Hi. I currently have a 4tb nvme drive for App Data and Downloads. I decided I'm going to buy two NVMEs for App Data (and mirror them).

 

Just a quick question really, will NVMe speed matter for this? Or shall I just go for two budget ones? (i.e gen 3). Or would there be any benefit going for more premium ones? Will qlc/tlc and having DRAM make much of a difference in this use case? Happy to pay more if it will make a difference, but don't want to waste money either.

 

I only plan on running Jellyfin, Swag, Radarr, Sonarr etc. 

Edited July 22, 20241 yr by Hostile_18

21 hours ago, Hostile_18 said:

Happy to pay more if it will make a difference, but don't want to waste money either.

 

Don't cheap out on storage, that's my philosophy. Even with good backups, it's just less of a pain when you don't have to chase gremlins.

I really don't believe that the speed difference between Gen3 and Gen4 will ever be noticeable in most appdata use cases.  So if this is the criteria you are using to define "Budget", a Gen3 should be more than fast enough.

 

I would avoid the most unknown, never heard of them brands.  (As I type this with a Leven NVMe in my main server as an experiment).  This is more about drive longevity and other drive issues.  That said, I've never had an issue with any of the NVMe or cheap SSD drives I've used (*knocks on wood*).

I would get them with heat sinks if you expect to have long periods of writing.  As I understand it, writing requires more power than reading.  Also the high speed write buffer is smaller (and, perhaps, slower) on the cheap MVMe devices.  Your use case will determine if this will be an issue...  (I would be looking at Independent online reviews by folks who subject the device to actual tests and provide the results for you to analyze.)  (If I recall correctly, the write speed on some of these devices is slower than a HD after that buffer is filled!)

This is an example of what I am talking about:

and

1 hour ago, Frank1940 said:

This is an example of what I am talking about:

and

Thank you all. I'm glad I went with the Lexar NM790 in the end (with heatsink). No dram cache but performs well and has really good TBW value. That's also what I'm using for my 4tb Cache/App Data as well at the moment, and no issues so far.