Cheapest nvme drive with a dram cache?

[eqalidan]

I kind of want to get a 4tb drive to use for games, I also have need/use of very fast file transferring given I have a 200gb database that gets manual backups (this way I don't have a borked database backup and then the backup is also screwed)

my only problem is its kind of hard to find cheap drives and find out if they have any dram or not on them, I dont really need the most reliable drive from the most trusted brands, that would be nice dotn get me wrong, but im looking for as cheap as I can get as dense as I can get.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

M2 NVME w/ DRAM cache 4TB SSD run about $300 or more.

Where as 2TB is around $85-100

Just buy a 2.5 inch 4TB SATA SSD

Perfectly fast enough to download at full speeds to and run games off of.

If that database is important it should be on 3 drives; not 1 or 2.

SATA SSD can also be used like a super high speed USB Flash Drive using a SATA to USB Cable. No caddy required.

[Karumati]

Crucial P3 Plus 4TB is very cheap, but without dram.

[plat]

Well, here is a page off Newegg with a variety of stock, mostly which I never heard of. They run from the mid 100s USD to mid 200s USD. Some have that SDRAM, some do not.

If you can't buy from Newegg, at least you'll have some names and specs to refer to. I only use Samsung products so can't vouch for anything like Team Group or others. And they're all cheap. Bear in mind: cheap.

https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?d=4tb+nvme

Edit: if you go to a webpage like Micro Center or whatever big vendor you have, there are options to tailor the search results to your specifications. Like on Newegg, you can choose your price range and that will get you the products you're looking for.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Below approx $290 or so you wont find a 4TB w/ DRAM

[Illusion of Progress]

Is there a particular reason you're focused on DRAM?

Don't get me wrong; it's nice to have and I'd definitely personally try and get one with it for a system drive, but people act like this is make or break and it's not.

The main place it matters is if you're doing a lot of writes, especially random ones. But that doesn't mean necessarily they'll be slower than you need if there's no DRAM. And reading isn't affected.

Most importantly, I also get the impression people mix up lacking DRAM, which is used for the mapping table and wear leveling, as lacking SRAM (or cache) at all, and this is not true. Even DRAM-less drives employ cache.

Lower durability is exaggerated too. This doesn't mean the drive is dying in 3 years instead of 8 or anything. This also isn't strictly from lack of DRAM but more that lower tier drives just have lower durability (all else being equal).

It also isn't as big of a deal on NVMe like it was on SATA. There's HMB that many drives employ to cover for this (basically using system RAM in place of it). This can be seen with how even good mid-range NVMe drives are more and more lacking DRAM and it's really only the high end (or old midrange) drives that have it.

That said, I'm not trying to sway you against getting something with DRAM. I don't know what your database needs, but just games? Pretty unnecessary. And if the database is being read to be backed up to another source, that won't be affected. Thought obviously if the database resides on that drive to begin with, I presume it's active there it will be writing, but do you know that you absolutely need the top read speeds for it? My inkling is that if you're gaming from the same drive, it's not that speed critical, but that's merely a subjective guess on my part.

All that being said... the third cheapest 4 TB NVMe SSD that PC Part Picker lists does have DRAM.

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/FZWzK8/teamgroup-mp34-4-tb-m2-2280-nvme-solid-state-drive-tm8fp4004t0c101

I wouldn't focus DRAM in vacuum. Unless I knew I needed it for a system drive or some scratch drive I'd write to a lot, I wouldn't even check it. The actual specifications matter more.

[lsdninja]

Originally posted by Illusion of Progress:

Is there a particular reason you're focused on DRAM?

My guess is because Linus Tech Tips and other YouTube channels keep banging on about it.

I put WD Green SATA SSDs in a couple of systems and didn't notice any difference compared with machines that had higher end drives in them. The only time I saw less than stellar results from an SSD was in an old AMD APU system, but that's because everything about that platform, from the Bulldozer-based APUs down, was utter trash.

[Agent]

While NVMe drives without DRAM are better than SATA which suck without DRAM (I've made the mistake of buying one in past). Host Memory Buffer normally only uses 64 megabytes of system memory for caching.

This can be enough for some use cases, but in others the drive will slow down siginifacntly and cause stuttering in games. Another con would be the life of the drive. Drives with DRAM can sustain much more reads and writes and for longer before giving problems.

Therefor if the drive is going to be used for the OS, even if it's NVMe I still suggest making sure it has DRAM.

I'd take a gen 3 NVMe with DRAM over a gen 4 without DRAM any day.

[spicy little monkey]

You really need DRAM with an SSD

[Illusion of Progress]

Originally posted by Stacked:

Therefor if the drive is going to be used for the OS, even if it's NVMe I still suggest making sure it has DRAM.

I'd personally take one with DRAM for a system drive, yes (but even then it's not necessary).

But OP was asking about "as cheap and dense" as they can get, and for a secondary drive, so I figured I'd ask if there was a certain reason they were looking for it in a game drive, because if there is no need for it, getting it usually means higher cost and that can work against their primary goal.

But it seems to not matter because the drive I linked is about as cheap as it comes for 4 TB, and it has DRAM. It's also TLC and uses the Phison E12S controller, so despite the low price, it's a decent mid-range NVMe on specs alone. 3,900 MB/2,500 MB read/write (not sure if OP is more after PCI Express 4.0 speeds though). I can't comment on Team Group itself but it apparently has a 5 year warranty, and if you're worried about endurance, it's seemingly rated rather well at 2,400 TB (this matches or exceeds my own SN850X for reference), so unless OP has reservations about brand, spec-wise it seems to be what they're looking for, and then some.

[Rumpelcrutchskin]

Crucial P5 Plus

[🦊Λℚ𝓤ΛƑΛᗯҜᔕ🦊]

Originally posted by Illusion of Progress:

Don't get me wrong; it's nice to have and I'd definitely personally try and get one with it for a system drive, but people act like this is make or break and it's not.

The main place it matters is if you're doing a lot of writes, especially random ones. But that doesn't mean necessarily they'll be slower than you need if there's no DRAM. And reading isn't affected.

Most importantly, I also get the impression people mix up lacking DRAM, which is used for the mapping table and wear leveling, as lacking SRAM (or cache) at all, and this is not true. Even DRAM-less drives employ cache.

It also isn't as big of a deal on NVMe like it was on SATA. There's HMB that many drives employ to cover for this (basically using system RAM in place of it). This can be seen with how even good mid-range NVMe drives are more and more lacking DRAM and it's really only the high end (or old midrange) drives that have it.

I have NVME drives with DRAM on them and a cheap 256GB NVME drive in a $400 laptop that my mother bought a few years ago that doesn't have DRAM in it. In the drive without DRAM it frequently gets overloaded (showing 100% active time in task manager in windows 10) in her laptop just from trivial things like:
opening chrome = overloaded for 30 seconds.
Installing windows updates = overloaded and system slow very slow and can't do anything with her computer until it completes updating
Installing a game in steam = overloaded SSD And system slow again.

Where as my NVME drive in my gaming computer with DRAM never has once had the entire computer slow down no matter what I'm doing with them. I can even do windows updates + install a game in steam + browsing in chrome with lots of tabs and the computer doesn't slow down at all. I can't even notice that those tasks are going.

In my opinion anyone buying an NVME drive for a system drive should NEVER EVER use one without DRAM for any reason.

The only thing DRAM-less NVME drives are good for is storage or infrequently used apps or games. Never for a system drive. That would be a big mistake.

[Illusion of Progress]

Yes, I agree on a purely personal level and would get one with with DRAM for the system drive, especially if you use your PC a lot or do more than basic stuff with it. But that's largely out of preference and not so much that I think it's a necessity for a system drive for most people.

I think your results are a bit unusual too, no? Being overloaded for thirty seconds from opening a browser? Not doubting your results at all. To the contrary, I believe it and I've heard of the Steam example in particular, but I've heard of that one happening even on what should be faster drives so i think there's more to it. Just saying it doesn't sound like the norm. I've never seen it even on lower end SSDs (nor even HDDs).

I used a SATA Crucial BX500 128 GB (SATA was where lack of DRAM is a bit more of a loss), and slightly more recently an NVMe WD Blue SN550 500 GB for a sister's PC to replace the 2 TB Seagate Baracuda behaving exactly as you're describing and making the system unresponsive, and both of them were used as Windows system drives (BX500 under Windows 7 and then 10, and SN550 under Windows 10), and they were just as snappy for general use as the faster drives with DRAM that I've used though the years, like the Crucial MX100 256 GB, WD Blue 3D 1 TB (both higher end SATA for their time), and even my current pair of SN850X 2 TBs.

Of course the current drive is markedly faster for what I actually got it for... but I'd honestly go so far as to say if you swapped any of my previous higher end SATA drives in, and maybe even the two DRAM-less ones, and I was just doing Windows general stuff or games, I might not be able to tell blindly.

Sure I'd get DRAM for a system drive and people who are doing more with their PC (time and demands of use) would want to do the same. It's just not the "it totally breaks an SSD to not have it" that people sometimes claim it is. Even for system drives.

[Ralf]

Originally posted by 🦊Λℚ𝓤ΛƑΛᗯҜᔕ🦊:

The only thing DRAM-less NVME drives are good for is storage or infrequently used apps or games. Never for a system drive. That would be a big mistake.

Hey man, I got told that some of the fastest Gen4 drives are DRAM-less and NVMe drives are already so fast that it makes DRAM useless.

[plat]

I kind of looked this up and Linus Tech Tips said that it's negligible until the drive starts nearing capacity. So if you are looking to fill that 4TB to the brim (I would leave at least 10% free), consider the ones w/DRAM.

[GOD RAYS ON ULTRA™]

The best one is actually the 1tb variant of sk hynix platinum p41.