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3-drive configuration which one first

senna27

senna27

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Hello everyone.This is my first post in forum :) When i review this post in your blog(btw its very useful) here is your suggestion :

To get the best performance, you’ll need to distribute your workload across multiple drives, preventing software and operating system I/O from bottlenecking data cache and storage I/O.

A 3-drive configuration, with your OS and software on one SSD, your active project files and data caches on a second SSD, and your archived files on an HDD, will give you the best performance when you’re working on projects with cached lighting, physics, and/or animation data.

For Project Files: Samsung 970 EVO Plus or 970 Pro Series (Nvme M.2 SSDs)
For OS / Software: Samsung 860 EVO or Pro Series (SATA SSDs)
For Backup / Archiving of Projects: Seagate Barracuda HDDs or Western Digital Blue Series

But for low budget. i will purchase 1 sdd for now. but which one i should prefer first. and i dont want to reinstall windows os again after i buy second ssd a couple months later.

But end of page your buying options always Nvme M.2 SSDs.

So should i buy whatever SATA SSDs first than go for Nvme? or i should wait for some raise my budget and than go for first Nvme M.2 SSDs?

Thanks.
 
Alex Glawion

Alex Glawion

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Having 3 Storage devices really is an optimum case. You can easily start out with one and expand lateron. The fastest of the three (and also the most expensive) is the NVME SSD, so that would be a logical first choice. You did say, though, that you did not want to reinstall the OS when expanding, so it might make more sense for you to get the SATA SSD (e.g. 860 EVO or 870 QVO) first, and get an NVME later. That way you can leave your OS/Apps drive as is, and would just have to move your active Project Files to the new nvme ssd.
 
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senna27

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Thanks for the answer.Today, I did a lot of research for SSDs. Expecially for NVMe SSDs. SATA SSDs and NVMe SSDs almost same price for same storage. I called some techinal supports from sellers. But they cant explained me why NVMe SSDs same price with SATA SSDs even more faster than SATA SSDs. Normally you can expect SATA SSDs must be lower price but it doesnt. Simply why?

Nowadays alot of motherboard like B550 support double M2 slot. And if NVMes are more efficent than SATA SSDs. What is SATA SSDs benefits? And maybe i never go with HDD in your 3-drive solution. I always prefer 2 M2 NVMEs and SATA SSDs. I know probably your blog post is a bit old. Again nowadays tech really fast going on.
 
Alex Glawion

Alex Glawion

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What Drives did you look at exactly? Curious to see which nvme drives are the same price as sata ssds :)
 
senna27

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Samsung 970 EVO SSD 1TB - price: $149.99

Samsung SSD 860 EVO 1TB - price: $114.96

Samsung 860 PRO 1TB - price: $ 219.10

So 860 PRO model has -i don't know whats their benefits evo or pro- much higher price than 970 EVO NVMe.($60 difference)

And if i go with EVO models. 970 EVO NVME has 5 times faster speed than 860 EVO almost same price($35 difference).
 
Alex Glawion

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QVO, EVO, PRO all have different performance as they are manufactured slightly differently. So the PRO variants will have better 4k, random read write speeds and longer boost speeds - EVO is in the middle and QVO will be the slowest, though sequential read/write is still good.

If dint he Samsung 970 EVO PLUS to be in a sweet spot in terms of performance and price.
 
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senna27

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Ok i understand that. But still i cant agree those series advantages. When i review these SSDs in Samsung website; 970 EVO and 970 PRO almost same specs. 970 PRO slighlty better reading/writing(100MB difference) than EVO. They both have same technology for 4K.
970 PRO( Samsung V-NAND 2-bit MLC)(i didnt going deeply there:))
970 EVO(Samsung V-NAND 3-bit MLC)

Still that confused me but why 860 PRO SATA has higher price value than 970 EVO NVMe?
 
Alex Glawion

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I agree. You always pay premium for the high-end. The value-winner is mostly among lower-end components. You have to pay a hefty premium for the top-end though.

I would advise against buying the PRO series.
 
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