DRAM VS DRAM-less SSD

[Magnouver]

I want to add secondary SSD to my gaming laptop which will be used mainly for storing games and maybe video/movie. As its a laptop with very little (to none) space for airflow to the SSD which one should i get? A SSD with or without DRAM? My main concern is Which one produces less heat, thus better to be used mainly for gaming only?

[Illusion of Progress]

The DRAM itself won't significantly contribute to heat production.

For a secondary drive for games and storage, DRAM isn't essential. Especially on NVMe drives, DRAM is usually only present on higher end drives and some mid-range drives (mostly older ones), and the very fast drives aren't worth the premium for the roles you just described. They just don't need it. It's almost like buying a Threadrippper for gaming; you're probably paying for a bunch of extra potential you'll not use. I'd take a 4 TB "good" drive over a 2 TB "very fast" drive (or scale that down to 2 TB and 1 TB) if the role is just gaming and storage.

Now Direct Storage might better utilize faster drives but even then DRAM won't enter into it much (DRAM doesn't impact reads, just writes, and gaming and storage access is mostly reads).

And don't do what many people do and mix up DRAM and cache. Many seem to think drives without DRAM lack cache and that's not the case; they are two different things. DRAM holds the mapping tables and might help when a lot of very small and random writes are done, but even drives without DRAM have a faster cache portion.

[Cathulhu]

I have to disagree. Especially with games and game updates, you really want a DRAM Cache.
Steam game updates are IO heavy due to the data being decrypted and decompressed and then applied as a Delta Patch.
SSDs without a DRAM cache really crap the bed in IO heavy tasks falling even BELOW HDD performance.

[Magnouver]

Any SSD recommendations that mainly used for gaming and storing?

I was planning to buy either samsung 990 pro or lexar nm790 (dramless). Since the dram itself is not the one causing major heat so i planned to buy Lexar, but when i saw some comparison videos, it reaches temp of 70 degree C (990 pro isnt that high).

Any recommendations for ssd that has good heat to be used on a laptop? (Hopefully not that far off in speed from samsung 990 pro or lexar nm790)

PS: for me faster loading screen in games = faster farm for an item, so i still appreciate fast ssd

[Illusion of Progress]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Cathulhu:

I have to disagree. Especially with games and game updates, you really want a DRAM Cache.
Steam game updates are IO heavy due to the data being decrypted and decompressed and then applied as a Delta Patch.
SSDs without a DRAM cache really crap the bed in IO heavy tasks falling even BELOW HDD performance.

I've heard this about Steam on some SSDs but I thought that was something else since I thought I've sometimes seen it crop up with good and/or DRAM equipped drives. Is this known to be down to the lack of DRAM itself and not some other thing with certain lower end drives? If so, fair point, but it's more a Steam thing specifically (granted, this is the Steam community, so...). What I said is still true otherwise for the actual playing of games.

I find it shocking if it can be that bad with Steam. I don't have any DRAM-less SSDs but I do use an HDD for some games and it doesn't seem bad to me at all. Or maybe I have more patience than most do these days. I'm not sure which.

[AbedsBrother]

dram ssd's are faster in heavy use. Gaming - esp. modern games - count as heavy use for me. Would never buy an ssd - m.2 or sata - without a dram cache.

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Illusion of Progress:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Cathulhu:

I have to disagree. Especially with games and game updates, you really want a DRAM Cache.
Steam game updates are IO heavy due to the data being decrypted and decompressed and then applied as a Delta Patch.
SSDs without a DRAM cache really crap the bed in IO heavy tasks falling even BELOW HDD performance.

I've heard this about Steam on some SSDs but I thought that was something else since I thought I've sometimes seen it crop up with good and/or DRAM equipped drives. Is this known to be down to the lack of DRAM itself and not some other thing with certain lower end drives? If so, fair point, but it's more a Steam thing specifically (granted, this is the Steam community, so...). What I said is still true otherwise for the actual playing of games.

I find it shocking if it can be that bad with Steam. I don't have any DRAM-less SSDs but I do use an HDD for some games and it doesn't seem bad to me at all. Or maybe I have more patience than most do these days. I'm not sure which.

Have a 512 GB usb3 thumb-drive / pendrive which doesn't have a dram cache. Large file transfers start at ~240MB/s, then slow to 19MB/s, which is slower than any hdd I've ever used. I actually regret buying it - should have gotten one of those usb m.2 caddies and put a fast m.2 in it to get the transfer speeds I want.

[Bing Chilling]

you'll seriously regret buying a dram-less ssd
read and write will look fine but 4K and random 4K will be awful
sustained R/W will fall off a cliff

unless this ssd is for older titles or storage.
new games will most likely stutter

[r.linder]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Bing Chilling:

you'll seriously regret buying a dram-less ssd
read and write will look fine but 4K and random 4K will be awful
sustained R/W will fall off a cliff

unless this ssd is for older titles or storage.
new games will most likely stutter

Depends on the overall performance of the drive. If it's something already dirt cheap and from essentially a "no-name" brand then yeah it's going to be crap, but my SSDs are DRAM-less (Crucial P3) and none of my games have issues with stutters.

[Illusion of Progress]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von AbedsBrother:

Have a 512 GB usb3 thumb-drive / pendrive which doesn't have a dram cache. Large file transfers start at ~240MB/s, then slow to 19MB/s, which is slower than any hdd I've ever used. I actually regret buying it - should have gotten one of those usb m.2 caddies and put a fast m.2 in it to get the transfer speeds I want.

That part isn't a result of lacking DRAM though. That's a result of it being a slow drive to begin with. It then gets slower once the faster cache is exhausted (this part will happen with any drive, and its why my first post mentions not to confuse DRAM and cache like many people do) and the particular drive you chosen is now writing to what is likely slow QLC NAND. It just so happens that low end drives (and with recent NVMe, many mid-range ones now too) also tend to lack DRAM.

[Tiberius]

DRAMless is usually used for backups. For any other use, get the DRAM ones

[AbedsBrother]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Illusion of Progress:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von AbedsBrother:

Have a 512 GB usb3 thumb-drive / pendrive which doesn't have a dram cache. Large file transfers start at ~240MB/s, then slow to 19MB/s, which is slower than any hdd I've ever used. I actually regret buying it - should have gotten one of those usb m.2 caddies and put a fast m.2 in it to get the transfer speeds I want.

That part isn't a result of lacking DRAM though. That's a result of it being a slow drive to begin with. It then gets slower once the faster cache is exhausted (this part will happen with any drive, and its why my first post mentions not to confuse DRAM and cache like many people do).

dram (ie Dynamic Random Access Memory) on an ssd is literally used as cache tho

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Illusion of Progress:

And don't do what many people do and mix up DRAM and cache. Many seem to think drives without DRAM lack cache and that's not the case; they are two different things. DRAM holds the mapping tables and might help when a lot of very small and random writes are done, but even drives without DRAM have a faster cache portion.

They usually don't. Early dram-less ssds used the flash nand, which was slow af and wore the hard drives out prematurely. Newer dram-less drives use system ram, which is better. Basically varies by drive model.

Pretty good explanation for those interested
https://www.maketecheasier.com/dram-or-dram-less-ssd/

[Agent]

DRAM NVME with TLC over QLC will fair much better.

[Nabster]

Dram is not necessary these days, newer dram less drive performs nearly the same as newer dram ssd. You only need it if you want the best ssd.

If you want the best ssd, you look for the best ssd base on benchmark, not whether it has dram or not.

You can't tell the difference between an average ssd and the best ssd.

[Illusion of Progress]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von AbedsBrother:

dram (ie Dynamic Random Access Memory) on an ssd is literally used as cache tho

That's... that's ignoring what I said to present something that doesn't even contrast what I said.

I never said DRAM doesn't serve a cache role. What I said was that DRAM isn't the only form of caching SSDs do (the form of caching on SSDs that people most often think of, and even the one you gave your example based on, isn't even down to DRAM or lack of DRAM), and that lack of DRAM doesn't mean a drive doesn't do any caching, as they still do. And both are true.

Saying "but DRAM is cache" doesn't really contrast anything there.

DRAM is used as a cache for the mapping table during writes (not reads). A drive can't write to a single cell. It needs to do it by block, so it has to read the existing data, and then rewrite the new and old data. It's not unlike how SMR HDDs have to do it because they partially overlay tracks.

The DRAM is used as a cache for that process. That's not the only type of caching drives do to speed up the process on the surface.

The other type of caching drives do is employing different tiers of NAND. Most (all?) drives have a smaller cache of SLC or MLC NAND, and then the rest is TLC or QLC NAND. Once the former is exhausted, the speeds slow. This dropped speed happens on fast drives with DRAM, and drives without DRAM also employ this caching approach.

My entire point was your example was poor here because it was an edge case using an example of a random slow (seemingly QLC) flash drive and presenting it as "this is what happens without DRAM". You're not going to get that sort of speed on all drives just because they are DRAM-less, and the behavior you described also occurs on all drives with DRAM, so it was a poor example to even mention.

Ursprünglich geschrieben von AbedsBrother:

Pretty good explanation for those interested
https://www.maketecheasier.com/dram-or-dram-less-ssd/

There's some either wrong or misrepresented statements I see here.

For example, it states "you(r SSD) won’t have to wait very long for your SSD to retrieve the data" but this seems wrong to me when DRAM does not speed up reads, but only writes.

And that's also pretty important for the context of this thread given gaming and storage tend to be read leaning (the counterpoint of Steam's downloading/installing/updating brought up by Cathulhu above is a legit point though; I yielded to that mention and agree that might be a strong consideration point, but even that seems like it might be down to other factors, or at least some people experience that and some don't).

Ursprünglich geschrieben von AbedsBrother:

They usually don't. Early dram-less ssds used the flash nand, which was slow af and wore the hard drives out prematurely. Newer dram-less drives use system ram, which is better. Basically varies by drive model.

Yes they do.

I don't care what early SSDs had a reputation for. It's not 2010 anymore and the addressing limitations and behaviors of the SATA protocol isn't a unanimous limitation anymore.

You admit it yourself; it's 2024 and NVMe and HMB is a thing, and anything not SATA (which is indeed pretty bad off without DRAM for writes yes, but still fine for reads) is more than fine here. Especially for a read leaning task. Reads aren't improved by DRAM... at all.

https://www.techspot.com/review/2116-storage-speed-game-loading/

There's real world data, albeit it a couple years old, but it's still accurate. Take a look at the 870 QVO. That's not just a low end drive, it's SATA low end. No DRAM, and QLC. It's about a slow as it gets, and look at how it compares to the fastest stuff in games. And you're saying DRAM is make or break on drives for gaming? Let's not mislead people seeking buying/choosing advice here. Context. OP is looking for a gaming drive. DRAM is better, but an NVMe (or even SATA) without DRAM isn't going to be broken for a gaming role (mostly reads not writes) by lacking it. Not even close.

https://insights.samsung.com/2021/06/25/dram-vs-dram-less-ssds-not-so-different-after-all/

[AbedsBrother]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Illusion of Progress:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von AbedsBrother:

dram (ie Dynamic Random Access Memory) on an ssd is literally used as cache tho

That's... that's ignoring what I said to present something that doesn't even contrast what I said.

I never said DRAM doesn't serve a cache role. What I said was that DRAM isn't the only form of caching SSDs do (the form of caching on SSDs that people most often think of, and even the one you gave your example based on, isn't even down to DRAM or lack of DRAM), and that lack of DRAM doesn't mean a drive doesn't do any caching, as they still do. And both are true.

Saying "but DRAM is cache" doesn't really contrast anything there.

DRAM is used as a cache for the mapping table during writes (not reads). A drive can't write to a single cell. It needs to do it by block, so it has to read the existing data, and then rewrite the new and old data. It's not unlike how SMR HDDs have to do it because they partially overlay tracks.

The DRAM is used as a cache for that process. That's not the only type of caching drives do to speed up the process on the surface.

The other type of caching drives do is employing different tiers of NAND. Most (all?) drives have a smaller cache of SLC or MLC NAND, and then the rest is TLC or QLC NAND. Once the former is exhausted, the speeds slow. This dropped speed happens on fast drives with DRAM, and drives without DRAM also employ this caching approach.

My entire point was your example was poor here because it was an edge case using an example of a random slow (seemingly QLC) flash drive and presenting it as "this is what happens without DRAM". You're not going to get that sort of speed on all drives just because they are DRAM-less, and the behavior you described also occurs on all drives with DRAM, so it was a poor example to even mention.

Ursprünglich geschrieben von AbedsBrother:

Pretty good explanation for those interested
https://www.maketecheasier.com/dram-or-dram-less-ssd/

There's some either wrong or misrepresented statements I see here.

For example, it states "you(r SSD) won’t have to wait very long for your SSD to retrieve the data" but this seems wrong to me when DRAM does not speed up reads, but only writes.

And that's also pretty important for the context of this thread given gaming and storage tend to be read leaning (the counterpoint of Steam's downloading/installing/updating brought up by Cathulhu above is a legit point though; I yielded to that mention and agree that might be a strong consideration point, but even that seems like it might be down to other factors, or at least some people experience that and some don't).

Ursprünglich geschrieben von AbedsBrother:

They usually don't. Early dram-less ssds used the flash nand, which was slow af and wore the hard drives out prematurely. Newer dram-less drives use system ram, which is better. Basically varies by drive model.

Yes they do.

I don't care what early SSDs had a reputation for. It's not 2010 anymore and the addressing limitations and behaviors of the SATA protocol isn't a unanimous limitation anymore.

You admit it yourself; it's 2024 and NVMe and HMB is a thing, and anything not SATA (which is indeed pretty bad off without DRAM for writes yes, but still fine for reads) is more than fine here. Especially for a read leaning task. Reads aren't improved by DRAM... at all.

https://www.techspot.com/review/2116-storage-speed-game-loading/

There's real world data, albeit it a couple years old, but it's still accurate. Take a look at the 870 QVO. That's not just a low end drive, it's SATA low end. No DRAM, and QLC. It's about a slow as it gets, and look at how it compares to the fastest stuff in games. And you're saying DRAM is make or break on drives for gaming? Let's not mislead people seeking buying/choosing advice here. Context. OP is looking for a gaming drive. DRAM is better, but an NVMe (or even SATA) without DRAM isn't going to be broken for a gaming role (mostly reads not writes) by lacking it. Not even close.

https://insights.samsung.com/2021/06/25/dram-vs-dram-less-ssds-not-so-different-after-all/

You're seem to think games primarily write when installing, and read when playing.

You'll find that games heavily read and write while playing. Hitman 3, for instance, uses complex algorithms to de-compress then re-compress data on-the-fly while playing the game. It's how IOI got the install size for all three Hitman "seasons" down to 80GB in a single package. This places additional load on the cpu doing the unpacking and repacking, and on the ssd that stores the game. Believing that read speed is the primary indicator of an ssd's gaming performance is the real misinformation here.

Speed is what makes or breaks a drive for gaming. Speed in reading AND writing. Ssds with dram are usually considered better for gaming. What's more, the two articles you shared agree.

From the samsung article you shared:
"SSDs with DRAM can be fast, and in some cases they’re significantly faster than DRAM-less SSDs. This makes an SSD with DRAM a go-to product for anyone who’s gaming, working with large files, or otherwise in need of low latency and fast read/write speeds."

And the techspot article you shared recommended ssds with dram as the superior option, especially when playing games installed on the boot drive. Not sure what we're arguing about.

Replies of more than 250 words will go unread.

[Ralf]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Magnouver:

Any SSD recommendations that mainly used for gaming and storing?

I was planning to buy either samsung 990 pro or lexar nm790 (dramless). Since the dram itself is not the one causing major heat so i planned to buy Lexar, but when i saw some comparison videos, it reaches temp of 70 degree C (990 pro isnt that high).

Usually NVMe drives run at 50 degree C unless you do professional work, but if youre worried about temps just get a WD SN570.