Intel 660p questions

Would it be better performance and longevity wise to get a sinle 2 tb m.2 drive or 2 1tb m.2 drives?

Note i am a gamer not a content creater.

 

2 1TB drives would offer more performance usually, but would have far less reliability than 1 2TB

 

Not sure as I would sell life assurance to ether option. Quad bits are yet to prove their reliability.

Slowest is random read so that's what's gona count.
The 2TB is a bit faster there, although not twice. My guess is that it's a bit of a toss in practice. Be gobsmacked if you could notice the difference.

Go for the 2TB and save the extra slot. One day you might need it. Or better still get something with the bugs shaken out.

 

Since the drives in either 1tb or 2tb both have the 8gb limit on high speed cache under proper configuration the 2 1tb drives could have better performance. since you stand the chance of uneven wear levels between the drives the single 2tb drive will have better longevity. Since the big write hit will be installing games my guess will be the new drive will take all the hit for usage on the first install so either configuration will be limited by the single 8gb cache.

Because of that the single 2tb drive is the simpler option and probably best suited for your usage.

 

Given a certain performance level, (double) the capacity always trumps marginal performance gains from having multiple, smaller drives.

The 2TB 660p certainly meets and exceeds this 'minimum' performance we expect in 2019...

If the 8GB cache is really a sore point for the intended usage scenarios, then the 660p is the wrong drive to be comparing 'stats' and 'scores' on.

 

Agreed, the 8gb cache as a sore point will be right after game installs until the drive clears the cache. Till then though the drive can be slowed down to SATA HDD speeds.

Use crystal disk info and look at your usage over a few days. As an example my usage is about 1gb NAND writes a day. This is well within what a 660P can handle.

 

Lol. How do you know what the 660P can handle?

Anybody remember the Samsung 840 mess? They showed as much integrity in sorting it out as the time Intel's Pentium's got their divisions wrong.

That was when 3 bits was new. Like 4 bits is now. Probably all will be good this time but probably is way under certainly.

 

There is a chart by size;
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-ssd-660p-qlc-nvme,5719.html

 

Well have to admit that on paper the Tomshardware.com results are impressive.
Not the fastest but close as makes no difference.
Very efficient so will run cool & not wast batteries.

Still going to advise people to wait 6 months.
Then again. Somebody has to take the plunge..... and this time it won't be me.
I'm going to sit back and watch... err where is the popcorn?