May Need New Laptop

[avtella]

I agree with L&LD, sequential performance will go up in RAID 0, but QD1 performance would stay the same or take a small hit in many cases, QD1 performance is what mainly gives you the perceptance of faster app/program loading and responsiveness. Not only that, you are adding more risk for failure, not as bad with current SSDs these days I suppose.

SSDs have an innate reserve space/provisioning of around 6.8-7% for garbage collection etc, with enterprise drives having upwards of about 15-20% of NAND as reserve space. If you ignore the empty drive tests, and look at testing at 1/2 or greater filled capacity testing Samsung drives generally perform best vs competitors as the drives fill to max, with Silicon Motion controller based drives like the HPEX950, Intel 760 and others being pretty terrible (relatively) without additional user assigned OP. You don't necessarily need to format to lower capacity though because any unused space is used as over provisioning by the controller anyway.

Best bet cost effectiveness perspective would be to buy a Phison E12 controller based SSD like the Inland Premium drives (I've seen for as low as $100-110 for 1TB) (MicroCenter Brand) or Sabrent drives, fairly cheap but good performance. I would avoid the Intel 760p nvme drives as they are overpriced and use the Silicon Motion controllers. Also I'd skip the Intel 660/665P series as they use QLC NAND that drops to like 100 MB/s on sustained writes if doing very large transfers, yet still priced like better TLC NAND drives so not a good value. As for WD nvme drives I do recall they had sleep state issues causing high power draw, not sure if that's been fixed.

 

[L&LD]

XPG SX8200 Pro 1TB and 2TB

are also good drives. Particularly for laptops as they're very efficient too. If you use your laptop on battery power often.

 

[avtella]

It's basically an Intel 760P in a way, Silicon Motion SM2262EN controller with Intel/Micron NAND. Not terrible but worse value than cheaper or equivalent Phison E12 controller based units in regards to performance and latency as drives fill. Granted in real world the benchmarks don't really mean much unless your'e doing intensive stuff that actually highlight these differences though.

 

[coxhaus]

No. No RAID0. I think the drive speeds are too fast a for RAID. I would not want to run through a Slow RAID driver. What I don't know is AHCI going to be slow as well? How to define the M2 drive to BIOS. Right now my laptop is setup using Intel RAID drivers. I plan not to use this when I re-install Windows 10. I guess you know when you install Intel RAID you have to hit F6 during install when doing Windows 10 install and add Intel RAID drivers.

I plan to use 1 for OS and 1 for a VM.

 

[L&LD]

I think you'll only have an option for AHCI in the BIOS/UEFI. RAID may be there as well, and some reports I've read state that may be a tad faster, even when using the drives outside of any RAID setup.

I would stick to AHCI myself and not worry about a minuscule performance increase by using one or the other.

1 drive for the OS and 1 for the VM sounds perfect.

 

[coxhaus]

Good to know RAID is faster than AHCI. I thought there was a way to use a M2.0 PCIe driver? I am still researching.

PS
Back in the old days I ran a Windows 7 PC using Intel RAID drivers using a RAID0 for about 10 years with no failures. It gave me a lot of speed back then. Of course I hand picked my top of the line Seagate SATA drives. The Intel RAID drivers are stable.

PPS
It looks like a lot of laptops do not have 4 PCIe lanes assigned to the controller. They only have 2. I may be lucky with my laptop.

 

[L&LD]

An m.2 driver depends on the brand and model of the SSD you're using. I only know (for sure) that Samsung offers one, but it increases power consumption and gives worse battery life.

 

[avtella]

I’ve found no difference between AHCI Intel RAID drivers, for single drives. Even coming to vendor based AHCI drivers like Samsung vs Windows default nvstore AHCI drivers, I personally saw little difference, with the Samsung one slightly faster in some metrics and slower in others on my 970 PRO and 960 PRO drives. One of the earlier Samsung drivers actually caused lockups for some people under certain situations, which was later fixed. So I like to keep things simple with default MS drivers.

For single drive I would recommend AHCI with Windows default nvstore drivers. I’m not a fan of Intel’s RAID/IRST drivers especially when using single drive as I’ve seen major DPC latency issues with those before, maybe things changed since then... I always set the bios back to “AHCI” from “RAID On” in any new Dell laptop.

Here’s some benchmarks with various nVME drivers and Intel’s IRST driver:
https://www.win-raid.com/t3975f46-Which-NVMe-Drivers-are-the-best-performance-related.html

 

[coxhaus]

Maybe before I setup the WD 750 black M2.0 PCIe drives I should install them under my current OS and update them to the latest firmware. What do you think?

I think the forced installed drivers in the article above is using F6 at install and loading the drivers manually.

 

[avtella]

Actually in Windows you can just do it after installation (as Windows will use MS default StorNVMe driver) then use device manager in control panel to update the storage driver using the *.inf file or for some like Samsung or Intel's IRST, they even have an executable to make it easy. When it comes to Intel however I've heard it doesn't actually remove the drivers just the software when you uninstall IRST.

But yeah I'd upgrade to the latest firmware, you should be able to do it from the OS as well, with the WD utility, assuming you have Windows.

 

[coxhaus]

I always run Windows. Yes I think I will install the WD M2.0 PCIe drives and upgrade them under my current Windows 10. Then I will then install the new Windows 10 released at the end of the month on the new WD M2.0 PCIe and make it the boot drive.

If I am getting wordy it is because I am drinking Bourbon with cookies. Fresh baked chocolate chip cookies.

 

[L&LD]

@coxhaus, I think I understand now what you're saying? You don't mean the SSD manufacturer's driver for the SSD drive(s), you mean the SSD Toolbox from the manufacturer.

 

[coxhaus]

I received my 2 WD black 750 M2 NVMe SSDs. I installed them with Windows 10 2004 new release. I have been running for a couple of days now. They are much faster than the previous drive. You go to write something it seems it takes more time to get ready to write than it does to write. All of a sudden it is done when you write to the drive. Plenty fast for me.

When I installed Windows 10 2004 I did not have to install any Dell drivers as Windows did it automatically. The only driver I have installed is the newer Intel AX200 wireless driver. Intel has a newer one so I installed it.

I have found another issue in the Intel AX200 driver which is not a problem but setting the correct settings. I have a Cisco WAP581 wireless AP Wi-Fi5. I have noticed a small hesitation in web pages with the latest Intel AX200 driver. My setting were set to default 802.11ax. I changed it to 802.11ac and the hesitation is gone. I think the driver is having to compensate for the wrong setting each time it starts.

I like the new Microsoft browser and the reputation-based protection. I have turned on "Potentially unwanted app blocking" in Windows 10 2004 which blocks unwanted PUP/PUA. It seems to be good but I have only run a couple of days. I am no longer running uBlock Origin. I also have my PC set to the Microsoft store only for installs. This seems to be a safer set up. I like it.

 

[avtella]

For WiFi and Integrated Graphics I’d get the drivers directly from the Intel website and if it has dedicated graphics as well I’d get those from nVidia/AMD as the drivers from the actual part manufacturers generally are much more up to date than laptop vendors. Drivers directly from MS Catalog or Windows update often are not the latest and at times dated but generally stable enough though.

 

[Marin]

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.

My Norton premium subscription is soon coming to an end and I have been thinking about using new product for my antivirus/additional protection needs. I see here in the forums that many people are using Eset for a variety of reasons. I have looked at the products they offer online for home use and I am wondering what product would best suit my needs (home use, 1 PC, 1 Mac, few smaller electronics and general website surfing, etc.) and was wondering what Eset product would work best. Would just the Antivirus NOD32 product be sufficient or do I need to go with something more broad such a Internet security or Premium Security package for my “home” needs?

see link below:

All products

Best IT security solutions for your home devices. Try ESET antivirus and internet security solutions for Windows, Android, Mac or Linux OS.

www.eset.com

 

[L&LD]

@Marin, I have found no use of a third-party AV product for over 2 decades. In fact, the only issues were when I had a paid-for AV product installed.

If your devices, data, NAS, etc. are virus-free right now and you don't click every link or open every email attachment without question, then the built-in Windows Security is all you need. If you're also using Microsoft 365 and have your Desktop, Documents, and Pictures folders automatically being backed up to OneDrive, it is providing you with even more security options for those files too.

What threats do you think you need protection from specifically?

At any time, the free online scanners can be run in addition to the regular scans Windows Security does. And this can sometimes be helpful when you've clicked accidentally where you shouldn't.

There isn't a solution from a single vendor that can guarantee no viruses ever get through. But that isn't a reason to be paying for one either when the built-in Windows services are more than up to the task for free.

 

[Marin]

Hi @L&LD ,

Just general threats, nothing very specific like file/photo encryption or password manager, etc. I have used Norton for years and I have kept re-subscribing to it and have not really looked for any other products. I have read about Windows Defender but have not looked into its details in terms of how it compares with other available products other there. I am simply looking for a product from a company that has strong focus on security and research, that is simply set-and-forget and provides regular updates with any emerging threats. And it seems to me that Eset appears to meet that criteria but I will certainly give the Defender another look.

Appreciate your thoughts. Hope you are doing well.

 

[L&LD]

For a 'modern' user of a computer/device that nobody else normally has access to (i.e. children), a paid-for AV product is just paying for virus 'insurance' that is never guaranteed anyway.

Microsoft is the company with the focus and set-and-forget ease of use that you're looking for, IMO.

Hope you are doing well too.

 

[RMerlin]

@Marin, I have found no use of a third-party AV product for over 2 decades. In fact, the only issues were when I had a paid-for AV product installed.

Good for you. Meanwhile over 20+ years in IT, I have cleaned hundreds of Infected PCs where many didn't have any security software solution, or they ran an outdated one.

Security software is a must in 2020 for any computer that connects to the Internet. Don't assume that your personal experience reflects that of the majority of users. I've had one customer for example who had his butt saved by Trend Micro, as a crypto locker malware got installed, and after only a few infected files the Heuristic detection kicked in, neutralized the malware, and limited damage to only a few folders.

I am wondering what product would best suit my needs (home use, 1 PC, 1 Mac, few smaller electronics and general website surfing, etc.)

A single PC NOD32 Antivirus is generally sufficient, unless you want a firewall solution that can also control which software connects to/from your computer, in which case you could upgrade to their Internet Security suite.

They also offer a Mac version, but it's up to you to determine if it's worth it or not, considering Macs are not a very popular target for malware authors.

For mobile devices I generally avoid using security software, as they can have a very visible impact on battery life or general performance.

 

[L&LD]

I have helped many with these issues too for longer. The number one cause of infections that I see is 'but I thought the AV would stop anything 'silly' that I did'. And they were willing to click on anything because they were 'protected'.

Like the people who got their first 4x4 and barreled into something at the first signs of frost, an AV is more of a crutch than a solution.

A little bit (or a lot, depending on your point of view) of caution and not scratching that curiosity itch goes a long way to being safe.

I am not stating viruses don't exist and can cause substantial harm to our data.

And I didn't state to run a computer without one.

I am simply stating that paying for one is not the only option when one is included with every Windows installation that is getting better by the day (and again, not to mention the protection (against crypto-lockers, no less) that Microsoft 365 offers on top of that too for anyone that needs to use Office (Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and/or Outlook) and is also using OneDrive for extended protection.