Fastest non-M2 drive?

You won't be able to boot from an nvme drive without modifying the bios on a Z87 board. Do you just want this for storage or do you want it to run the OS as well?
 
Depends on the OS. On Linux and FreeBSD you can put a minimal bootloader on USB or whereever and have the root filesystem on a PCIe card's NVMe.
 
The top SATA SSDs haven't changed. It's still the Samsung 870 Evo or Crucial MX500. Either will run ~$140-150 for 2 TB.

However, if the drive is only going to be used for storage (i.e., you don't have to worry about boot compatibility), it may be worth considering a PCIe 3 NVMe SSD. The price for a top such unit, such as the Samsung 970 Evo+ or SK Hynix P31, is usually about the same as the above SATA units. Something lower-end, like a Crucial P3 or WD Blue, can be had for ~$120. Any are a much better value for the $ and far more future-proof (just drop it in the m.2 slot on your next system). You'd need an adapter to convert a PCIe slot to m.2, but those are <$20.
 
You won't be able to boot from an nvme drive without modifying the bios on a Z87 board. Do you just want this for storage or do you want it to run the OS as well?
"Durable" storage (media and game installations).
The top SATA SSDs haven't changed. It's still the Samsung 870 Evo or Crucial MX500. Either will run ~$140-150 for 2 TB.

However, if the drive is only going to be used for storage (i.e., you don't have to worry about boot compatibility), it may be worth considering a PCIe 3 NVMe SSD. The price for a top such unit, such as the Samsung 970 Evo+ or SK Hynix P31, is usually about the same as the above SATA units. Something lower-end, like a Crucial P3 or WD Blue, can be had for ~$120. Any are a much better value for the $ and far more future-proof (just drop it in the m.2 slot on your next system). You'd need an adapter to convert a PCIe slot to m.2, but those are <$20.
I didn't know those adapters existed! I'll check that out!

I have a free PCIe2.0x16 and PCIe2.0x1 slot.

Edit - I see this is popular - https://www.amazon.com/GLOTRENDS-Adapter-Aluminum-Heatsink-PA09_HS/dp/B07FN3YZ8P/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?crid=3L66WCAC90IQX&keywords=nvme+adapter&qid=1675804885&sprefix=nvme+adapte,aps,109&sr=8-1-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUExSDlVTVdGVjlOT0ZCJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwOTgxOTg0NjlHWTFSOUlQOVI0JmVuY3J5cHRlZEFkSWQ9QTA0MzUzMzIzR05NQklSVTRNTTAwJndpZGdldE5hbWU9c3BfYXRmJmFjdGlvbj1jbGlja1JlZGlyZWN0JmRvTm90TG9nQ2xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ==

This one looks nicer - https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-NVMe...1675805670&sprefix=nvme+adapte,aps,109&sr=8-3
 
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That adapter should work fine. I've used a similar one for a while now and have never had an issue.
 
Depends on the OS. On Linux and FreeBSD you can put a minimal bootloader on USB or whereever and have the root filesystem on a PCIe card's NVMe.

I would just install an unofficial firmware upgrade that allows nvme booting.
 
After some more research, it seems that using an M2 adapter in my PCIe2.0x1 slot isn't a big advantage over SATA III 6gb/s.

I'm trying to see if using the adapter in my available PCIe2.0x16 slot would impact GPU performance in any way..
 
For almost all casual home users, the bulk of the benefits from a SSD come from their solid-state nature rather than their raw sequential throughput. What I mean by that is that SSDs are faster because of the lower latency they enable by not having physically spinning bits, rather than because they go 500 MB/s or 1000 MB/s or whatever. The reduced latency is what makes them 'feel' fast, not the sequential throughput numbers. And while NVMe SSDs *are* lower latency than SATA SSDs, it's a much less noticeable improvement than when folks migrated from spinning HDDs to SATA SSDs.

My point of all of that is that you're talking about using SSDs for photo and video storage. SATA SSDs are still 100% perfectly suited for jobs like that and you likely wouldn't be able to differentiate the perceived performance of a SATA SSD from a NVMe SSD for that task. Combined with the fact SATA SSDs are still slightly less expensive and do not require you to modify anything else on your system (firmware/BIOS hacks) then I would just add a SATA SSD.

My recommendation would be to avoid a QLC-based drive. I have used a *ton* of both the Samsung 860/870 EVO drives and the Crucial MX500 drives and had great luck with both.
 
Crucial MX500 would get my vote. Deployed dozens of them and yet to see a failure. Samsung 870 Evo would be my next choice. Samsung has a much better utility call Samsung Magician but it won't run in Server 2019 for me. Crucial Storage Executive feels very old and clunky.

I have had two Samsung drives fail but it's not many for the amount deployed. I saw some performance deterioration on an 840 Evo and a 960 Evo that still had most of their life left. You have the 980 pro SSDs making the news now as well. Samsung is still good but they have dropped a notch in my personal rankings.

I unfortunately don't have any benchmarks of a single MX500 apparently by here's a RAID 1/mirror set of them.
1675897262389.png
 
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Sata 3 peaks at 600mbps so you can't get anything fast no matter which drive. I would just get a 4tb and be done with it.

Or if you really want more speed on the sata3 interface you can get two 2tb identical drives and setup a raid 0 array. That was you can double your throughput bandwidth at about 1200mbos.

Want more speed? Raid 0 three or 4 drives. Each drive you add into the raid0 array results in a linear increase in throughout speed for file read/writes. I had 4 at one point. Then went down to 3. Now I have 2. But next format going to go back to three 512gb ssds for a 1.5tb game drive.
 
Sata 3 peaks at 600mbps so you can't get anything fast no matter which drive. I would just get a 4tb and be done with it.

Or if you really want more speed on the sata3 interface you can get two 2tb identical drives and setup a raid 0 array. That was you can double your throughput bandwidth at about 1200mbos.

Want more speed? Raid 0 three or 4 drives. Each drive you add into the raid0 array results in a linear increase in throughout speed for file read/writes. I had 4 at one point. Then went down to 3. Now I have 2. But next format going to go back to three 512gb ssds for a 1.5tb game drive.
Why is my SATA SSD faster than my 980 Pro NVME?
Samsung 870 2TB Health.jpg
 
You tell me? How can you achieve speeds faster than the interface spec? Lol those speeds look like m.2 sata speeds.
I know for a fact that it doesn't read and write that fast in real world use, in fact when writing a large file or files, it drops to 160MB/s after it's written like 8-10GB of data.
 
I had this in my kids computer years ago, simnple yet affective with great overclocking abilities!
 
My memory is a bit weak here but I think the Samsung 860 Pro may have been at or near the tippy top of the SATA SSD pile in terms of performance + reliability and life, being a fast MLC unit. No longer available I think.

MX500 seems like a safe bet in 2023 if you're limited to SATA. Fast, affordable and easy to come by.
 
SK Hynix SATA SSDs are also great

Edit: Well, I had no idea the gold S31s are apparently sold out everywhere- they used to be widely available... not sure if supply issue or discontinued? So... my recommendation isn't super helpful unless you buy used, I guess. Sorry about that.
 
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M.2 and U.2 are different interfaces to connect ultrafast pci-E 4x NVMes. With an adaptercable you can connect an U.2 NVMe to M.2.
Performance is up to several GB/s

Main alternative is 6G Sata (Up to around 500 MB/s)

If fastest non m.2 means fastest non NVMe, this is 12/24G SAS.
Compared to Sata you can connect up to hundreds of disks via an expander. It offers full duplex transfers and 2x/4x the transfer rate of Sata. A disk has two SAS connectors. You can use them for HA/failover or to double transfer rate up to 2x12G/2x24G. This means that the fastest SAS disks ex WD SS530/540, Seagate Nytro etc are with more than 2GB/s near to NVMe performance without the NVMe limitations if you need many disks.
 
I'm still using the Samsung 840 Pro drive I bought in !2013! as my boot drive - along with a Crucial MX500....

The Crucial drive wins in write-speed by like 50mbs but it's negligible at best.

- Another vote for a Crucial MX500 SSD
 
If fastest non m.2 means fastest non NVMe, this is 12/24G SAS.
It doesn't.

Dude asking the question is 100% on the consumer side of the equation; he does not have a 12/24G SAS header. His motherboard is running a 4th gen 4770K CPU for fuck's sake.

He is a normal computer user asking for what type of SSD should plug into his normal computer motherboard so that he can store pictures and videos. That's the question - what's the best he can plug into his PC for his task, not what's the cleverest answer for non-M.2 drive on bar trivia night. He's not going to use anything enterprise focused, or anything with non-standard connectivity. He asked if he should use SATA or if he should use some kind of PCI attached disk, for which options *do* exist, but given his use case scenario (bulk photo/video storage) are not worth considering.
 
That's the question - what's the best he can plug into his PC for his task.

Actually that wasn't the question. He didn't ask for the best SSD for his use case. What was actually asked was for the fastest non m.2 SSD for his use case. Perhaps he did mis-speak, but we're not mind readers here. At least Gea and I aren't. If you think you have a better answer to contribute than us, please do chime in and share it, but there's no need to attack other posters for answering the question that was asked.
 
Actually that wasn't the question. He didn't ask for the best SSD for his use case. What was actually asked was for the fastest non m.2 SSD for his use case. Perhaps he did mis-speak, but we're not mind readers here. At least Gea and I aren't. If you think you have a better answer to contribute than us, please do chime in and share it, but there's no need to attack other posters for answering the question that was asked.
I actually already did provide an answer; I'm reply #9.

Here is the original question:
I have a pre-M2 mobo and I want to simplify my storage with a large (2tb+) drive. Will be used for photo/video storage.

My mobo: https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/Z87-G41-PC-Mate/Specification

Should I go SATA III? Are there PCI storage options that are faster? I don't have any reason to upgrade my 4770k/970, other than modern HDD options.
OP provides a scenario (context), says he wants to simplify his storage with a large drive for photo/video storage. He's asking what kind of drive he should use, within the context that it will be used for photo/video storage. I'd say that's asking for the best drive for his use case, but perhaps you disagree.

Second, he lists his motherboard and states that he doesn't have any reason to upgrade, aside from if he needs more modern HDD/storage options. So unless you can provide him a compelling reason, within his use case, that he needs to upgrade to more modern drive interconnects, I believe it's a reasonable assumption that he wants something he can just plug into his existing system.

He does ask if there are solutions faster than SATA III, but at least to me it is within the context of the larger question of what kind of drive he should buy.

Either way, I apologize. My "for fuck's sake" was not intended as an attack, so much as bemused exasperation.
 
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870 Evo user here, I have a faster M.2 drive in my daily driver, but whenever I feel like the system with the 870 evo is slow, I just fire up an older work PC with a mechanical HDD and appreciate the goodness that is solid state tech :)
 
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