Two M.2 NVMe SSDs, best way to set up

I am getting a new MSI GT72 gaming notebook. It comes shipped with an 128 GB M.2 NVMe SSD and I separately got a 512 GB Samsung 950 Pro NVMe.

What would be the best way of using these SSDs? I am planning to keep the OS in the smaller SSD and all other stuff (programs + games) in the larger SSD, but since the latter SSD is faster, I am not sure if I should also install the OS on that one.

Also, where should be the download target? I am using Internet Download Manager and I am planning to use one SSD as the download cache and the other SSD as the final download location before files being moved to the HDD. Which drive should take which role?

 

In any real world use from well into the second half of 2016, both of those drive sizes are tiny.

Install your O/S to the 512GB SSD (with 33% OP of the actual, available capacity) and save up for a 1TB SSD or larger for your Data drive.

For now, use the 128GB nominal (less than ~80GB actual, after appropriately OP'ing it...) as the 'download cache' location. It isn't much use for anything else.

If your new notebook is a Skylake based QC platform with 16GB+ RAM or better, using the ridiculously small SSD in that system will drastically reduce it's overall performance in one way or another. Even the 512GB SSD is the bare minimum I would install in any system today that I want to be usable for the next 3 to 5 years or more. Your only saving grace here is the ability to have more than one installed in your system.

And yeah; if you want to have the fastest, most consistently performing system (almost) no matter how you use it (again; almost indefinitely)? OP any and all SSD's you put into your system from the first day of ownership. 25% OP'ing (over and above whatever the drive ships with) is where it becomes noticeable. 33% is the optimum OP level of better responsiveness vs. less capacity (and if used as purely a 'cache' drive such as Windows Temp files, PS' Scratch Disk or any other such use; I see improvements when OP'd up to 65% of the actual, available SSD's capacity).

Good luck.

 

@Scaevola indeed, 128GB is too small amount, at least for primary machine. I suggest selling it if it doesn't void your warranty.

 

I would actually hold on to the original drive for troubleshooting and/or warranty purposes. I realize replacing it shouldn't void the warranty, but there's no harm in keeping it around.

 

Very good point. (My storage drives (once used) are never allowed out of my control...).

This is a small price to pay for the ability to ship the system back at a moment's notice for any (other) hardware issues.

 

Thank you for the detailed suggestion. Indeed the notebook is Skylake based. It also has a 2TB HDD as well (along with a 4TB NAS at home) so I hope that I will not have storage issues for some time.

I will use it for moderate gaming (for titles like Cities Skylines and Civ VI), but I got the best performance/price point I could for future proofing.

I haven't given a thought about OPing but you are right about it. My only concern is that I won't be using the drive heavily anyway and 33% is a bit too much space lost for a 512GB. What would be the ideal level for a more casual user? For the 128 GB drive, I'll go with 33% though since it's small in size and I will use it as like a cache/temp drive.

 

A 10-15% over provision will be fine for your case.

Tiller wrongly assumes that everyone who uses a SSD uses it the way he/she does - heavy read/write cycles on a daily basis. That's simply not the case for most users.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

No. No assumptions on my part. As I repeatedly state (quoting myself);

If you want the above, then OP by 33% or more. If you don't? Then don't expect the nand based storage subsystem to be as 'balanced' as it can be against the rest of the system/platform/hardware. Again, as I already mentioned, with a current platform + CPU (QC) and 16GB of RAM or more, OP'ing any and all SSD's is what will let you reap that potential performance (almost) indefinitely.

At a 25% OP level, the platform becomes much closer to the promise of SSD's made almost a decade ago (and confirmed by Anand Lal Shimpi too, so long ago). Running any SSD in any workload (light/moderate/heavy) below this amount is leaving performance, responsiveness and longevity on the table). It really is the minimum I would run any SSD which is expected to be used for the next few years (3 to 5+).

The additional 8% 'lost' in capacity gets me significantly more than an additional 8% in better responsiveness and sustained performance (almost) no matter how I use the system(s). If you want your platform as balanced as possible, this is what I suggest.

So Scaevola, if you want the biggest usable capacity with the most consistent storage subsystem performance (notice; capacity 'first')... then 25% is where I would be OP'ing the system (today).

On a 512GB (nominal) drive size, (below) is where I would OP it at the 25% level (without looking at the MB capacity the drive actually has - if you have the actual capacity in MB (on the advanced Windows setup screen), simply multiply by 0.75 to get the maximum capacity available to the user (and O/S).

512GB x 1000,000,000 = 512,000,000,000 Bytes
512,000,000,000 / 1024 / 1024 / 1024 = ~476.8GB actual capacity.
476.8GB x 0.75 = 357.6GB OP'd capacity.

(Which I would round down to 350GB, anyways. And don't forget that you can always 'extend' the volume if you really, really need the space sometime down the road).

OP'ing is not about increasing performance of the SSD, in any meaningful way. It is a way of keeping the promised SSD performance from dropping to HDD levels and worse, getting the SSD in such bad shape that it can't recover from the 'light/medium/heavy' use and abuse it is subject to on a daily basis (from the user, O/S and programs installed).

Sustained performance over time is the goal (and even with 33% OP'ing, an SSD might provide about 40% of it's peak (rated) performance over time, in a (single user) workstation class workload). That doesn't change if the workload is light, moderate or heavy.

An SSD (not all, but most...) without OP'ing is like running a Formula 1 engine with 'regular' gasoline. Sure; it is still capable of redlining (if the planets align)... but how it feels like while it attempts it? More than a night and day difference (to me).

 

It really does depend on your usage, modern controllers are able to recover even if they are beaten with a stick of random writes over time so if you are mostly reading data you are wasting capacity doing the above, especially expensive capacity of you have a faster drive.

 

Usage doesn't factor into this, at least not in my experience; from my 'heavy' usage scenarios to much more mundane usage (super light 'office' workloads) in dozens and hundreds of users/platforms over many SSD models and varying workloads over the last half dozen years or so.

This isn't about 'wasting' capacity. This is about using the SSD in a way to get the most balanced performance for the user every single time they demand it from the storage subsystem... (and still nowhere close to where the synthetic 'scores' might lead you to believe you're (ever) achieving in any real world workload (i.e. consecutive reads and writes falling somewhere between 80/20 to 60/40, r/w, respectively).

And today's SSD's are not what I would consider 'expensive' capacity by a long shot. Far cry from those early days that seem so long ago now... (circa 2009).

 

It takes the 850 evo drive over 3 minutes of constant 4k random writes to degrade performance down a notch, sure with 25% over provisioning it takes over 10 minutes but that light load you are talking about never does that.

After extended periods of use like this they are the same.

 

You're mixing up real world usage with synthetic tests that 'prove' that with synthetic tests the performance doesn't drop.

I don't care about the manufacturer's performance claims (and builds/designs/configures and cheats/works around for).

I am talking about real world usage and how OP'ing has helped in every single case I've been personally involved in.

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/using-ssd-as-storage-drive.780545/page-2#post-10094203

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/using-ssd-as-storage-drive.780545/page-3#post-10094414

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...eople-who-use-vms.783930/page-2#post-10141013

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/intel-x-25m-and-slow-write-speeds.734543/#post-9405544