Is M.2 or M.2 NVME better than an SSD for BIM or Local Projects?

[damcclellan52Z5M]

Hello,

I work in IT and am new to the AEC/MEFP industry.

I talked with a PC builder awhile back that builds CAD machines and was trying to push an M.2 NVME 4.0 saying BIM projects when opening them read and write a lot of data locally and to the cloud. Looking at resource monitor and the performance tab in task manager for Windows while opening a project only comes in at 2% use when loading a 2.3GB cloud model w/ only less then 20MB CAD Format links with in that. I would think locally saved larger projects might benefit from a NVME vs BIM.

Does anyone have any insight?

Anyone rocking a NVME 4.0 or even a M.2 3.0 currently but used to have an SSD in the past?

Looking forward to your posts!

[HVAC-Novice]

The price difference is so minor, no reason to ever not get the faster NVME. Compared to RAM speed, the hard drive (even an SSD) is a tiny bottleneck. no need to slow it down even more. 

Even if you have a hard time noticing the difference, the next time the wheel keeps spinning, you are not left wondering if you should have ponied up for the faster drive. 

Also a larger SSD will be faster (if everything else is equal) because they parallel the chips on the SSD. I'm making up numbers, but imagine a 2TB SSD has 8 parallel units, and the 500GB only has 2. 

I have a 256GB PCI (non-NVME) SSD and a newer 2TB NVME. the benchmark says the 2TB NVME is quite a bit faster. I assume this is based on both larger size and NVME. 

If in doubt, always go faster. No user ever complained about a PC that is too responsive 🙂

Edit: make sure the non-NVME is a PCI drive! Some boards actually use m.2 drives with SATA lanes, then it is as slow as an external 2.5"SATA SSD. You definitely want PCI drive (NVME, or not)!!!!!

[damcclellan52Z5M]

@HVAC-Novice 

Thank you for reiterating the shortfalls of non PCI-E drives.

I agreed, a $50 difference from a 1TB WD Blue Sata III 6GB SSD to a Samsung 980 NVME 3.0 is not a big deal if you do in house builds but the bloated price difference from the manufacturer, we must use at work has a price difference of $150+/- dollars when opting to upgrade from a 1TB Sata III 6GB SSD to a M.2 3.0. NVME 4.0' are more like $250+/-.

What RAM do you currently have? We currently run our new builds w/ 128GB 8x16 DDR4 2933MHz Ecc, dont remember the timing atm.

Can I please see your bench marks? What software are you using/how have you benched the different drives? Need less Shadow of the Tomb Raider benches and more BIM/Local Revit 2.5-4.2GB Revit Projects. 🤓

Speaking of when you did these bench marks was this all local files or was it moslty BIM hosted files? As BIM file opening from the cloud and not having any CAD format links locally saved to R/W should really just be RAM and Networks speed at that point right? This brings me back to my previous post about barley having 2% when opening these kinds of projects.

We have in the past, had a BIM project that had CAD format links locally saved (Server) totalling 4.2 GB in addition to the cloud arch file and think a NVME 4.0 would really shine here as opening the project for some took, 40+ min even the lowest level drafter's pay would justify the bloated manufaturors price differance.

As I am still learning how BIM projects work could we have uploaded our CAD format links that had each user call to our server to R/W into the BIM cloud next time? What was linked was several past building projects done AutoCAD 2018 or maybe older years like 2014.

Look forward to hearing from you!

[HVAC-Novice]

It is a while since I bought the last SSD and did nerd-research, so my data may not be up to date. 

Part of the price difference is because Samsung is more expensive than WD. IMHO there is a reason. They have a better track record and make all their own parts (controller, NAND etc.). WD is a former HDD manufacturer and purchase the parts. So for a price comparison you should compare a Samsung PCI-only vs. a Samsung NVME. 

I was talking about the SSD in my private main PC (an old i7700K 16GB rig). At work I have a Dell PC and that has the cheapest RAM, and the cheapest SSD (SATA 2.5").  It was a long time ago when I added the 2TB (it s a Sabrent, it just happened to be cheaper than Samsung I usually use). Maybe 2-3 years ago.  I don't remember what benchmark I used. I just wanted to see if there is a significant difference. The differences differ based on if you read/write and if you use small or large files. But in general it was the 2TB NVME at 100% speed, the PCI (non-NVME) 256GB at 85%, and the SATA SSD at 40% or so. Some of the added speed could be due to the larger SSD (and not the NVME), though. 

Make sure you have good case ventilation. If used heavily, they get hot and throttle speed (that is true for CPU and GPU as well). No point in spending $ on fast equipment if it thermal-throttles. 

[fabiosato · Accepted solution]

Hello,

For benchmark, revitforum site has a benchmark based on running some tasks in Revit.

[damcclellan52Z5M]

Thanks, ill migrate over there.