May Need New Laptop

[L&LD]

@coxhaus, if budget isn't an issue, use one SSD for the os and the other for the VM's. Nothing will slow you down.

As RMerlin states, an NVMe SSD won't hit much above 3.5GB/s, but for sustained use, it is closer to 900MB/s with today's 3-bit nand based drives.

The Samsung Plus EVO series is good. But only when looking at the 1TB and 2TB capacities. Otherwise, the writes plummet vs. a spec'd slower drive like the Adata SX8200 Pro (1TB or 2TB sizes).

 

[coxhaus]

The memory test ran for 11 hours and 40 minutes on my new laptop which is not bad for 64 gig of RAM. I think the multi-cores helped on the Intel i9-9980HK processor with the memory test. I had zero errors. Samsung memory is good memory so I did not expect any errors.

I need to start looking at NVMe SSDs. I have never bought any NVMe SSDs so it is totally new technology to me. I am retired and I don't keep up any more with new hardware. I think I will look at 512 and not 1 TB to keep the price down and I don't really need that much space. I want to work into my new NAS. I wonder what would be the fastest? I read the Samsung PRO heats up pretty hot. I am trying to keep heat down as not to throttle my CPU down.
I wonder if a 256 would be faster than a 512 with less heat? I could live with two 256 versions.

 

[RMerlin]

Just to provide some data points, here's a benchmark of my Samsung 970 EVO (which is my desktop's secondary drive, my primary is a 960 Pro):

That SSD would start doing thermal throttling when I first installed it because the M.2 slot was right between the GPU and the CPU. Things got more under control when I switched my GPU a few months later, as the new one didn't generate as much heat, which in turn helped keep the M.2 cooler. In a laptop there's a good chance that airflow might not be sufficient, so any extended usage will drive the SSD above 80C, at which point it starts throttling down performance.

 

[RMerlin]

The memory test ran for 11 hours and 40 minutes on my new laptop which is not bad for 64 gig of RAM. I think the multi-cores helped on the Intel i9-9980HK processor with the memory test. I had zero errors. Samsung memory is good memory so I did not expect any errors.

I need to start looking at NVMe SSDs. I have never bought any NVMe SSDs so it is totally new technology to me. I am retired and I don't keep up any more with new hardware. I think I will look at 512 and not 1 TB to keep the price down and I don't really need that much space. I want to work into my new NAS. I wonder what would be the fastest? I read the Samsung PRO heats up pretty hot. I am trying to keep heat down as not to throttle my CPU down.
I wonder if a 256 would be faster than a 512 with less heat? I could live with two 256 versions.

When it comes to SSDs, largers are faster (because they use more NAND chips, allowing the controller to do more parallel work).

My recommendation is to aim at 512 GB, which is currently the sweet spot. I'd go for the Samsung 970 EVO or EVO Plus.

If you want to save a bit of money, the recent WD are getting good reviews.

Don't focus too much on throughput specs however. A 2 GBps SSD won't really feel any slower than a 3 GBps. You'd need a stopwatch and very specific usage scenarios to be able to see any difference. For that reason, I think there's little point in buying Samsung's Pro versions these days. Their EVO have a fairly large cache, which means that typical writes will be done to that faster cache. You'd need to constantly be writing multiple gigabytes of data for the performance to dip versus a Pro model.

 

[coxhaus]

What difference if any is there between these 3 classes of drives with regards to speed and heat?

M.2 PCIe NVMe Class 40 Solid State Drive
M.2 NVMe PCIe Class 50 SSD
M.2 PCIe NVMe C40 Opal 2.0 SED

 

[RMerlin]

What difference if any is there between these 3 classes of drives with regards to speed and heat?

M.2 PCIe NVMe Class 40 Solid State Drive
M.2 NVMe PCIe Class 50 SSD
M.2 PCIe NVMe C40 Opal 2.0 SED

No idea what those "Class" mean, I have never seen NVMe drives being labeled by classes. Sounds like meaningless marketing speech. Go for the technical specs instead.

Anandtech usually does a great job at reviewing SSDs.

 

[MichaelCG]

I spent way too much timing trying to analyze SSDs recently for a desktop build and NAS cache drive. I stayed focused on WD and Samsung EVO mostly since I knew they were usually consistent and easy to find. I have two EVO already in much older builds.

My NAS....well....I ended up with Inland drives from MicroCenter. It came down to price point and they hit it, decent reviews, and good warranty. I went to MicroCenter to buy two 256G WD Blacks, and left with two Inland 512G for about almost half the price.

For my desktop? It was a budget build for sure, just for work which is basically browser and WebEx with a crapload of memory. I ended up with an HP EX920. I think price and specs got me there. It is plenty fast for what I use it for. Ubuntu boots in under 10 seconds and I haven’t been able to detect any delays waiting on I/O.

For the most part....these things are so darn fast now you probably won’t notice a huge difference between the mainstream devices for the majority of use cases.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[coxhaus]

Good to here. Guess I need to look at prices now. I think I am going to drink tonight. I worked too hard on this nice laptop all yesterday. It is a very nice laptop which is built really well but I need to pace myself.

PS
I forgot to mention my new refurbished Dell laptop came with 3 years onsite warranty. It has to be built well if Dell gives a 3 year warranty.

 

[coxhaus]

My new laptop already had a pup installed on it today. It did not come with it from Dell as I tested it when I received it. I now have uBlock Origin working. What are you guys doing? I got that fake anti-virus message on 1 of my web windows looking at SSDs. I then scanned and sure enough I had a pup installed. I think I am going to turn on only allow APPs from Microsoft store.

 

[RMerlin]

My new laptop already had a pup installed on it today. It did not come with it from Dell as I tested it when I received it. I now have uBlock Origin working. What are you guys doing? I got that fake anti-virus message on 1 of my web windows looking at SSDs. I then scanned and sure enough I had a pup installed. I think I am going to turn on only allow APPs from Microsoft store.

Install a reliable security product like Eset NOD32, and pay attention to what you are clicking on. With the Windows 10 security models, things cannot install automatically like they used to in the pre-Vista days. The Windows UA prompt should ensure that no program gets installed without your consent.

Also pay attention to the reported location of that PUP. Chances are it was just a temp file within your browser cache, in which case it doesn't mean it got actually installed, just that one of the website tried to display a phishing ad while visiting that site.

 

[avtella]

What difference if any is there between these 3 classes of drives with regards to speed and heat?

M.2 PCIe NVMe Class 40 Solid State Drive
M.2 NVMe PCIe Class 50 SSD
M.2 PCIe NVMe C40 Opal 2.0 SED

It's just a Dell thing, their own way of classifying I guess, I too was confused a while back when helping my father order a Precision laptop.

 

[coxhaus]

Yea, Microsoft is going to allow you to block PUA/PUP with the next release of Windows 10 using Edge.

 

[coxhaus]

So I have a question in setting up N.2 NVMe drive? Do you set it up as a GPT or NTFS partion? Which is faster?

I am going to buy some when the new Windows 10 comes out?

 

[L&LD]

GPT or NTFS is not mutually exclusive. What exactly is the use case?

Why are you waiting to buy some with the 'new' Windows 10?

(Are you talking about the expected May 28, 2020, new edition '2004', or are you talking about the Windows 10 X expected to come out closer to the end of 2020)?

I always format to NTFS on all my Windows systems.

What Is GPT disk?
GPT is the abbreviation of the GUID Partition Table. According to Wikipedia, GPT is a standard layout of partition tables of a physical computer storage device, such as a hard disk drive or solid-state drive. Forming a part of the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) standard, it is also used for some BIOS systems because of the limitations of master boot record (MBR) partition tables.

https://www.easeus.com/partition-master/partition-gpt-disk.html

 

[coxhaus]

The next Windows 10 update this month.

If you want to use a greater than 2 gig boot drive you need use GPT for the boot partition. I just wonder which is going to be faster. I am sure my new laptop will boot a GPT partition. I have not setup a GPT boot partition as all my other Windows 10 PCs are too old. I have not been able to get it to work. Sorry MBR.

 

[coxhaus]

I ordered 2 black Western digital M.2 drives from Amazon. There is a delay and they will be here toward the end of the month.

They were $69 apiece.

 

[L&LD]

The limitations on older systems may be a lack of a compatible BIOS with GPT extensions and/or fully compatible UEFI bios.

On laptops and desktops with a possibility to use either Legacy BIOS or UEFI, the UEFI option is always faster in my experience.

After Windows is fully installed, make sure that Secure Boot is also enabled in the UEFI bios and verified in Windows too.

You can check that in System Information, System Summary, Secure Boot State 'On'.

To get to System Information, simply hit the Windows key and start typing info...

 

[L&LD]

What size of drives did you order?

 

[coxhaus]

500. I am looking for speed using 2 instead of 1 large drive.

I will work on secure boot. I will re-flash my BIOS before I install.

 

[L&LD]

Are you suggesting RAID0? I wouldn't recommend that. Q1D1 speeds won't be better (and maybe worse). A single, larger SSD will be faster. The only thing a RAID0 2x SSD configuration will give you is faster sequential speeds which are already pretty high on m.2 drives.

1TB and 2TB SSD's are faster than smaller capacity ones. With the extra space, do what commercial/enterprise SSD's do. Format them to less than full capacity for the fastest and most consistent possible speeds. An article from Anandtech suggests 25% left as 'free'.

(The enterprise SSD's hide this by giving you only 'xx' capacity but 'zzz' available nand capacity internally).