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[Music]
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hello and welcome back to another before
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you buy the video where we look at a
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particular subject in the world of data
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storage or networking or whatever and we
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go through all the very very very
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important things you need to bear in
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mind before you lay down the cache so
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today we're talking about nvme ssds the
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subject we talked about quite a lot in
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summer 2021 here on the channel because
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so so so many releases have gone out
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there and so many of you are finding
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yourself in a position where you've got
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to go out and buy one of these ssds for
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the very first time and it's kind of a
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whole new world this isn't like hard
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drives and stuff like that these are
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completely different kettles of fish
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compared to that of traditional hard
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drives there so in today's video i'm
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going to go through eight very important
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things that you need to bear in mind
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when buying one of these devices it's
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going to be a little longer than my
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usual before you buys the reason being
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is this is such a big subject that a
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number of you have genuinely come into
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with next to no knowledge and the
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knowledge you do have may be somewhat
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out of date so let's get straight into
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our first point
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the first thing to bear in mind is that
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although these ssds are available in a
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number of different places they're not
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all the same and indeed you may hear the
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letters m two or m two key in
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conjunction with one of these ssds and
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then think they are all the same and
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they're really not nvme ssds come in a
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multitude of different faceted versions
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that we're going to talk about later on
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but one of the key big distinctions
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where you're going to make one of your
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earliest and biggest mistakes is the
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difference between m sata and m2 mvme
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now m santa or m2.2
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sata because in terms of size that can
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be mixed up
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these are very different protocols with
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m2 sata or msata giving you something in
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the region of around 6 gigabits per
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second connectivity which can max out at
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around 600 megabytes per second give or
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take m2mvme can reach the thousands
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currently up to around seven and a half
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thousand megabytes but that's because
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they use very different protocols they
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look the same as these but m sata as it
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makes as it may sound and then to salter
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utilize sata a very old connection
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that's been around since hard drives and
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is still used today now it means it's a
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lot more widely accepted and compatible
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because of that connection although
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internally it has to be said that they
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are a middle ground mtar m sata and m2
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sata between sata hard drives and ssds
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and m2mvme so it's incredibly important
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when buying an nvme ssd do you look for
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one of two things one obviously the
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letters nvme but the other key one to
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look out for is pcie they are known as
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pcie ssds or m2 pcie if you see pcie
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next to the m2 you're looking at an nvme
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and not a starter one if you see the
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word sata anywhere on that one line next
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to that pcie or the m2 you're not
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looking at nvme there that is not what
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you need to go for so make sure you look
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out for that
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next it would be remiss to talk about
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pcie without going into more details yes
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pcie is what enabled these m2 ssds to
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really reach the bandwidth they got to
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now pcie in terms of pcs and computers
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have been around for decades it's a
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lovely little slot that allowed you to
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upgrade your systems indeed it was all
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the way back to the days of ibm
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releasing pcs that allowed people to
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customize them some might say that mate
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or made or broke that company it has to
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be said but pcie upgradability in pc
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chassis is what has allowed people to
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really change and adapt computers in you
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know even now in 2021 however in terms
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of m2 nvme the thing you really need to
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focus on with pcie is the gen you may
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notice most modern m2 nvmes right now
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are being broken into two different
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categories they are pcie gen 3 times 4
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or gen four times four now there is an
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enormous difference in terms of
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performance between these two now
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pcie that bit at the beginning normally
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comes in generation also pcie gen one
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gen 2 gen 3 or gen 4 with gen 5 being
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danced around with right now in very
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early commercial stages now that is
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effectively the throughput that's
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possible there there's other things like
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power and handling and packets but we're
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just focusing on the performance pcie
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gen 1 is
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250 megabytes pcie gen 2 is 500
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megabytes pcie gen 3 is a thousand
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megabytes and pcie gen 4 is 2 000
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megabytes now remember that at the
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beginning pcie gen 3 times 4
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that means that that pcie bit there at
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the beginning john 1 2 gen 2 gen 324 is
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being multiplied there so in the case of
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gen 4 it's four times the original
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number so in the case of pcie gen 3
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times 4 gen 3 is a thousand times it by
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four thousand and that's the bandwidth
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that's the maximum throughput possible
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on that pcie gen four lane it doesn't
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necessarily mean that this ssd is going
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to crack out 4000 megs and in most cases
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it definitely won't but
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pcie gen 3x4 allows that channel think
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of it as the pipe and think of the ssd
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throughput as the water going through
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the pipe okay so when you're looking at
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an ssd if it says gen three times four
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or gen four times four the difference
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there is four thousand to eight thousand
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megabytes per second bandwidth to play
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with there
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so when you're looking at an ssd it's
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important to know what is the pcie
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gen and times numbers on both the ssd
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you're buying and on the slot that
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you're occupying on your pc or console
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system there so it's very important to
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understand the distinction between those
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pcies because although they are
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completely backwards compatible if you
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stick
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a pcie gen four times four ssd inside a
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slot that's gen three times four it will
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immediately bottleneck in and you won't
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be able to get anywhere near the full
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performance that these ssds are putting
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out
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next a concern that's been thrown around
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for a number of years in the terms of
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ssd storage as performance has got
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harder faster and harder and just busier
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and busier is the question of durability
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now durability has never really been
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something people have looked at when it
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came to traditional hard drives or even
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early sata ssds
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because these ssds weren't really able
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to push through the kind of performance
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for most users where durability was a
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concern i.e how long it's going to last
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and how long it's going to maintain that
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performance and that's really the key
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thing nvmes
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being much much smaller and unlike these
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ssds that come in big heat dissipating
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cases with lots more heatsinks embedded
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on on top
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these ssds arrive they're great they're
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more bare bones occasionally you'll get
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heat sink included that we'll talk about
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in a bit but in most cases you have to
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factor in that these are going to get a
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lot of electricity pass through them and
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they do get quite hot the result is that
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the components the chips on board known
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as the nand the controller and the
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memory all that stuff there
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can over time wear down because of the
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heat that's been generated or more
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commonly in the case of nand had it been
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written to constantly slowly wears away
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at those components so in that case the
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lifespan of the drive and its durability
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will be affected but more importantly it
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is about the performance so as time
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wears on and these drives are written to
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constantly constantly constantly you can
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start to lower the overall performance
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and that big number they promised at the
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beginning can start to drop down now
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a lot of ssd vendors make a very clear
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point of highlighting two factors tbw
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terabytes written and dwpd
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drive rights per day now
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this is kind of a promise from the
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manufacturer that as long as you work
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within these guidelines this ssd will
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maintain that full performance for the
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full length of the warranty typically
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five years so in the case of terabytes
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written the number they present to you
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is in terabytes that number is basically
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them saying that this drive can
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withstand the writing of this much data
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with deletion in between of course
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throughout that five year period and it
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won't drop in performance or break in
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terms of drive rights per day it is
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presented as a decimal place 0.3 0.5 1.0
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and that is
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basically at the fraction of the drive
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so for a one terabyte drive if the drive
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writes per day was 0.5 from a one
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terabyte drive that would be
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500 gig so half of one terabyte the
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result is that they are saying that you
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can use this drive and write to it up to
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500 gigabytes on this one terabyte drive
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per day every day for five years and it
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will work to the best of its ability
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but it's worth bearing in mind that the
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controller that little chip there on
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board that's the brain
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keeps track of everything that's done to
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that drive and manufacturers in order to
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enforce this and say that our drive will
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only last that period of time but if it
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breaks we want to know that you've not
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overused it they have now linked
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terabytes written to the warranty so
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once you have a drive if it has a five
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year warranty and it breaks it slows
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down it stops working and you send it
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back to the manufacturer within those
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five years they will check whether you
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have kept within those guidelines have
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you been writing to it every single day
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constantly with things like surveillance
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or live streaming or have you kept
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within those boundaries so it's
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important to stay on top of terabytes
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written and drive pipes to drive rights
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per day
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next up over provisioning a number of
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you may or may not be know that know
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that when you buy an ssd even though it
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seems pretty clear-cut you know 500 gig
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1tb 2gb some ssd brands have a tendency
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to either say that their drive has 500
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gigabytes of storage or they'll say 480
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when you get to one terabyte they'll say
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960 or one terabyte instead of 2tb it'll
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be 1.92 terabytes why do they do that
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well that is over provisioning some ssds
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in order to get better performance
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better handling of data internally what
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they do is they take a percentage of the
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storage inside that's available so say
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it deals 500 gig they take a fraction of
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that storage and then they use it as a
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kind of buffer zone to work within the
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ssd to help handling of tasks internally
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that's known as over provisioning and a
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lot of ssds arrive with over
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provisioning taken into consideration
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particularly drives are going to be used
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in more enterprise level settings the
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result being that often you'll see two
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ssds at the same price but one will show
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500 gig and another will show 480.
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depending on more enterprise task or
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higher iops which is accessing lots of
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small things very very quickly otherwise
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known as individual input outputs per
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second
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it's sometimes useful and beneficial to
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go for a drive that includes over
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provisioning alternatively you can get a
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standard class drive and install
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software or have system services that
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will set up over provisioning for you
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but ultimately it's typically the same
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price for two drives in the same brand
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one without and one with over
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provisioning because the hardware
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remains the same
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next up i've talked about nand a great
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deal in this video but it's worth
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highlighting the importance of nand now
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of all the chips that are on here the
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big chunky identical ones are known as
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nand they are the chips that have the
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storage generally each block will be
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maybe 100 gig or 200 gig it depends on
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the capacity of the drive maybe even
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smaller that can also mean that some
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drives have nothing on the back and some
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of them have chips on either side now
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with nand nan comes in and with the
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storage that's on there remember going
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back to when drives are being read and
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written to quite a lot
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they have layers on them now that the
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cell that is the chip of nand that's on
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there can be a number of different kinds
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of cell now that can be slc mlc tlc and
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qlc currently slc single layer cell mlc
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multi-layer cell tlc triple layer cell
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and unsurprisingly qlc is quad level
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quad layer cell now the result of this
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is they can compact more data
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into these ssds if they have more layers
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there now it does introduce something
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called 3d nand where it works in two
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directions we're just going to
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bank that for now we're just going to
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focus on those four one two three four
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layer cells now
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the reason we're talking about nand is
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the first two slc and mlc
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they give you the lowest possible
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capacity they give you the best
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endurance and they give you the best
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performance but much much much smaller
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capacity and the price
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rockets up at the other end of the scale
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you have drives that are qlc these are
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ones that have got the most capacity
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they can fit eight terabytes on
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something like this really really easily
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however the performance is much much
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lower and the durability is much much
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lower the price is lovely and low too
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but its longevity its durability and
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ultimately its overall performance is
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much much lower that's why the industry
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standard and kind of the agreement
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between brands and consumers alike is
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tlc nand so if you look at an ssd and
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you want the best middle ground for
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price performance and capacity go tlc
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nand and of course 3dtl scene and much
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much you've got the layers here they've
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taken advantage of 3d architecture and
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build of data inside these so you've got
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a better way to get more data and
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performance inside but you can get 3d
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tlc nand and 3d qlc nand
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next this one is slightly less important
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because it's not a lot of people don't
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have a lot of control over this but it's
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worth remembering a lot of modern ssds
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they not only have firmware updates that
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you can install manually using a pc to
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upgrade what's on there but on top of
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that you've got nvme revisions so that
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little connector there at the top m2
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nvme there the key
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that uh connector there that interface
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will be in its own revision now nvme is
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currently available in revision 1.4 and
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even there's revision 2.0 being spoken
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about at the time of this video but a
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lot of older ssds will have revision 1.1
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1.2 1.3 1.3 c
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now these are still very good and they
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do the job but as time goes on the nvme
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revision just like hdmi for teles gets
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better usb for your ports and stuff gets
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better same goes for nvme they're able
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to get better performance better power
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handling and basically improving the
00:16:04
interface between the drive and your
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machine now your machine your pc your
00:16:08
console whatever has its own firmware
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updates it will have a certain revision
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inside which in a lot of cases but not
00:16:15
all can be updated so do bear in mind
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that when you buy an ssd
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there's a good chance you're fixed at
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the nvme revision inside but not on your
00:16:24
host system so it's good to make sure
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that you upgrade your system to the
00:16:28
maximum nvme revision but on top of that
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if you can go for an ssd particularly in
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2021 right now to go for an nvme 1.4 or
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higher because you will get the best
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kind of interaction performance and low
00:16:41
latency from the drive that you possibly
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can
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and now we're getting into the home
00:16:49
stretch just a couple of points left and
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this next one is about the length of
00:16:52
ssds now you may notice that a lot of
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ssds arrive on the market now have four
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little numbers banned on the end two two
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eight zero two two eight zero
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corresponds to the length of this ssd
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nearly all modern ssds right now are two
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two eight zero in length now there are
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exceptions you can get smaller ssds much
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shorter and a classic example of a
00:17:15
device that's using smaller right now
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would be the steam deck it's not been
00:17:20
released at the time i've recorded this
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video but the steam deck utilizes a much
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shorter length i think it's two two
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three zero but don't come commit me on
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that might be two four zero length ssd
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inside that means these ssds have got
00:17:34
less physical space to put all of the
00:17:37
nand and the chips and their capacity is
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generally lower or when the capacity is
00:17:41
higher they're much much more expensive
00:17:44
than larger versions there another
00:17:46
example is the xbox series x and x
00:17:48
series s they use a proprietary uh
00:17:51
seagate drive that is their expansion
00:17:54
there's only seagate that supply them
00:17:55
and they too use a much smaller length
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ssd they also use a pcie
00:18:01
gen four times two drive which already
00:18:03
as we've learned earlier in this video
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lowers the overall possible performance
00:18:08
but
00:18:09
in the other direction nvmes get longer
00:18:13
now the longest kind of standard
00:18:16
accessible length is two two one one
00:18:19
zero it's the next one up from here it's
00:18:21
about yay longer and that allows bigger
00:18:24
capacities right now now conventionally
00:18:27
at the time of recording you can get
00:18:28
eight tb drives uh two two one one zero
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length ssds but not all current pc and
00:18:36
particularly smaller pc builds can
00:18:38
actually get that longer drive and you
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might buy a drive that's got more
00:18:41
capacity
00:18:43
but it won't fit in your system so
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double check what the lengths are
00:18:48
available to you on your pc or console
00:18:50
system and whether you can go for a
00:18:52
longer drive and save you a bit of
00:18:54
research ps5 does go as high as two two
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one one zero ssds also there are of
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course longer ones known as ruler drives
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some of them are 30 centimeters in
00:19:04
length which have ridiculous um
00:19:06
performance and capacity these are
00:19:08
enterprise they cost tens of thousands
00:19:10
of pounds and i don't have truck with
00:19:12
them in this video
00:19:16
finally it's a big consideration i've
00:19:18
already kind of touched on it already
00:19:20
heat these drives get hot the faster
00:19:23
they get the better the bandwidth
00:19:25
they've got the hotter they get anyone
00:19:28
that's ever utilized a laptop that's got
00:19:29
one of these inside or a console system
00:19:32
that's quite small with without great
00:19:34
fan control these ssds can get
00:19:36
extraordinarily hot in use and that's
00:19:39
why it's highly recommended that you use
00:19:42
a heatsink a heatsink you can slot the
00:19:45
drive inside there's some thermal
00:19:47
padding either in and then when you put
00:19:48
this inside your system
00:19:50
this isn't a fan although some of them
00:19:52
do have fans on side what this is to do
00:19:54
is to draw heat from the components on
00:19:58
that nvme and it pulls the heat into
00:20:01
this giant
00:20:03
uh sometimes copper sometimes aluminium
00:20:06
largely metal design here and it
00:20:08
dissipates the heat out sometimes
00:20:11
there's a fan kind of keeps things cool
00:20:13
and to help dissipation of the heat
00:20:14
within the larger
00:20:16
chassis structure of your pc or console
00:20:18
but predominantly these are for
00:20:20
dissipating the heat off of these nvmes
00:20:24
to keep them working well why is that
00:20:26
necessary well
00:20:28
although the nand on these drives likes
00:20:30
to be a bit warm warm nand works quite
00:20:33
well
00:20:34
the controller or the brain kind of like
00:20:36
the cpu on a computer works at its best
00:20:39
when it's as cold as possible and that's
00:20:41
why these heat sinks will dissipate the
00:20:43
heat to the benefit of the controller
00:20:45
and therefore the nand's a little bit
00:20:47
warm it's not so bad and keeps things
00:20:49
working well now
00:20:51
it isn't to say that when these things
00:20:53
are hot they're not going to work indeed
00:20:55
if you keep an ssd between
00:20:57
around about you know lower than
00:21:00
maybe 65c they should work well but it's
00:21:03
worth mentioning that once you hit
00:21:06
50c um um
00:21:09
celsius what will happen is the drive
00:21:12
will slightly bottleneck itself
00:21:14
internally not all ssds do but
00:21:16
definitely after 50 some ssds will
00:21:19
purposefully lower their performance
00:21:21
internally because they don't want the
00:21:22
negative degradation effects of the heat
00:21:25
affecting the larger ssd there so make
00:21:28
sure you either get a heat sink or a fan
00:21:30
assisted heatsink or keep your pc or
00:21:33
console system in a nice air controlled
00:21:36
environment there and that will maintain
00:21:38
the temperature and therefore the
00:21:40
performance of your ssd but this has
00:21:42
been before you buy about nvme ssds
00:21:45
there's so much more to this subject
00:21:47
than this video covers but i hope these
00:21:49
eight points have helped you choose your
00:21:52
right ssd if you still need help take
00:21:54
advantage of the free advice section
00:21:56
over on nas compares linked in the
00:21:57
description below is you know you can
00:21:59
contact me or edit the web guide there
00:22:01
it's a completely free service you don't
00:22:02
have to pay for it we don't do anything
00:22:04
with your email buy us an email about
00:22:06
what you need or you have a few queries
00:22:08
about buying the right nvme ssd we can
00:22:11
help you along the way and of course
00:22:12
click like if you've enjoyed the video
00:22:14
subscribe to learn more about this
00:22:15
subject and i will see you
00:22:17
next time
