically be margin of error outside synthetics, so you won't notice that blindly. The speed of faster drives only matters if you know you need it for things that really push disk use.

My old Blue 3D 1 TB SATA and Black SN850X 2 TB are blindly indistinguishable in OS and game use from one another (I didn't get the latter for that, though). And while you're still coming from a pretty standard mainstream drive to a top end one like I made in my change, you're still making that much of a smaller improvement as you're starting point is still a PCI Express 3.0 drive whereas I came from a slower SATA drive.

That being said, since you have it, may as well put the OS on the fastest drive. Cloning make the process fast and effortless.

[ZeekAncient]

Even with the 990 pro, in gaming, I won't notice much of a difference. At the moment anyway, let's see what 2023 and beyond brings for direct storage. I would have been fine with the 970 Evo Plus, but I need the space, so might as well get the fastest. I really liked the SN850X, but I am in the "Samsung" eco-system of drives with my 970E, 870 Evo, and 850 Evo. Not that is a thing or anything.

Currently that is with 6TB of space, and I use quite a bit of it. My 1TB 970 is at 130GB, my 4TB 870 Evo is at 350GB, and my 1TB 850 Evo, which is for older games and emulators, is at 300GB. I have like 500GB worth of roms. That is a lot of games when you consider how small they are.

And I do like to keep a lot of different games downloaded. Even if I am not playing them right at the moment, it is nice to have games ready if I ever just feel like playing something. And games are starting to take up more and more space. So with the advent of direct storage, let's hope it becomes more widely incorporated to make use of these drives, and with the space I need, an extra 2TB of some PCI-E 4.0 speed storage, is a welcome addition.

[Illusion of Progress]

Well the 990 Pro has had some severe price drops recently, and it's a super fast drive, so I absolutely get why it would have been an attractive option regardless of brand preference. I only got the SN850X for a similar reason; a pair of 2 TB ones at $260 was too tempting to pass up.

Now that faster drives are coming and displacing it, the top 990 Pro is doing the same thing and dropping in price to entice sales in a down-turned PC market. Now if only graphics card would join in on that... *sigh*

[Bad 💀 Motha]

It's not going to really matter. Just using your OS for normal stuff and for Gaming; neither drive's speed is going to make any difference over other slower PCIE 3.0 NVME SSDs

Unless more games start getting updated, or released that will use DirectStorage, then those super fast SSDs don't do a whole lot for general OS usage or for Gaming.

[emoticorpse]

Probably be more beneficial to use the faster drive for games.

[Illusion of Progress]

Originally posted by emoticorpse:

Probably be more beneficial to use the faster drive for games.

It won't make a difference for games any more than it will for OS use, so I'd rather have the OS on the faster drive even if it also really doesn't matter there.

[emoticorpse]

Originally posted by Illusion of Progress:

It won't make a difference for games any more than it will for OS use...

I would have to think this is a subjective opinion. I'm not sure how he spends most of his time or how his drive usage is specifically, but if there is a difference in speed then there should be a difference in percieved performance even if it is suttle.

I would think it's a difference you wouldn't immediately appreciate but after living with it so long and then giving it up, a person might think "jeez, that other drive really did make a difference".

Sure it is possible they won't feel a difference at all but if that was their line of thinking why even get a different/faster/more expensive drive?

Size of the drive shouldn't be the determining factor here or we wouldn't even have this question arise, the bigger/smaller drive would already be headed where they need to go.

Originally posted by Illusion of Progress:

...so I'd rather have the OS on the faster drive even if it also really doesn't matter there.

I agree with you, but that's because I don't primarily game with my pc like a lot of others do.

I actually got a new m.2, put my os on there, put my old m.2 as my temporary work space (what I do do most of the time) and left my games on my hdd.

[Illusion of Progress]

There's plenty of benchmarks that show loading speed differences between HDDs, SATA SSDs, and faster NVMe SSDs. The difference is almost always margin of error between the latter two, and even when it's outside that, it's still relatively small. I'm not aware of many (any offhand?) circumstances that show major differences between SATA SSDs and fast NVMe ones, and keep in mind OP will be looking at even smaller differences as the two drives in question are both NVMe and separated just by one generation.

Of course the same applies for the OS. You're not going to blindly see any difference for general OS computing tasks.

But if I had no explicit need for it either way, then I'd choose to have the OS/system drive be on the fastest.

[emoticorpse]

I guess I can agree he won't notice a difference in overall os performance.

As far as whether or not he'll execute a change out though should depend on how much he hates doing a full re-install, if you ask me.

I love to format/reinstall. If someone didn't I would say that's reason enough alone to just leave the setup as is and pop the new drive in and leave it like that.

Confuses me a bit though when I see it said that basically neither drive will offer a meaningful performance boost but at the same time see it said that the faster drive should be for the is. It would be satisfying a resulting benchmark when apart from benchmarks there is difference.

[Andrius227]

I could not even tell the difference between sata and nvme ssd’s. Ssd speed really doesn’t matter unless you have a pair and you need to move large files between them.

[Illusion of Progress]

You don't need to reinstall. Cloning makes it quick and simple, more so than it's ever been with modern options.

Originally posted by emoticorpse:

Confuses me a bit though when I see it said that basically neither drive will offer a meaningful performance boost but at the same time see it said that the faster drive should be for the is.

Saying that "it really doesn't matter for either" but having a preference for one over the other despite that isn't a contradiction though, so I'm not sure why you're confused.

The reason for my preference is that the system drive is best when on the fastest drive. It's going to be rather inconsequential between the two drives in OP's case, but since he already has both, that's how I'd do it. If it required an OS reinstall, then maybe I'd say there's some reason for those of us (like me) who shy away from those unless necessary. But it's never been faster/simpler to clone an OS.

But it just doesn't matter much for games[www.techspot.com], which is why the budget drives like the NVMe Blue and old SATA QVO are traditionally such good gaming options due to their favorable price for capacity versus premium SSDs (not sure what's up with the QVO lately though, as it's a low end entry level SATA drive and costs more than performance SATA drives like the MX500/Blue 3D, so may as well get one of those two if going SATA, but I digress). Even if it also doesn't matter much for general computing, I'd rather just have the system drive on the fastest as my default choice. A rare thing here or there (like copying large things) that could occur on a system drive is still nicer to me than the more seldom, almost nonexistent differences you won't notice for games. And if OP wants the extra second or two off a game loading, it's not like it can't be installed there too just because the OS is.

So in my mind you lose nothing but the cloning time to have it as the system drive. And sure, time can be valuable (especially to some), but to people who spend many hours over the week on their PC, I'd say it's an inconsequential cost.

[ZeekAncient]

The PC is mainly for games, a lot of games, but it is also used for some work at home, so I do download large files, but I think that is more determined by the speed of the internet than it is how fast the drive is on how fast it will take. All my family photos are also on the PC, and edited there.

As for the drive, I will use Samsung's Data Migration tool to clone the 970 Evo to the 990 Pro. I have used this program several times. It is quite easy to use, quick, and have not run into any problems.

Once finished, the 990 Pro will be Drive C, and then I can do a quick format of the 970 Evo and use that as an extra storage drive. I have a lot on this PC, and will have more, so I need the space, but it is quite subjective whether my use needs the speed of a PCI-E 4.0 drive, or heck even a PCi-E 3.0 drive for that matter. But I will have those anyway.

My OS will be on the PCI-E 4.0 drive, along with any games that might benefit from SSD speed, and any games in the future which will use Direct Storage, and I will have a PCI-E 3.0 drive and two Sata drives for extra storage. Total of 8TB.

[emoticorpse]

Originally posted by Illusion of Progress:

You don't need to reinstall. Cloning makes it quick and simple, more so than it's ever been with modern options.

The idea of cloning did leave me for a moment. But now that I'm reminded of it, I might as well say I prefer not to do it and advise anyone else not to do it if they can help it. That's my preference, I'd explain my reasons but this is probably already getting tl;dr.

Originally posted by Illusion of Progress:

Saying that "it really doesn't matter for either" but having a preference for one over the other despite that isn't a contradiction though, so I'm not sure why you're confused.

Originally posted by Illusion of Progress:

The reason for my preference is that the system drive is best when on the fastest drive. It's going to be rather inconsequential between the two drives in OP's case

This is what confuses me. If the speed isn't noticeable between the two, how can one be "better" than the other as far as speed is concerned?.

I hear you say it's your preference, but still not sure (at least up until post #8 was concerned). I'm wondering is it because of the benchmarks? because technically one is faster than the other on paper?.

I just feel like when we've already established that there is no perceptible speed difference, then why would a benchmark even matter?.

No big deal though.

[Illusion of Progress]

Originally posted by emoticorpse:

This is what confuses me. If the speed isn't noticeable between the two, how can one be "better" than the other as far as speed is concerned?.

Not "better" so much as personal opinion. I explained the reasons why I'd have the system drive as the newer, faster drive despite thinking it's fine either way, and again, that's not a contradiction to acknowledge that but still have an opinion on it one way or the other.

But yes, it's not a major deal either way. General OS use/games aren't going to make a blindly noticeable difference between those two drives.