M.2 NVMe + M.2 SATA slots + external HDD SATA III: how to properly store data in such config?

[Coolio]

Hi all,

my MiniPC (NUC 12 Pro Kit, NUC12WSKi3) has 1x2280 PCIe Gen4 M.2 NVMe slot and 1x2242 PCIe Gen3 M.2 SATA slot (no 2.5" SSDs are supported). My use scenario will be: office tasks + storage of media collection (Plex Media Server) + occasional transcoding by Plex.

Since M.2 storage is pretty expensive, I plan to have internally as less as possible (e.g., NVMe 250Gb for apps, cache, temp downloads, etc.), and move maximum of non-system data (i.e., media collection, backups of photos from mobile, etc.) to the external 3.5" SATA III disk of 8-10Tb, connected via USB. The system will be Windows-based.

Can you please help me to understand the following:

1. I know that some apps (incl. Plex) do a lot of writes and indexing, so makes sense to separate such apps from their cache. AFAIK, NVMe disks have at least 3.5Gb/s read/write speeds, while SATA has only 0.6Gb/s. So should I use M.2 SATA as a "system disk" and M.2 NVMe as a "cache disk" for fastest performance? Any good "rule of a thumb" for the system/cache disks size ratio?
2. USB-connected drives are not friendly with either BTRFS, or Unraid or ZFS file systems. [besides, I am only familiar with Windows] Since data protection on the file system level isn't available to me, are there any Windows tools (system ones or standalone apps) to somehow secure my data on the external HDD, or this is not possible at all without at least 1 more HDD (to mirror the first one, in e.g. such box)?

Thank you!

 

[BlueLineSwinger]

For a typical desktop/workstation, always use the fastest drive as your OS/apps volume. Plex is not going to be hitting its cache in any way that will tax a SATA SSD. Also, good DRAM-cache enabled m.2 SATA SSDs small enough to fit 2242 look to be a tough find.

I'd just go with the largest NVMe SSD budget allows. a PCIe 3 unit on sale won't cost a huge amount more than a good SATA unit. If you feel you need a separate cache drive for Plex get a cheap SATA SSD for the other slot.

Have you maybe considered getting a small NAS for your media instead? A 2 drive unit would allow you to set up the drives as a mirror for redundancy (not backup!). Most NAS devices will also let you run Plex and other apps directly off of it instead of your PC.

 

[sinisterDei]

AFAIK, NVMe disks have at least 3.5Gb/s read/write speeds, while SATA has only 0.6Gb/s. So should I use M.2 SATA as a "system disk" and M.2 NVMe as a "cache disk" for fastest performance?

Nope. For most users, the effect of SSDs feeling "fast" comes from their low latency, not their raw transfer speed. Unless you're regularly in the habit of reading or writing very large files, 10+ GB at a minimum, the differences between NVMe and SATA will be minimal if noticeable at all. This includes how long Windows, games, and common applications take to start up; most of these tasks are bottlenecked by other processes rather than being dependent on the speed of the SSD. The differences between Gen3 and Gen4 NVMe SSDs are even lesser for most users.

Also, M.2 storage has gotten dramatically less expensive, at least in the USA (I can't speak for elsewhere). You can very inexpensively pick up 1TB and 2TB NVMe drives, so there is not really a reason to restrict yourself to such a small boot volume.

The M.2-2242 slot is probably not worth populating at all. Not for performance reasons, but because there aren't a ton of compelling M.2-2242 SATA SSDs in the market, and you can instead spend those dollars on a single competent M.2-2280 NVme drive. On Newegg, $113 gets you a WD SN570 2TB drive or $53 gets you the 1TB model, and that is a decent drive.

If you have data that is important to you, then I would do a few things. Firstly, store it on the SSD for primary storage. Then, back it up to external drive on some kind of a schedule. Lastly, get Backblaze or Carbonite or some kind of backup service like that and send it offsite, if it's truly that important.

 

[Coolio]

Have you maybe considered getting a small NAS for your media instead?

Yes, but after studying their hardware - definitely NO. It's that place that I came to MiniPC from, and there's no way back.

For a typical desktop/workstation, always use the fastest drive as your OS/apps volume.

I'd just go with the largest NVMe SSD budget allows. a PCIe 3 unit on sale won't cost a huge amount more than a good SATA unit.

OK, so a 2280 PCIe Gen4 M.2 NVMe will be for the system and apps. It's a PCIe 4, not a PCIe 3, unless you meant smth different.

Plex is not going to be hitting its cache in any way that will tax a SATA SSD. Also, good DRAM-cache enabled m.2 SATA SSDs small enough to fit 2242 look to be a tough find.

If you feel you need a separate cache drive for Plex get a cheap SATA SSD for the other slot.

Not sure I understood the situation with cache. Plex (and some other apps) use cache actively - this is just a fact. The question is whether or not I will benefit from moving apps' cache to the second drive. In my case this is a 2242 PCIe Gen3 M.2 SATA. So should placing apps' cache to a standalone SATA be better than having it on a NVMe which is however a system disk?

Unless you're regularly in the habit of reading or writing very large files, 10+ GB at a minimum, the differences between NVMe and SATA will be minimal if noticeable at all.

Files of such size will be 4K movies from either my media collection (stored on the external 8-10Tb SATA III SSD), or newly downloaded movies from the internal disk (before I decide whether to keep it and move to the external storage, or delete it). So, based on what you said keeping big files on NVMe makes more sense, but shall it be ok for the efficiency of the system if I keep downloads on the system drive?
Imagine a Torrent client which always downloads/uploads something. At the same time Plex needs to do transcoding (which is mainly GPU work, but there still are some disk read/writes I assume). So finally, shall it be better to keep Torrent downloads (10Gb+ files) on a fast NVMe, but together with the system itself, or rather have downloads on a slower 2242 PCIe Gen3 M.2 SATA, but separate their read/writes from those of the system?

Also, M.2 storage has gotten dramatically less expensive, at least in the USA

On Newegg, $113 gets you a WD SN570 2TB drive or $53 gets you the 1TB model

Yep, same in EU (where I'm from), but the idea of "saving a bit" on the internal storage comes not from the high prices, but from the fact, that my media collection is bigger anyways. So there's just no sense in having a 2Tb internal drive - better buy a 0.5Tb and invest the left budget ($50-70) in the external 8-10Tb SSD SATA III drive. Makes sense?

Thank you for your comments guys!

 

[BlueLineSwinger]

Yes, but after studying their hardware - definitely NO. It's that place that I came to MiniPC from, and there's no way back.

Huh? This statement makes no sense. Multiple companies make NAS units. There are also free NAS OSes you can use with your own hardware.

OK, so a 2280 PCIe Gen4 M.2 NVMe will be for the system and apps. It's a PCIe 4, not a PCIe 3, unless you meant smth different.

A PCIe 3 device will work just fine in a PCIe 4 slot. PCIe 3 NCMe SSDs are usually significantly cheaper than PCIe 4 ones are, in case budget is a factor.

Not sure I understood the situation with cache. Plex (and some other apps) use cache actively - this is just a fact. The question is whether or not I will benefit from moving apps' cache to the second drive. In my case this is a 2242 PCIe Gen3 M.2 SATA. So should placing apps' cache to a standalone SATA be better than having it on a NVMe which is however a system disk?

Not in terms of performance. A separate SSD may be worthwhile if you're concerned about wear on the system volume from PLex using it for its cache.

Files of such size will be 4K movies from either my media collection (stored on the external 8-10Tb SATA III SSD), or newly downloaded movies from the internal disk (before I decide whether to keep it and move to the external storage, or delete it). So, based on what you said keeping big files on NVMe makes more sense, but shall it be ok for the efficiency of the system if I keep downloads on the system drive?
Imagine a Torrent client which always downloads/uploads something. At the same time Plex needs to do transcoding (which is mainly GPU work, but there still are some disk read/writes I assume). So finally, shall it be better to keep Torrent downloads (10Gb+ files) on a fast NVMe, but together with the system itself, or rather have downloads on a slower 2242 PCIe Gen3 M.2 SATA, but separate their read/writes from those of the system?

No, that's not what he was saying. Large media files should be downloaded to and kept on a separate HDD, there's no need to put them on an SSD. Any modern HDD is going to be faster than your download/ripping speed or what's required for playback.

 

[Coolio]

A PCIe 3 device will work just fine in a PCIe 4 slot. PCIe 3 NCMe SSDs are usually significantly cheaper than PCIe 4 ones are

OK, got it, thank you!

Not in terms of performance. A separate SSD may be worthwhile if you're concerned about wear on the system volume from PLex using it for its cache.

So how are M.2 NVMe vs. M.2 SATA disks in terms of their lifetime due to read/write cycles? Does it make sense to partially take the load off the NVMe (system, apps) with the SATA (cache + downloads)?

 

[Lebowski]

Yes, but after studying their hardware - definitely NO. It's that place that I came to MiniPC from, and there's no way back.



OK, so a 2280 PCIe Gen4 M.2 NVMe will be for the system and apps. It's a PCIe 4, not a PCIe 3, unless you meant smth different.



Not sure I understood the situation with cache. Plex (and some other apps) use cache actively - this is just a fact. The question is whether or not I will benefit from moving apps' cache to the second drive. In my case this is a 2242 PCIe Gen3 M.2 SATA. So should placing apps' cache to a standalone SATA be better than having it on a NVMe which is however a system disk?


Files of such size will be 4K movies from either my media collection (stored on the external 8-10Tb SATA III SSD), or newly downloaded movies from the internal disk (before I decide whether to keep it and move to the external storage, or delete it). So, based on what you said keeping big files on NVMe makes more sense, but shall it be ok for the efficiency of the system if I keep downloads on the system drive?
Imagine a Torrent client which always downloads/uploads something. At the same time Plex needs to do transcoding (which is mainly GPU work, but there still are some disk read/writes I assume). So finally, shall it be better to keep Torrent downloads (10Gb+ files) on a fast NVMe, but together with the system itself, or rather have downloads on a slower 2242 PCIe Gen3 M.2 SATA, but separate their read/writes from those of the system?



Yep, same in EU (where I'm from), but the idea of "saving a bit" on the internal storage comes not from the high prices, but from the fact, that my media collection is bigger anyways. So there's just no sense in having a 2Tb internal drive - better buy a 0.5Tb and invest the left budget ($50-70) in the external 8-10Tb SSD SATA III drive. Makes sense?

Thank you for your comments guys!

Look at specs on nvme drive. Most of the time the 1TB and 2TB drives have better performance than the 500GB versions. If you are looking to save a few bucks on the primary drive so you can get an 8-10TB ssd for storage you are in for a ride awakening when you look at the price of an 8tb ssd. You don't need an SSD for video storage or playback, unless you are running a server that 10+ people are accessing at once.
If you want to transcode with Plex, you need a good video card that can do the transcoding, the drive speed isn't that important.

 

[toast0]

2242 PCIe Gen3 M.2 SATA

I'm pretty sure they don't make drives that are both PCIe and SATA at the same time. Sounds like that slot takes either one, whereas the bigger slot is PCIe only. But like sinister said, you're going to have a hard time finding something compelling in 2242, it's better to take your money and fill the 2280 slot with something nicer.

I agree with everyone else, no need to keep video on SSD, raw 4k Blu-Ray tops out with peaks of 150Mbps, any hard drive can manage that for sequential data. Even maybe an ATA/33 drive from last century (probably not quite that old, probably only going to hit those rates on the on-disk cache; modern spinners are limited by SATA on sequential transfer for sure though)

 

[philb2]

you are in for a ride awakening when you look at the price of an 8tb ssd.

No kidding. How about this one to make you toss your cookies. https://www.newegg.com/sabrent-8tb/p/0D9-001Y-000A1?Item=0D9-001Y-000A1

If I was related to Uncle Scrooge, then I could put in a pair of these bad boys into my system, and run them in RAID. But Uncle Scrooge isn't my uncle, so I have to keep on using spinning rust for my 8 TB drives.

 

[sinisterDei]

No kidding. How about this one to make you toss your cookies. https://www.newegg.com/sabrent-8tb/p/0D9-001Y-000A1?Item=0D9-001Y-000A1

If I was related to Uncle Scrooge, then I could put in a pair of these bad boys into my system, and run them in RAID. But Uncle Scrooge isn't my uncle, so I have to keep on using spinning rust for my 8 TB drives.

Not saying that they are price competitive with HDDs, but if you move outside of the M.2 form-factor then *enterprise* 7.68TB SSDs can be relatively affordable, at least compared to the Sabrent you linked. Newegg has one for under $600.

 

[Coolio]

If you are looking to save a few bucks on the primary drive so you can get an 8-10TB ssd for storage you are in for a ride awakening when you look at the price of an 8tb ssd.

I agree with everyone else, no need to keep video on SSD, raw 4k Blu-Ray tops out with peaks of 150Mbps, any hard drive can manage that for sequential data.

No guys, like I wrote in the header and the first message - there will be an internal NVMe and the external HDD. Media collection will be stored on the HDD, the internal SSD storage is a temporary place for new downloads. I watch the new movie/series when it's still on the SSD and if I like it, I move it to HDD. When I want to watch it once again, it will be streamed from the HDD.

If you want to transcode with Plex, you need a good video card that can do the transcoding, the drive speed isn't that important.

Yes, that's true and I'm not saying storage will somehow improve transcoding. What I said (and maybe I explained it not well enough, I admit) was that I'm afraid that heavy IOPS load from cache and torrent/usenet clients reading/writing something 24/7 may (?) slow down other processes, incl. Plex transcoding (which also writes smth on disk, I assume). So the idea was to add another internal device (which can only be SATA in my case, since NVMe slot is already occupied by the "System" drive for OS/apps) of small size (e.g. 250Gb or even less) and move all IOPS-heavy operations (= Download/Torrent/Usenet folders) and the system (Windows in my case) cache to that drive.

Since my last message in this thread I found out that torrent clients (I assume the same applies to usenet clients) are not IOPS hungry, so a dedicated drive for them won't change anything at all. If that is true, I assume there is no much sense to have a dedicated drive for OS cache either, right? So looks like I will have everything (except for the media collection) on my NVMe. Do you guys agree that this is the most reasonable config?

 

[Red Falcon]

Not sure I understood the situation with cache. Plex (and some other apps) use cache actively - this is just a fact. The question is whether or not I will benefit from moving apps' cache to the second drive. In my case this is a 2242 PCIe Gen3 M.2 SATA. So should placing apps' cache to a standalone SATA be better than having it on a NVMe which is however a system disk?

This Transcend 512GB M.2 SATA 2242 SSD is pretty decent, and has 512MB of cache.
I've been using the 128GB version for a few years in a router with great success, so if you do have to populate the 2242 slot then this might be your best bet for M.2 SATA.

 

[Coolio]

This Transcend 512GB M.2 SATA 2242 SSD is pretty decent, and has 512MB of cache.
I've been using the 128GB version for a few years in a router with great success, so if you do have to populate the 2242 slot then this might be your best bet for M.2 SATA.

[underlined bold is mine] Thank you - appreciate your help with specific model! Now I need to define should I populate that slot? Like I said - as far as my research showed, downloads/upload in Torrent/Usenet clients are not very system-demanding in their constant read/writes to the disk. So maybe makes sense to move Windows/apps cache to this SATA drive - shall it speed up things somehow? Won't NVMe <-> SATA data exchange speeds (equal to SATA's max, which is slower than that of NVMe) become a new bottleneck, resulting in even slower performance vs. scenario when everything (OS, cache, apps) is on NVMe?

In other words: some data is taken from NVMe to SATA, processed there as cache, possibly (?) pushed back to NVMe (at SATA's bus speed) - won't everything be faster processed when only on NVMe (without SATA in the chain)?

 

[Red Falcon]

[underlined bold is mine] Thank you - appreciate your help with specific model! Now I need to define should I populate that slot? Like I said - as far as my research showed, downloads/upload in Torrent/Usenet clients are not very system-demanding in their constant read/writes to the disk. So maybe makes sense to move Windows/apps cache to this SATA drive - shall it speed up things somehow? Won't NVMe <-> SATA data exchange speeds (equal to SATA's max, which is slower than that of NVMe) become a new bottleneck, resulting in even slower performance vs. scenario when everything (OS, cache, apps) is on NVMe?

In other words: some data is taken from NVMe to SATA, processed there as cache, possibly (?) pushed back to NVMe (at SATA's bus speed) - won't everything be faster processed when only on NVMe (without SATA in the chain)?

For that task it won't make any difference between SATA or NVMe, so the choice is yours in regards to cost.
Everything being on NVMe will certainly be the fastest, but losing less than a second for your tasks won't even be noticeable.

If you have the budget and need the additional storage, or want less writes on your NVMe drive, then go with the SATA drive.
I also do this with my HP t740 Plus thin client as it has M.2 NVMe and M.2 SATA, and both are in use for various tasks.

 

[Coolio]

Everything being on NVMe will certainly be the fastest, but losing less than a second for your tasks won't even be noticeable.

Well, if its really the question of 0.5-1 sec, then I don't care, but if it's more - then that's a good reason to add SATA disk.
By they way, if cache resides on SATA, is there any intensive data exchange between SATA and NVMe where OS and apps are, or cache is directly pushed to RAM from wherever it resides (NVMe or SATA)?

If you have the budget and need the additional storage, or want less writes on your NVMe drive, then go with the SATA drive.

Well, in my area prices for 1Tb (which is enough for me) SSD NVMe PCIe 3.0 start from EUR/$40 (WD Green) to EUR/$50 (WD Blue) and to EUR/$95 (WD Red). With such prices SATA which you kindly recommended won't help price-wise, since it costs about EUR/$30. I assume that if this extra budget is available, it makes more sense to spend it for a jump from WD Blue to WD Red, as my MiniPC will work almost 24/7 - Red series, if I'm not mistaken, is for heavy use, e.g. in NAS devices.
As for the reduction of read/writes on NVMes I initially thought of that too, but the majority of articles of last years say that modern NVMes will outlive all of us, and the strategy of read/write cycles' reduction was much more relevant in the past. I'm just sharing what I've read, really.