PC with best data transfer rate

tech291083 said:

Is there a motherboard, Asus or otherwise, which can accommodate all of the 7 hard drives permanently inside a big cabinet?

Sure, My motherboard is a Rog Strix X570E-Gaming. I have 2 M.2 Slots, and 8 sata ports. None of my SATA ports are disabled when using both M.2 slots...so I could run 9 hard drives off the motherboard before I had to add a card with more ports.

tech291083 said:

Is this arrangement of 7 hard drives of three different types (HDD, SSD, M.2) realistically possible? Is there a cabinet out there?

Yes, midtowers and full atx towers can handle that.

tech291083 said:

In the past I used to erase/wipe my HDDs with a free tool called Darik's Boot and Nuke (DBAN), will I be able to use this tool on the SSDs and M.2 drives?

Nope, on the DBAN website it says it won't detect or erase SSD's.

tech291083 said:

I had no issues creating partitions on my HDDs in the near past, but I am not sure whether it is as easy when it comes to the SSDs and M.2 drives.

Process is the same, nothing will change here.

tech291083 said:

I have also cloned HDDs using a free tool called CloneZilla, but again I am not sure whether CloneZilla works with the SSDs and M.2 drives.

It works.

tech291083 said:

I did a RAID of 2 HDDs on a friend's PC many years ago, with a total of 3 HDDs, one being the boot drive and the other two forming a RAID arrangement. This time around, with these 7 hard drives of 3 different types, I want to create a RAID again and see whether different types of hard drives work well together or not.

This wouldn't make sense. If you mixed an SSD with a HDD, you effectively slow the SSD way down to the speed of the HDD. I would not bother with all of your RAID experiments.

tech291083 said:

Please suggest me the fastest if you have had the experience with PCIe 4.0. PCIe 3.0 and SATA 6Gb/s SSD.

All the M.2 brands you mentioned have a very fast drive. There isn't a clear cut fastest drive out there. Some have slighter faster reads, but slower writes. Others have faster writes, but slower reads. Some handle more IOP's, some have fewer IOP's. Some are faster if you go with specific capacities. So, you won't have a clear cut winner..it boils down to your needs.

The Kingston KC3000 is likely overall fastest for reads and writes combined. The Seagate Firecuda 530 is right there, so is the WD SN850 (this is what I have), and the Samsung 980 Pro. Your experience with any of these should be steller.

tech291083 said:

6. With my initial intention to keep all the above 7 hard drives three different types (HDD, SSD, M.2) permanently attached to the motherboard inside a big cabinet, what is the minimum power supply I should look at in terms of Watts?

M2's and SSD's take almost no power. HDD don't take much either. You can guess about 20w per HDD, 5W for SATA SSD, and about 8 watts per M.2 under full load.

So, here is a screenshot. I am copying a 4.5GB ISO file from my E drive on my system (which is a Sandisk Ultra 3D SATA SSD, which maxes out around 500MB/sec) and I am copying it to my NVMe drive (WD SN850)


Now I rebooted my PC (so nothing is cached). I am now copying from the SN850 (C partition) to the SN850 (D Partition),


My fastest performance would be between 2 separate PCIE 4 drives, but I only have 1 M.2 drive in my rig at the moment, so reading and writing to the same drive is the best I can do.

It's really hard by the way to catch these copies, as they happen so fast.

pparks1 said:

So, here is a screenshot. I am copying a 4.5GB ISO file from my E drive on my system (which is a Sandisk Ultra 3D SATA SSD, which maxes out around 500MB/sec) and I am copying it to my NVMe drive (WD SN850)


Now I rebooted my PC (so nothing is cached). I am now copying from the SN850 (C partition) to the SN850 (D Partition),


My fastest performance would be between 2 separate PCIE 4 drives, but I only have 1 M.2 drive in my rig at the moment, so reading and writing to the same drive is the best I can do.

It's really hard by the way to catch these copies, as they happen so fast.

Thanks lot for the screenshots. This gives me a real sense of speed. I am sorry that I am replying so that, so please forgive me.

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pparks1 said:

So, here is a screenshot. I am copying a 4.5GB ISO file from my E drive on my system (which is a Sandisk Ultra 3D SATA SSD, which maxes out around 500MB/sec) and I am copying it to my NVMe drive (WD SN850)

Now I rebooted my PC (so nothing is cached). I am now copying from the SN850 (C partition) to the SN850 (D Partition),

My fastest performance would be between 2 separate PCIE 4 drives, but I only have 1 M.2 drive in my rig at the moment, so reading and writing to the same drive is the best I can do.

It's really hard by the way to catch these copies, as they happen so fast.

From what you have said, I can conclude the following.

1. SSDs and M.2 SSDs both are much faster than normal HDDs.
2. M.2 SSDs are also much faster than normal SSDs.
3. Copying data from one location to the other on the same drive (SSD/M.2) is always much faster than copying data between two different types of drives SSDs and M.2

Please correct me if I am wrong. Thanks.

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MaloK said:

Lately I've been using only Samsung 860 / 870 EVO to build Desktops and they always reach the maximum theoretical speed without problems.

that's on my cheap DELL, screenshot doesn't really show off because it's so fast it has not the time to calculate remaining time.
This is with Samsung Rapid Enabled.

Attachment 355985

Really interesting screenshots. Super fast speed data transfer rate. Thanks.

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MaloK said:

This is with Samsung Rapid Enabled.

How do you enable Samsung Rapid? In BIOS? Do all motherboard brands support this Samsung Rapid feature? I am a little worried. Thanks.

Samsung Rapid is supported by the drive itself and it is a software memory cache that enables optimized I/O Bursting and lazy write back. It's part of the Samsung Magician Suite.

MaloK said:

Samsung Rapid is supported by the drive itself and it is a software memory cache that enables optimized I/O Bursting and lazy write back. It's part of the Samsung Magician Suite.

OK. But is it necessary to install Samsung Magician Suite if I want to use a Samsung M.2 SSD? Thanks

No, Magician is optional and the SSD will work perfectly without it.

tech291083 said:

1. SSDs and M.2 SSDs both are much faster than normal HDDs.
2. M.2 SSDs are also much faster than normal SSDs.
3. Copying data from one location to the other on the same drive (SSD/M.2) is always much faster than copying data between two different types of drives SSDs and M.2

Please correct me if I am wrong. Thanks.

#1: Yes
#2: Yes
#3: The copy speed is dictated by the slowest drive. If you SSD writes 500MB/sec and you are copying to it, you are going to be limited to 500MB/sec. If you were coming from an HDD, it wouldn't matter as the HDD cannot go 500MB/sec.

The fastest transfer would be between a PCIe Gen 4 NVMe and another PCIE Gen 4 NVME in the same system. I would get closer to 5,000MB/sec on the transfer. This is faster than reading and writing to the same drive. But i don't have 2 PCIE gen 4's in my box. Just the one.
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Really interesting screenshots. Super fast speed data transfer rate. Thanks.

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How do you enable Samsung Rapid? In BIOS? Do all motherboard brands support this Samsung Rapid feature? I am a little worried. Thanks.[/QUOTE]

pparks1, Thanks a lot.