Amazon has Crucial T500 2tb on sale for $138.99
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CK2TC9XQ
Microcenter
https://www.microcenter.com/produ...ternal_SSD
Newegg
https://www.newegg.com/crucial-2t...efdaf3409e
Best Buy
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/cruc...Id=6566097
Walmart
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Crucia...5073229417
Crucial store
https://www.crucial.com/ssd/t500/...08020340:s
B&H Photos
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/pr...UqEALw_wcB
Crucial T500 2TB Gen4 NVMe M.2 Internal Gaming SSD, Up to 7400MB/s, Laptop & Desktop Compatible
LIGHTNING SPEEDS: Get incredible performance with sequential reads/writes up to 7,400/7,000MB/s and random read/writes up to 1.18M/1.44M IOPs
COMPATIBLE: Ready for performance with your laptop, desktop or workstation, the T500 installs easily in your M.2 slot
ULTIMATE GAMING: Load games up to 16% faster and get faster texture renders and less CPU utilization with Microsoft DirectStorage
CONTENT CREATION: Get up to 42% faster performance in content creation apps, run heavy workloads, and render photos or videos faster
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CK2TC9XQ
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Our community has rated this post as helpful. If you agree, why not thank mihscr
Edit: To clarify, SSD performance tiers and the presence of DRAM etc. have almost no impact on PC gaming. Tests run by reputable outlets have shown that, even between SATA (capped at 600 MB/s) and NVMe SSDs, differences in gaming performance and loading times are (1) insignificant and (2) unnoticeable to the user.
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which is to say, at this moment, paying premium for nvme speed for games, is a complete waste of money. you can have the slowest SSD vs fastest gen 4 NVME, and you game loading time difference will be no where as significant as the spec difference, if there is a difference at all.
which is to say, at this moment, paying premium for nvme speed for games, is a complete waste of money. you can have the slowest SSD vs fastest gen 4 NVME, and you game loading time difference will be no where as significant as the spec difference, if there is a difference at all.
There was a recent $135 980 pro 2tb w/ heatsink deal that was very popular so if anyone missed that, this Crucial is closely priced and even has better specs to justify it.
My motherboard has M2 heat sinks so this deal was slick to me cause I need one sooner than later.
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If you need the extra, mega, superduper premium performance for productivity use cases that require fast reads/writes, then sure, this might be what you're looking for, given the current market.
PS: Just spotted a similarly specced MSI Spatium M482 2TB for $109 + an extra 10% off ($98): https://us-store.msi.com/PC-Compo...Me-M.2-2TB
There was a recent $135 980 pro 2tb w/ heatsink deal that was very popular so if anyone missed that, this Crucial is closely priced and even has better specs to justify it.
My motherboard has M2 heat sinks so this deal was slick to me cause I need one sooner than later.
Our community has rated this post as helpful. If you agree, why not thank redvibez
If you need the extra, mega, superduper premium performance for productivity use cases that require fast reads/writes, then sure, this might be what you're looking for, given the current market.
PS: Just spotted a similarly specced MSI Spatium M482 2TB for $109 + an extra 10% off ($98): https://us-store.msi.com/PC-Compo...Me-M.2-2TB
DRAM-less storage tend to be slower and less expensive, useful if one is only concerned about productivity software and web browsing. One should be getting ssd with DRAM cache if one wishes to game.
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Our community has rated this post as helpful. If you agree, why not thank mihscr
DRAM-less storage tend to be slower and less expensive, useful if one is only concerned about productivity software and web browsing.
Edited for clarity.
Our community has rated this post as helpful. If you agree, why not thank seanleeforever
DRAM-less storage tend to be slower and less expensive, useful if one is only concerned about productivity software and web browsing. One should be getting ssd with DRAM cache if one wishes to game.
DRAM was used for caching user data in HDD.
you are referring to the SLC caching, which is a controller function that all drive do nowadays.
DRam is used to temporarily store mapping data of which block of information is stored at which flash cell (because flash cell works better when multiple cells are written in parallel, but that means data are scattered around your entire drive). as you moving data around, that mapping has to be constantly updated. due to the faster speed, dram is a more desire medium for this job. when a ssd/nvme boots up, its mapping data is copied from flash cell to dram, and update to the drive data is done in the dram and then write into the flash.
for dramless drives, they make use of host memory buffer (HMB), so the mapping content is copied and manipulated in the host memory instead of on board memory. it could be an issue if you are on a OS that doesn't support HMB, but HMB is standard as of nvme 1.2.
in modern day OS like windows that support HMB, you are likely not going to find any meaningful difference between dram vs dramless drives in performance. any performance separation is due to the controller and flash themselves, not the dram portion.
dram is more important for Sata SSD, as there isn't a HMB like standard for SATA, updating the mapping data and rewrite of that information in flash not only reduce the drive performance, but also the cell life.
If you need the extra, mega, superduper premium performance for productivity use cases that require fast reads/writes, then sure, this might be what you're looking for, given the current market.
PS: Just spotted a similarly specced MSI Spatium M482 2TB for $109 + an extra 10% off ($98): https://us-store.msi.com/PC-Compo...Me-M.2-2TB
DRAM was used for caching user data in HDD.
you are referring to the SLC caching, which is a controller function that all drive do nowadays.
DRam is used to temporarily store mapping data of which block of information is stored at which flash cell (because flash cell works better when multiple cells are written in parallel, but that means data are scattered around your entire drive). as you moving data around, that mapping has to be constantly updated. due to the faster speed, dram is a more desire medium for this job. when a ssd/nvme boots up, its mapping data is copied from flash cell to dram, and update to the drive data is done in the dram and then write into the flash.
for dramless drives, they make use of host memory buffer (HMB), so the mapping content is copied and manipulated in the host memory instead of on board memory. it could be an issue if you are on a OS that doesn't support HMB, but HMB is standard as of nvme 1.2.
in modern day OS like windows that support HMB, you are likely not going to find any meaningful difference between dram vs dramless drives in performance. any performance separation is due to the controller and flash themselves, not the dram portion.
dram is more important for Sata SSD, as there isn't a HMB like standard for SATA, updating the mapping data and rewrite of that information in flash not only reduce the drive performance, but also the cell life.
https://www.xda-developers.com/ho...20for%20it.
They say that loading benefits "immensely" from using DRAM cache.
I think DRAM on the drive benefits writes more than reads. Gaming is extremely read-heavy, and reads are cached in system memory anyways. Since I use it for both read and write heavy purposes, the DRAM is what I'd want, I think.
But I don't really know honestly. Perhaps they are somewhat similar in performance and some people find that small difference significant.
https://www.xda-developers.com/ho...20for%20it.
They say that loading benefits "immensely" from using DRAM cache.
I think DRAM on the drive benefits writes more than reads. Gaming is extremely read-heavy, and reads are cached in system memory anyways. Since I use it for both read and write heavy purposes, the DRAM is what I'd want, I think.
But I don't really know honestly. Perhaps they are somewhat similar in performance and some people find that small difference significant.
And if you just continue reading the HMB section of the article you quoted,
"This approach leverages the high-speed and non-volatile nature of system's RAM to achieve benefits that are similar to a dedicated DRAM cache on the SSD."
conclusion aside (which is correct), system ram (and dram) is very much volatile, that's why a sudden power off can erase your data in memory, and that's why data center's SSD have a build in capacitor to make sure mapping data is written back to the flash before power off.
everyone can be a tech writer nowadays, even ones without basic knowledge of computers hardware
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And if you just continue reading the HMB section of the article you quoted,
"This approach leverages the high-speed and non-volatile nature of system's RAM to achieve benefits that are similar to a dedicated DRAM cache on the SSD."
conclusion aside (which is correct), system ram (and dram) is very much volatile, that's why a sudden power off can erase your data in memory, and that's why data center's SSD have a build in capacitor to make sure mapping data is written back to the flash before power off.
everyone can be a tech writer nowadays, even ones without basic knowledge of computers hardware
Or is the DRAM less MSI one okay?
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