Hello Guys,
So, planning to build a NVMe build. 4-8 using an AIC. I prefer PCIe 4.0.
I read about that SSD can have very poor random read/write. Is that true? If so, how can i select the best one?
Thanks
I mean, the depths of Ali Express have all sorts of garbage, but, generally speaking, the point of SSDs is that they’re good at random I/O.
What’s your actual objective, i.e. what workload and performance requirements?
No, not going to buy from AliExpress at all. xD
To store the rendered data from Mac and also store which needs to be accessed frequently. The performance requirements are Gen4, if possible a good endurance.
So I guess you’ll want something that is at least decently fast after exhausting the SLC cache, though beyond that your does not seem to be a very challenging scenario.
I’ve just always used samsung pro drives for “pro” work.
The pro drives used to be made to handle more sustained I/o. Probably still are.
And Samsung is/was the oem for Apple.
Haven’t seen anything which would have me believe that’s still not good advice.
And since Intel left the game…
Well, they’re just called Solidigm now, but otherwise it’s the same, generally.
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I prefer Samsung however I did purchase six 4TB M.2 NVMe drives (Nexstorage) for $200/each, great price, and performance it good, well overkill for my needs. I have no idea what their reputation is, but I’m happy.
You are apt to have a limitation of your network speed.
Also, Gen4 and Gen5 generate a lot of heat. Plan your case design up front for good constant airflow across the NVMe drives. It does not need to be fast, but it needs to have airflow. I have a build on the old forums you can take a look at, might help, might not.
For something that is going to be this expensive, plan, plan, plan. And know what your requirements are. Mine was silence and power consumption, not speed.
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So, if you are considering a purchase of some NVMe drives for your NAS, do you research on the drives. Read reviews which go into their sustained read/write/random read/write etc performance.
If you plan for the worst case performance… then anything better will be a bonus.
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There is no best drive, it all depends on what you need. As @joeschmuck already mentioned you are going to have to get some good NICs, as well as wiring to be able to use the full performance of the drives. At home I’m still in the process of upgrading swtiches and so on to 10Gbps. Currently with 1Gbps I’m exhausting my network connection before even coming close to the performance of my HDD-based NAS. So you might even have to then consider going SFP+ or similar.
Besides that: The Samsung Pros have become worse over the years, but are still mostly just fine. I’ve got quite a few WD Blacks flying around here to throw into PCs/laptops, because they are cheap, from a reputable brand and perform just fine. WD recommends the Reds though for NAS purposes, the popular NVMe-ones here would be the SN700, the bigger, the better the performance. Assuming you have no regard for money and just want as fast as humanly possible get some KIOXIA XG8 as a cache and back them up with KIOXIA CD8-R for mass storage, they are 2.5" form factor though (but still PCIe 4.0 and NVMe)
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Hello all
Sorry to hijack this tread however i speaks to my concern
I ran into a pickle (as i posted on an other thread) and am considering to re install proxmox and 3 VMs on a much larger boot disk
Currently I have a 128GB ssd which I need to/will upgrade to a +500gb
I will be installed in a dellr720 pci card
Will i draw any benefits of using an m2 nvme instead of an ssd as a proxmox and VM boot drive location?
Thank you for your guidance
This might be worth trying - FLASHSTOR 12 Pro (FS6712X) M.2 NVMe SSD NAS | Store more in a flash! | ASUSTOR NAS
All NVMe devices (until such a time when - if - HDDs with NVMe interfaces become available) are SSDs, so this is a bizarre question.
Thank you for your response @ericloewe
So for the boot drive a M2 nvme has no tangible benefit. Good to know
Then I will just buy an ssd
Simple
Thank you for your input
Exactly. I’m looking for Solidgm P44 Pro. Any idea on that? I’m not sure whether i should use a DC enterprise SSD. Not going to get Samsung for all the reasons i have.
Yes, that’s why working on the planning part first 
How about Solidgm P44 Pro? Is that a good drive? Have read very positive reviews about that. The system will run for 24x7 and almost the read/write will have very frequently on a daily basis.
Again: NVMe drives are SSDs! Please mind the terminology.
In typical HDD strorage builds, using a NVMe drive for boot has the benefit of not using a SATA port. Performance is mostly irrelevant here.
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Why not create your own separate thread? People might help you actually better.
Well, i looked at it before and it uses Celeron N5105 which has 8 lanes, Gen3. I know that the Chipset has some lanes as well. But i don’t think it would run all the 12 NVMe at X4 full speed.
And for an NVMe build, 16GB RAM is too less for the incoming speed to handle. Although, its still 10GbE Network.
What is the purpose of the build? What are the perfomance requirements? And why do you “prefer PCIe 4.0”, save for it being newer and shinier than PCIe 3.0?
What is an “AIC” in this context? Adapters/risers which rely on motherboard bifurcation are not really what I would qualify as “AIC”. Tri-Mode controllers should be avoided. A PLX switch on a card would qualify as AIC, but PCIe 4.0 switches are few (Highpoint) and very expensive compared with 3.0.
For NVMe drives you only need PCIe lanes. 4 drives is easy (consumer Ryzen bifurcated x4x4x4x4). 8 drives lands you into Xeon Scalable/EPYC territory, or requires a PCIe switch.
Forget M.2 and go for data centre U.2/U.3 drives.