Firecuda

[dante]

Im wondering if I can drop a couple of these to replace the M2 Samsung SSD in my Gigabyte Z390 setup:

Firecuda SSD

firecuda-ssd.jpg (32.75 KiB) Viewed 15213 times

Seagate 1TB SSD, FireCuda 530, M.2 2280 NVMe 1.4 PCIe Gen4, Read up to 7,300MB/s, Write up to 6,000MB/s, Random R/W up to 800K/1,000K IOPS, 1.8M Hours MTBF, 1275TBW

[dawman]

You won’t get the Gen 4 speeds since the Z390 is Gen 3 x 4.

I just stuck a Gen 3 x 4 in a Gen 4 slot as I just didn’t see any advantages from Gen 3 to Gen 4.
The specs are “better” but in our apps you might see slightly faster loads but that’s about it.

I know guys who bought Intel’s because they beat the pants off of everyone with random read and small seq files, which we use.
And even then it just doesn’t show any real difference because of ASIO limitations.

The best things we can do is max out IPC and lower our latency.
I don’t even see a difference from SSDs except I can load samples from Omnisphere a little quicker.

But for the OS + Apps NVMe M.2’s if connected to primary slot (direct to CPU) is a good way to keep things snappy…

[Berny Shoes]

Thank you for this question and answer.

Dante, I have same Z390 and wonder if you populated the 3 m2 slots of the mb? and has this caused any conflicts or slow downs on the pcie bus? Curious to know as I currently use only the top m2 slot and are looking to fill the other 2.
Also my current m2 (Samsung 970 PRO 1 TB PCIe NVMe M.2) doesn’t show up in the bios as an m2 device but rather as an ssd, is this similar to how yours is recognised by the gigabyte bios?

Cheers!

[valis]

M.2 is the connector type. The format of the card is the length etc (2280, 2242 etc) which impacts how much the pcb can hold. The electrical connection will show as SATA or NVME (which is PCIe), and this dictates the speed of the unit (along with the controller used, type of name, configuration of band pool and the type of I/o load).

[valis]

Firecuda isn’t bad, but the WD black is the top performing unit right now (in consumer price ranges).

And they’re correct, a PCIe 4.0 device will generate a lot of unnecessary heat due to the intended performance, and that’s going to be wasted in a slower slot (the chips still run hot aka full speed, the interface slows the data rate for peak usage).

More importantly, daw man hints at what you really want to know, which is sustained write and read performance, especially once band buffers (SLC write cache etc) are exhausted. Most drives slow to SATA HD (magnetic spindle disk) speeds once their cache is exhausted.

[dante]

@Bernie. See my gear here.

https://www.forums.scopeusers.com/viewt ... 31&t=36241

Scorptec build put in the 2 Evo SSD - can’t remember any free slots, as I checked it out when installing the Xite and Thunderbolt

System runs smooth as ice. No need to tweak really

[Bud Weiser]

I´m using Crucial P5 M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4 in my Win10 x64/ AsRock Z390M Pro4 machine.
2 of these,- a Crucial MX500 SATA600 SSD and a WD VelociRaptor 300GB SATA600 HDD in addition.

The Crucial P5 is fast enough for OS and data storage, streaming audio from etc..

Samsung 970 EVO plus NVMe PCIe 3.0 x4,- I use almost exclusively for NI Komplete 12 Ultimate CE in my Win7 Pro x64 machine.

And even my Lenovo W540 Intel i7 quad/ Win10 laptop runs fast enough for audio/MIDI just only w/ a Toshiba 240GB SATA600 SSD for OS and add. int. Crucial MX500 SATA600 SSD for data storage.
4.8ms ASIO roundtip latency w/ ASIO4All latest beta for Win10.
"ESI MidiMate eX" as a simple MIDI interface to connect w/ my Miditemp PMM88E front MIDI I/Os.

Even better w/ SCOPE v7 and XITE,- when connected.



Bud

[Bud Weiser]

@Bernie. See my gear here.

https://www.forums.scopeusers.com/viewt ... 31&t=36241

Scorptec build put in the 2 Evo SSD - can’t remember any free slots, as I checked it out when installing the Xite and Thunderbolt

System runs smooth as ice. No need to tweak really

Normally, when installing more than 1 (one) M.2 PCIe x4 on a modern mainboard,- you´ll lose something for.
Mainly 2 of the SATA600 ports but can also be 1 or 2 of the PCIe x1 slots, eSATA or some internal/onboard miniPCIe connectivity or such.
It also might reduce bandwidth of one of the PCIe x16/8 or x4 slots by about 50% and might share same memory adresses in addition.

It´s typically documented in the mobo´s manual,- at least for the AsRock boards.
Usually no biggie,- but in your case the main issue could be, you´re losing exactly the PCIe x4 or x1 slot you actually use for XITE.
In that case you´d have to use a different slot and reinstall SCOPE drivers.



Bud

[valis]

You may not see issues unless you're saturating things, even with an SSD the pcie bus negotiates traffic much better than with legacy systems (our PCI cards). With a proper bridge chip (or when a device is simply disabled due to another being used) there aren't issues, in some cases you might have reduced functionality (drop from 16x to 8x/8x, or 8x/4x/1x, or possibly loss of full nvme and fallback to sata lanes that lose ports elsewhere, etc).

Bud is correct, each implementation is different so refer to the manual. ASRock in particular often has different jumpers and bios settings than in their manual...I usually try to document all that during a build.

[dawman]

You should have your main storage device (OS) and audio interface connected when doing a new or reconfiguring a build.

Personally I’d use an NVMe for OS + Apps.
Then add another device, if it’s for streaming samples and not loading samples, a large SSD would be advised. Make sure you can see that by adding another NVMe M.2 device, that it doesn’t need the 2 ports the standard SSD needs.

Now you simply look at the math/deduction of SATA Ports by adding another NVMe M.2..

This is why I avoid these 8/16 lane GFX cards. I stick with fast CPUs that have GFX already.
You get 24 lanes and can usually just plug and play hassle free.

I’ve been using NVMe M.2s and ASRock before their manuals even mentioned them.
They’re like Scope cards actually. A pain in the ass, but once they work it’s all gravy after that.

I’d stick with a pair of large SSDs and a pair of 1TB NVMe M.2s.
It’s always the 3rd NVMe M.2 where everything starts heading south.