ROG Maximus VIII Hero and SSD question

[colsankey]

So many SSD formats/buses not enough time...

Need to grab a new drive for my gaming rig, currently running 2x Samsung 256GB 850 Pro via SATA III, separating games and OS. Both drives are still low on space after a clean up and it's time to go bigger.

The Maximus has a ton of storage interface's and I'm not sure what I should be looking at, for best performance and what's readily available - U.2 or M.2 or just stick with Sata III. I tried looking at the difference between the Samsung EVO range drives, and the Pro's, seems to me they have very similar reads and writes outsides of extremely large files, far beyond a typical game file and more like video editing.

MemEx has a ton of things on sale right now so looking at something in the $200 range, which should buy me one of the following:

970 EVO NVMe M.2 PCI-E x4 SSD, 500GB - $170
https://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX72101

860 EVO 2.5in SSD, SATA III, 1TB - $180
https://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX70319

860 EVO mSATA SATA III SSD, 1TB - $200 (Same as above different form factor?)
https://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX70329

860 EVO M.2 SATA III SSD, 1TB - $200
https://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX70324


970 PRO NVMe M.2 PCIe x4 SSD, 512GB - $230
https://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX72358

We got a lot of hardcore hardware guys here based on the video card thread, help me narrow this down please.

[Mitsu3000gt]

You want a 970 EVO - by far the best bang for the buck. M.2 is fine.

The only difference with the PRO is they can maintain maximum write speed for longer and they have greater write endurance (double) - neither matter to 99% of casual users.

Both have a 5 year warranty but the PRO allows for twice the TB written (again not a limit you will ever run up against with normal usage).

Forget the SATAIII drives unless you want them for fast storage - they NVMe drives are so cheap now and so much faster there is no point. SATAIII SSD's are so cheap now I use those for storage and then NVMe for OS/Applications.

[schocker]

You definitely want NVME especially since the prices have started dropping. I have a (2) 1tb 850 evos for bulk game storage and then (1) each of 960 pro and evo. The speed is insane. I use the PRO for OS and system apps and the evo for games and storage. I did have the evo fail, but memory express replaced it within a few days even without IPR as samsung authorized it. That is why I also have the pro.