Show off your PC!

I find a PCIe is only really useful for servers, and maybe pro gamers, but for an everyday user, nope.

PCIe SSD is a new way of adding the speed of a solid-state drive (SSD) to server and storage devices. What are the benefits, drawbacks and adoption rate of PCIe SSD?


PCIe SSD technology is the latest incarnation of the solid-state driverevolution sweeping the data centre. For the most part, SSDs in the data centre have used conventional storage interfaces designed to support mechanical drives, but recently drives have been developed for the high-speed PCIe bus interface. This style of interface is catching on, slowly, so what are the benefits and drawbacks of PCIe SSDs?

​PCIe SSD: What it is and how you can use it

Yea, I would agree for Servers and data centers. They should be a major improvement for them. For a home computer user, I can't quite see a big advantage unless you just have to have the biggest, latest and fastest. That has always been me, but not so much anymore.

I think one of them would look great in your new case Steve.

essenbe said:

I had every intention to get a Samsung 950 M.2 when they came out. But, after thinking about it, I didn't see a whole lot of benefit to them. Benchmark wise, there is no comparison. The PCIe NVME based ones are 4 to 5 times faster than the typical mainstream SSDs. But, when transferring data, you are limited to the write performance of the device you are transferring to. Data transfers to a mechanical hard drive would be the same. A typical SSD can already transfer data faster than a mechanical hard drive can write. Transferring to a typical sata based SSD, will be faster than to a mechanical drive, but SSDs can all read faster than they can write, so you are already maxing out the capability of sata based SSDs. It would seem that the only advantage between a sata based SSD and a PCIe SSD would be that Photoshop, Cyberlink Power Director or a game will load in 25 seconds instead of 1 minute. Is that worth the extra money the PCIe solution costs? That depends on you I guess. For me the answer was no. The difference right now is a 500 GB Samsung 850 EVO can be bought for around $140-150. A 512 GB Samsung 950 PCIe SSD is around $325. To me, a game loading 40 seconds faster is not worth the extra $200. At least, that's the way I see it.

Makes sense to me!

Dude said:

I think one of them would look great in your new case Steve.

Agreed!

Thanks for that @Cliff S - it helped me to understand the technology.

simrick said:

Thanks for that @Cliff S - it helped me to understand the technology.

You're welcome, that was the idea to help people decide if they need it, or just want expensive bragging rights.
I went through that phase last year.
One advantage of the PCIe though is, if like me, you don't have enough SATA ports, and an extra PCIe
slot, well, put the OS on the PCIe, and use the SSD(or get a TB one and use it for a data drive & system image drive(get a Samsung Pro with 10 year warranty).

The technology is in practical terms, the sata SSDs run through the sata bus which is limited to a max of about 550 MB/s right now. The PCIe NVME does not run through the sata bus. It runs through PCIe lanes which are faster and run directly to the CPU. An X4 PCIe SSD can theoretically do 10 GB/s instead of the sata 550 MB/s. In practice, I think the max now on home computers would be around 3 GB/s. But, whatever you are transferring to is the limiting factor. That number is the same. With the regular sata drives, they can already more than max out the fastest mechanical drive or even another SSD.

I can see an advantage for data servers but can't see it in a home PC. But, that's just my opinion. In the spirit of full disclosure: That does not mean I will not buy one anyway.

essenbe said:

The technology is in practical terms, the sata SSDs run through the sata bus which is limited to a max of about 550 MB/s right now. The PCIe NVME does not run through the sata bus. It runs through PCIe lanes which are faster and run directly to the CPU. An X4 PCIe SSD can theoretically do 10 GB/s instead of the sata 550 MB/s. In practice, I think the max now on home computers would be around 3 GB/s. But, whatever you are transferring to is the limiting factor. That number is the same. With the regular sata drives, they can already more than max out the fastest mechanical drive or even another SSD.

I can see an advantage for data servers but can't see it in a home PC. But, that's just my opinion. In the spirit of full disclosure: That does not mean I will not buy one anyway.

Can you picture how much faster a program that needs swap or page files would be?
A PCIe SSD is basically a huge RAM.

essenbe said:

...In the spirit of full disclosure: That does not mean I will not buy one anyway.

I KNEW it!!