The speed of computers has come a long way since I first started working with them. And while we can all appreciate that CPUs are orders of magnitude faster and that we have lots of RAM to work with, I still find people “saving money” by buying spinning disks. They’re OK if you just want to archive stuff, but if you want to run an OS or apps, you really want something faster.
Let’s look at the history. Disk drives used in the earliest PCs that I owned spun at 5400 RPMs; some subsequent laptops used even slower 4200 RPM drives. Over time, faster 7200 RPM, 10K RPM, and 15K RPM drives came out (with the faster ones mostly used in servers). At the same time the drives got faster, the ways to connect them needed to improve as well, with multiple generations of SATA (replacing IDE) and USB needed to keep up. But spinning drives eventually run into a wall. Looking at reviews from this calendar year, I see fast 7200 RPM SATA 3 hard drives benchmarked at 200MB/sec.
Maybe that doesn’t sound awful, but let’s compare that with solid-state disks (SSDs). Rather than having spinning disks, they use semiconductor cells to store information – entirely electronic, no moving parts. If you were to replace that fast 7200 RPM SATA 3 hard drive with one of today’s fastest SATA 3-connected SSDs, you’d see the performance jump to over 500MB/sec.
But SATA connections are falling out of favor because they just aren’t fast enough. M.2 drives are now more popular, using PCI Express to connect at higher speeds. (Technically, M.2 also supports SATA 3, but in that setup you’re still going to be limited to that 500MB/sec maximum.) The PCI Express standard has also gone through multiple iterations, also to improve overall throughput and performance. Most new devices today support PCI Express 3.0 (or 3.1, a minor change), and the M.2 interfaces in those devices will support four data lanes for communication with SSD drives. So you would see those referenced as “PCIe Gen 3 x4 M.2.” One of the faster available drives, the Samsung 970 Pro, gets transfer speeds of 3500MB/sec, roughly seven times the speed of that “fast” SATA 3 SSD, and 17 times faster than the fastest spinning disk.
Now we are starting to see availability of PCIe Gen 4 x4 M.2, which gets even faster. The latest Samsung 980 Pro that supports PCIe Gen 4 can get transfer speeds of 6500MB/sec. Granted, you’ll need an AMD-based device to get that today since Intel chipsets don’t yet support PCIe Gen 4. That comes with Intel’s 11th generation chipsets and processors, due early next year.
If you want something fast and portable, hopefully you have a device that supports Thunderbolt 3. The Samsung X5 portable drive can get 2400MB/sec throughput — although your performance can vary as the drive is apparently throttled from the theoretical Thunderbolt throughput because the SSD would get too hot. That’s also a common problem with the PCIe Gen 4 (and probably some Gen 3) SSDs too, as you may need to use a heatsink on the drives to keep them cool enough. (Now it’s not only the CPUs and GPUs that need heatsinks and coolers.)
At the moment, I’m in the middle of upgrading my “home workstation” (doesn’t everyone have a Hyper-V server in their house?) from an Intel 7th generation NUC with an external USB 3.0 SSD to a new AMD-based Lenovo ThinkStation P620. I suspect I’ll end up ordering a new PCIe Gen 4 SSD, just as soon as I confirm whether I need a heatsink…
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Categories: Windows 10
Out of Office Hours 
Good news is that many new PCI-E 4.0 NVMe drives come with a heatsink pre-populated which is not higher then the PCI-E height so it should not impact any other devices.
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For desktops, sure. It gets a little more interesting with M.2 drives (depends on the motherboard placement and what’s around it), and a near impossibility with laptops 🙂
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The ThinkStation P620 workstation that I acquired includes a heatsink of its own that rests on the M.2 cards themselves, so it wouldn’t work with an additional heat sink.
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Watch out for PCIe 4.0 M.2’s. All except one have first generation controllers which deliver PCIe 3.0 performance at a price premium.
Generally, we’re waiting for second-generation PCIe 4.0 controllers like the one in the Samsung 980 PRO. But make sure to see a good review from a reliable source. PC Mag and PC Gamer tend to quote sequential read and write speed which manufacturers pander to. I like AnandTech and TechPowerUp for hardware reviews.
The Samsung 980 PRO PCIe 4.0 SSD Review: A Spirit of Hope
With respect to heatsinks, the only aftermarket parts are for CPU, GPU, and sometimes chipset. I’m not aware of any aftermarket M.2 heatsinks. The heatsink that comes with a drive is enough to cool it. Though, some drives have SKUs which delete the heatsink; those drives will have lower performance.
Basic M.2 Info
SSD Guide: PCI-Express, M.2, mSATA And SATA Express – The Differences Explained!
Buying An M.2 SSD? How To Tell Which Is Which
Easy SSD Guide: SATA, mSATA, M.2 and U.2
Hyperscale Reading
The Next Step in SSD Evolution: NVMe Zoned Namespaces Explained
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I read a few of those, and the Samsung 980 Pro was the one I was considering. But heat/throttling, heatsink, the total bytes written reduction (decreased warranty), and cost talked me into sticking with the 970 Evo Plus (2TB, on order). The workstation I bought (ThinkStation P620) does include a heatsink that covers two M.2 slots; using any M.2 cards that include a heat sink would cause challenges as you’d have to then remove the provided heat sink from both cards.
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The 970 Evo Plus is a solid choice.
For clarity, the 1,200 TBW vs 600 TBW is coming from the difference in capacity not the underlying technology. With twice as many chips to wear out, Samsung can offer double the endurance on the 2TB drive. The 980 Pro tops out at 1TB now. While the 970 Pro used 2-bit NAND which did have higher endurance per GB, both the 970 Evo Plus and 980 Pro use 3-bit NAND and offer the same warranty at 1TB.
Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus
Samsung SSD 980 PRO
Samsung SSD 970 PRO
Multi-Layer SSDs: What Are SLC, MLC, TLC, QLC, and PLC?
Write amplification – Wikipedia
I would prefer to remove the Lenovo heatsink from the case/motherboard with the assumption the Samsung heatsink is better suited and uses thermal paste. There might also be a list of compatible drives from Lenovo. Or you can research the choices presented during the order process. And here is an example of a drive sold with and without an OEM heatsink.
Example With and Without Heatsink
GIGABYTE Announces AORUS Gen4 SSD Series without Heatsinks | TechPowerUp
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One of the reviews (I forget which one) pointed out that the 1TB 970 Pro had a 1200TB warranty, while the 1TB 980 Pro had a 600TB warranty. Your links confirm that. That’s the concern I had, running a whole bunch of VMs I have no idea how much I’ll write to these drives over time.
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I’m not sure how to track disc usage over time. I’ll put that on my to do list. I might start with performance monitor. Or there might be something better.
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How to See If Your Hard Drive Is Dying with S.M.A.R.T.
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Hi Michael, I have been looking at getting a Thinkstation p620 for my home office, but I have been unable to find a good review or an owner that I could ask. How is it in terms of fan noise day to day? As for disk speed I have had mixed experiences with Samsung SSDs but really good experiences with the Intel Optane PCI-Express cards which fix my access pattern a bit better in terms of random reads and writes of many small files. I am hoping to see a PCI express 4.0 version of those soon but I suspect we will not see a large expansion of the portfolio of options before Intel joins AMD in having PCIe 4.0 CPU/MB chipsets on the market. At least Kioxia have announced some new things: https://www.anandtech.com/show/16231/kioxia-announces-xg7-pcie-40-client-ssds
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So far, it’s been great. The fans are very loud when the device first turns on, but as soon as the OS starts up they become completely quiet – I still haven’t managed to stress the server enough to where I could hear the fans running (with about 8 VMs running on it at the moment). It’s a large case, very spacious, I installed one 2.5″ Samsung 950 Pro SATA SSD (cables are included in the case, as are mounting carriers) and one M.2 Gen 3 x4 Samsung 970 Evo Plus drive (also easy, screw and heat sink included). I have 3 DIMMs in it at the moment (2×64, 1×16), with space for 8.
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