[Icenine2]

Thank you everyone for you input. I building a small form ITX desktop so no room for a HDD unless external

 

[bfreedma]

We've barely saturated PCI 2.0 x16 lanes on GPUs, let alone PCI 3.0. Honestly don't have to worry about that.

That being said, still think it's a bit silly to use SSDs for music unless you're bothered by HDD vibrations (understandable).

I completely agree that any hard drive including mechanical is more than fast enough for music (unless noise is an issue).

The issue with PCIe 3.0 lanes isn't usually individual lane saturation, it's assignment. Different devices grab lanes on startup regardless of real world throughput requirements, so it's possible to run out of lanes. This isn't much of an issue with current builds, but when PCIe 3.0 first came out, people with multiple video boards sometimes had trouble getting as many other PCI based devices up as they desired.

I think this chart is still accurate:

• 8-16 Lanes – x16 PCIe Video Cards (Each)
• 8-16 Lanes – Other Specialized PCIe Cards
• 4 Lanes – M.2 Drive
• 4 Lanes – Thunderbolt (uses 4 lanes PCIe 3.0)
• 4 Lanes – Hardware Based RAID Controllers
• 2 Lanes (Each) – SSD Drives
• 2 Lanes – USB 3.1 (Gen. 2)
• 1 Lane – USB 3.0 (USB 3.1 Gen. 1)
• 1 Lane – Sound
• 1 Lane – Network Controllers

 

[PurpleAngel]

Thank you everyone for you input. I building a small form ITX desktop so no room for a HDD unless external

For music, I switch from a HDD to an SSD, because it was less delay time for loading and switching music songs.
You you want music on something portable, then an external USB SSD (SATA) drive would work.

 

[Voxata]

We've barely saturated PCI 2.0 x16 lanes on GPUs, let alone PCI 3.0. Honestly don't have to worry about that.

When using dual nvme drives on some AMD boards your primary GPU slot speed will drop to 8x. While the performance difference may not be a deal breaker now, who knows down the road. I'd rather run the slot at it's full spec regardless and use Sata instead if the option is available.

 

[Icenine2]

When using dual nvme drives on some AMD boards your primary GPU slot speed will drop to 8x. While the performance difference may not be a deal breaker now, who knows down the road. I'd rather run the slot at it's full spec regardless and use Sata instead if the option is available.

Thank you. I didn’t know

 

[Voxata]

Thank you. I didn’t know

No sweat, hope you enjoy your ITX build! My gaming rigs are all this form factor and it's challenging to get things quiet and performing well. I can recommend ncase m1 as one of the best when it comes to form factor and cooling ability.

 

[bluecar]

It seems like an expensive way to store data, and I can't see an immediate advantage for music streaming, unless you need to stream the same file on-demand to multiple endpoints? Faster is great, but it's very expensive compared to conventional SATA2 mech or SSDs. Even Mechanical disk is fine, as long as you don't put the NAS in your hifi rack

 

[Icenine2]

No sweat, hope you enjoy your ITX build! My gaming rigs are all this form factor and it's challenging to get things quiet and performing well. I can recommend ncase m1 as one of the best when it comes to form factor and cooling ability.

I was going to go with ncase but went with NZXT H1. Super easy build with liquid cooling built in and power supply as well. I follow Optimum Tech on YouTube. He builds all of these and is the best reference and critic to me.
I can't decide wether to put a second NVMe for boot, programs etc and the second for music storage only.

 

[Voxata]

H1 is a great case. In my main PC I wanted to avoid liquid and luckily had good results on air in my case. It took a lot to get there though. I'm using a 9700K & 1080Ti both overclocked, with gaming temps below 65C playing even the most demanding titles.

I'd recommend just going 2.5 Sata if you are choosing between the two. Easy to swap around & handle. Check your motherboard manual first to see if using dual nvme will impact anything else in your system. I use a 250&1TB 970 Evo+ in my main PC. I also use a Micro 2TB 2.5mm SSD. I don't notice any difference between the Sata3 & Nvme drive for my storage needs. Game loads are close enough to not care. If you are rendering 4k video you may see benefit. In your case I'm assuming it doesn't really matter.

However, I can't stress enough how nice a 250gb+ Nvme boot drive is for a quick system.

 

[Icenine2]

This is what I’m building. I upgraded the board to 550 Asus

 

[gimmeheadroom]

SSD failure mode is usually dead device with no warning. Backup to spinning rust when you load anything onto your SSDs.

 

[Souldriver]

Just a pop in here and comment on lanes for amd stuff. Newer x570 and some x470 platform stuff usually is ok with two nvme devices and still giving the gfx card 16 full lanes. Gigabyte had a chart for this stuff in their mobo documentation so you know how lanes get allocated. There is also cpu lanes and chipset lanes where gfx usually has its own dedicated path to the cpu and the chipset enables more. Always check with the manufacturer though.

Intel just has less lanes unless youre on a high performance platform, and more recently also on the cpu used. Intel was really abusing their market domination before AMD put them back in their spot over the course of just one year.

 

[dazzerfong]

Contrary to public belief, it's actually lower-end cards that get starved of PCI bandwidth, not higher-end cards. Why? When you have all the VRAM in the world, you just dump into it once and that's more or less it. If you don't enough VRAM, you start thrashing.

Ergo, RX 5500 XT is actually handicapped by PCI 3.0. A 2080ti? Barely.

Oh, and the 16 lanes is pretty much dedicated to your GPU. You're most likely eating up the PCH one if you're running an Intel setup.

Intel just has less lanes unless youre on a high performance platform, and more recently also on the cpu used.

Errr...........

X470 + 2700x is 20 + 8 lanes, the 20 being PCI 3.0 and the 8 being PCI 2.0.
Z390 + 9700k is 16 + 24 lanes, all PCI 3.0

If you have a singularly fast SSD, the X470 makes sense - otherwise, the Z390 platform has the edge.

No idea what the current generation is, except that the X470 uses gen 4.0 PCI lanes which kinda makes this whole exercise moot.

 

[redrol]

SSD with HD backups for me.

 

[charlee]

I say go for NVMe! I have both 960 Pros and a 970 EVO in my system and the NVMe is gazillion* times faster.