Table of Contents

[TOC]

Introduction

The Problem this Article solves

When building your custom PC you need to choose your boot disk. You get your pick out of 3 physical disk interfaces, several mechanical form factors, storage technologies and of course lots of brands and capacities. This Article sorts it all out and helps you to find the right boot disk for your computer.

How this Article solves the problem

This Article is part of two community projects, all designed to simplify building DIY PCs

  • V²Configurator: GitHub Project. The Configurator assists you when configuration your PC
  • This Article Series: In depth Know How. In case you want to tune Ready Made Configurations of the V² Configurator

Is there an easier way?

Yes! Learning how to choose components for a DIY computer is time consuming. This is why we created a shortcut for you. Go to the V²Configurator and open the Wizard. Pick your field of application, e.g. photography and then pick the main use and the configurator will custom build a complete computer for you, optimized for your use case and performance class.

Understanding Disk Technologies for Boot Disk

SSD vs HDD for Boot Disk

In terms of speeding up a PC, nothing beats value for money over using an SSD. As such all our Ready Made Configuration use SSD as Boot Disk. At small sizes SSD are even lower cost than HDD. For $40 US you can get a 120 GB SSD. Enough space for boot disk and and work data. If however you want to store large amounts of data, say photos, videos, etc…, then we recommend your data to be stored on a second HDD for cost reasons. Using RAID 5 technology, you can make HDD quite save and fast. More about that in the Article → How to choose your Data Disks or → V²Configurator►6. PC Parts►Data Disk (Single).

Why it is important that the Boot-Disk is fast?

  1. The responsiveness of your computer depends on the responsiveness of the disk which your Operating Systems uses to boot. Faster Boot Disk will make your PC feel to you much faster.
  2. Installer defaults will assume that your Boot-Disk is the fastest disk in your system and will put caches on the Boot-Disk. If your Boot-Disk is not the fastest disk, by default your Apps will run slower.

SATA3 vs NVME-M.2 vs NVME-PCIe

Nowadays SSDs are faster than SATA 3. In response the industry developed M2 Modules and NVME PCIe Add In Cards. There are also NVME 2.5” disks, but they are not easy to connect. Here is a brief overview.

Feature SATA3 SSD 2.5” M2 Module PCIe NVME
Theoretical Max Speed 0.65 GBps 4 GBps 4 GBps
Practical Max Speed 0.65 GBps 2.5 GBps 2.5 GBps
Motherboard Compatibility every B150 B150
Boot in BIOS Mode Yes Yes Yes
Boot in UEFI Mode Yes Yes Yes
Win Support out of box 7, 8, 10 10 10
Ubuntu Support since ever 14.04 LTS + 14.04 LTS +
Speed @ 100% workload 100% 50% 100%

Conclusion: Today M2 and PCIe NVME can be 300% faster than your SATA SSD. But you need latest OS and latest motherboard in order for it to be easy to install and so that booting from these disks is supported out of the box. Also care during installation need to be taken to use the Disk in UEFI Mode. These disks are trouble to install and are more expensive, but they give you a 300% performance increase, which can be very significant, depending on your application. Please also note that M2 modules quickly overheat and throttle down the speed. This is OK for typical consumer use, such a loading a game, but this is not OK in server or professional applications. In such cases choose the PCIe NVME. They have a large heat sink integrated and do not have a problem of overheating.

We have mitigated the M2 overheating problem somewhat, by a) choosing a module that runs cooler and b) offering a heat sink to cool the IC that is getting hot.

What about NVME 2.5” Disks?

Simply put, they forgot to standardize the cables to connect to a motherboard. Wherever we looked, people avoided using these drives in use cases requiring direct connection to a motherboard. In such case simply use the PCIe Add In Card version.

What about mSATA?

We build systems with mSATA. But they have two problems: a) They run significantly more hot than the 2.5” counterparts and b) mSATA to SATA adapter are finicky. Instead we choose to offer plenty of 2.5” bays to make your life easy and simply use 2.5” SSD disks. Cheaper, easier to buy, run cooler and better brands available.

What about SSD SATA RAID

You can stripe SATA SSD in RAID 0 to double the data rate or mirror the disks for higher availability. You need an Intel Motherboard that supports RAID. Only high end motherboards have this feature.

Choice of Boot Disk

  • SATA3 2.5” SSD 120GB-$45 - Kingston - SSDNow V300 Series - SV300S37A/120G
  • SATA3 2.5” SSD 250GB-$90 - Samsung - 850 EVO- MZ-75E250B/AM
  • SATA RAID 0 SSD 500 GB $320 - 2x Samsung - 850 EVO- MZ-75E250B/AM
  • SATA RAID 1 SSD 250 GB $180 - 2x Samsung - 850 EVO- MZ-75E250B/AM
  • SATA3 2.5” SSD 500GB- $160 - Samsung - 850 EVO - MZ-7KE512BW
  • SATA3 2.5” SSD 1TB- $366 - Samsung - 850 EVO - MZ-75E1T0B/AM
  • NVME M.2 SSD 256 GB - $200 - Samsung - 950 Pro - MZ-V5P256BW
  • NVME M.2 SSD 512 GB - $350 - Samsung - 950 Pro - MZ-V5P512BW
  • NVME PCIe SSD 400 GB - $ 370 - Intel - 750 - SSDPEDMW400G4X1
  • NVME PCIe SSD 800 GB - $ 700 - Intel - 750 - SSDPEDMW800G4X1

Comparison Table

Disk Read Speed Write Speed Read IOPS Write IOPS
Average HDD 150 MB/s 150 MB/s 0.1K 0.1K
SATA3 2.5” SSD 120GB 450 MB/s 450 MB/s 85K 55K
SATA3 2.5” SSD 250GB 540 MB/s 520 MB/s 197K 88K
SATA RAID 0 SSD 500 GB 1000 MB/s 1000 MB/s 350k 140k
SATA RAID 1 SSD 250 GB 540 MB/s 520 MB/s 197K 88K
SATA3 2.5” SSD 500GB 540 MB/s 520 MB/s 98k 90K
SATA3 2.5” SSD 1TB 540 MB/s 520 MB/s 98k 90K
NVME M.2 SSD 256GB 2.2 GB/s 900 MB/s 270k 85K
NVME M.2 SSD 512GB 2.5 GB/s 1.5 GB/s 300k 110K
NVME PCIe SSD 400GB 2.2 GB/s 900 MB/s 430k 230k
NVME PCIe SSD 800GB 2.1 GB/s 800 MB/s 420k 210k

Choice / Links / Reasoning

Advice

SSD vs HDD for Boot Disk

In terms of speeding up a PC, nothing beats value for money over using an SSD. As such all our Ready Made Configuration use SSD as Boot Disk. At small sizes SSD are even lower cost than HDD. For $40 US you can get a 120 GB SSD. Enough space for boot disk and and work data. If however you want to store large amounts of data, say photos, videos, etc…, then we recommend your Data to be stored on a second HDD for cost reasons. Using RAID 5 technology, you can make HDD quite save and fast.

Why a fast Boot-Disk is so important?

  1. The responsiveness of your computer depends on the responsiveness of the disk which your Operating Systems uses to boot. A faster boot disk will make your PC feel like you just bought it, making boot time and loading applications take a matter of seconds.
  2. Installer defaults will assume that your Boot-Disk is the fastest disk in your system and will put caches on the Boot-Disk. If your boot disk is not the fastest disk, by default your Apps will run slower.

Entry Level and Mid Range

Choose SATA 3 SSD for Entry Level and Mid Range PC configurations. They are low cost, fast, easy top install and compatible to all OS and Motherboards. If you are upgrading from a PC with an HDD you are in for a treat. Even the entry level SSD nowadays is 10 x faster the the best Desktop HDD from yesteryear.

High End

You have two choices for higher performance of SATA3 SSD: 1) RAID 0 of two SATA3 SSD. This will double the speed and capacity. Alternatively choose NVME M.2. For twice the cost you get about 300 … 400% speed increase over SSD or 150 … 200% of speed over RAID0 SSD. Bear in mind that this only works well with latest high end motherboards and latest OS and requires extra care during installation. When the time comes we will provide a How-To Video on YouTube.

High Performance Server

Consumer M.2 modules overheat when loaded with the workload of a server and they also do not support that kind of workload. This is where the 750 Series from Intel fits in. In terms of IO Operations even faster than NVME M.2 modules and designed for the heavy load in a Server. In case you want to build a system with even more reliability, you can choose SSD RAID 1 for a redundant boot disk and choose the NVME-PCIe as Data Disk.

Recommendations on capacities

For a regular PC running Windows 10 or Ubuntu and a bunch of Apps 120 GB will be fine. If your budget is not too tight for $50 US more you get 250 GB and have some room to grow. If you store a lot of Photos / Movies / Songs you will need more space. However, for these data a slower HDD will do in most cases and gives you more space for your money. For more information → Data Disk.

References

  • http://www.samsung.com/us/computer/ssd-evo
  • http://www.samsung.com/us/computer/ssd-pro
  • http://www.pcworld.com/article/2904340/intel-750-series-ssd-review-storage-so-fast-only-the-highest-end-pcs-can-keep-up.html
  • http://www.pcworld.com/article/2899351/everything-you-need-to-know-about-nvme.html
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SATA_Express#U.2
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NVM_Express