G751JY AHCI-SSD: How much would you feel a downgrade to SATA3 in real world scenarios

[feihtthief]

I have a G751JY with a factory fitted 256GB M.2 SSD (Model SAMSUNG MZHPU256HCGL-00004)
It's an AHCI model and has served me really well so far, but Windows' folders grow and grow and I can only move so many installed program onto the spinning rust drive.

I want more SSD storage and based on what I've read in this forum, the NVME option is complicated at best. (I plan to do an in-place clone upgrade)

Samsung 850 EVO 1TB (Sata3) drives are affordable here in the bottom end of Africa at the moment.

My Question is this: How much would the general day-to-day performance decrease if I were to switch to a SATA-based drive instead

Has anyone else gone down this route?

I understand that sequential read-write performance would drastically decrease, but from what i read, general boot up and program start would be roughly in the same ballpark, potentially even faster.

Thing I care about:

• General work related stuff as a developer, Starting up Visual Studio, or several instances thereof, compiling solutions, etc.
  
• Windows start-up time, currently so fast that my external monitor takes longer to realize the machine is on than it takes to boot to Windows login screen, but as I don't generally restart a lot, this is probably not too bad, as long as we're not talking an additional 30 seconds.
  
• I don't drag around massive files all day long, so as far as I can tell sequential performance probably doesn't matter so much to me
  

I have 32GB of RAM and so once things are loaded they generally stay loaded up for the duration.

I base my performance difference assumptions on the 850 EVO 1TB on the output of this:
http://ssd.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Samsung-XP941-PCIe-M2-256GB-vs-Samsung-850-Evo-1TB/m4625vs3576
http://ssd.userbenchmark.com/SpeedTest/4625/SAMSUNG-MZHPU256HCGL-00000

Which came from this run:
http://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/7602613

Would love to hear from anyone else that tried something like this, or just general input on real-world SSD performance differences between M.2 AHCI and SATA3.

Thanks

[Clintlgm]

Just off hand, I would try to find a 512 GB XP941 as it should match the required spec of your factory installed SSD. There is a ton of info in this forum on the issues of installing SSD in the G751, in addition to the case removed from an 850 it will fit in under the M.2. then you could keep your Spinner or replace it with I think up to 4TB SATA SSD There was a lot of discussion on the G751 back in 2013-14 or so. with a 512gb you should need to move any programs off your C:\ the way I handled it back with my G75 256GB SSD was to move all the library folders to my 2nd drive and insure any installed programs save data to d:\that way most data would automatically save to D:\ For me that kept my C:\ under 60% usage.

[ciccio80]

You will NOT see any performance difference in real world scenarios (palying games, opening Office or other programs, internet browsing, etc). NONE WHATSOEVER.
I have a 500 Gb Samsung EVO and is ligthning fast. The PRO version probably even more.
So I would raccomend (if you find it at a decent price) go buy a 1Tb sata 3 SSD and enjoy 😉

[JustinThyme]

ciccio80 wrote:
You will NOT see any performance difference in real world scenarios (palying games, opening Office or other programs, internet browsing, etc). NONE WHATSOEVER.
I have a 500 Gb Samsung EVO and is ligthning fast. The PRO version probably even more.
So I would raccomend (if you find it at a decent price) go buy a 1Tb sata 3 SSD and enjoy 😉

I beg to differ. I see alot of difference. boots much faster, 4k access time is faster and sequential blows it out of the water. Launching apps is faster and system is just more responsive. This is with a samsung SM951 AHCI version that gets damn near the performance of a Samsung 950 pro NVMe.

[chris_tronic]

Hi,
you can read my How to.. step by step and you will see, its very simple to get a G751JY working with the NVMe drive.

Just follow my Step by Step Guide for the Asus G751-JY. https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?99677-ASUS-G751-JY-BIOS-211-NVMe-Upgrade-Guide-Step-by-Ste...

[feihtthief]

chris_tronic wrote:
Hi,
you can read my How to.. step by step and you will see, its very simple to get a G751JY working with the NVMe drive.

Just follow my Step by Step Guide for the Asus G751-JY. https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?99677-ASUS-G751-JY-BIOS-211-NVMe-Upgrade-Guide-Step-by-Ste...

Thanks for the guide. (Links to MMTool don't get to a download page, only brochures)

NVME is way over-prices down here, and as the G751JY only has PCI Gen 2, it would be a waste.
If NVME drives ever became affordable I might try the BIOS-MOD.

What I'm really trying to find out is how much slower the daily operations would be when going from M.2 AHCI to SATA3

[Korth]

I generally agree with @JustinThyme, I notice substantial overall performance improvement on PCIe/M.2/NVMe SSD vs SATA SSD. Substantial enough that I find myself frustrated when using lowly SATA SSD systems.

Yes, benchmark scores don't always translate into meaningful "real world" performances.

But "real" performance does vary a lot, depending on exactly what is meant by "day-to-day use".

I use a PCIe2 SSD as system drive and RAID-SATA SSD as primary storage on my home hardware because the PCIe bus is saturated. It's by far the "fastest" possible configuration for my particular storage needs that I could install (within budget) on my base platform. But for most people an M.2/NVMe (or RAID-M.2) would be much faster. There are even special-case situations where Intel Optane is dominantly the fastest "day-to-day" performer, even though it's stupidly suboptimal (and stupidly overpriced) for most "real world" users.

To be realistic, you've got a G751JY laptop (HM87, i7-4860HQ, DDR3L, 4GB GTX980M, 1920x1080 display, Gigabit LAN) ... you're not going to be streaming 4K video, crunching hard in multiple VMs, running two dozen apps at a time ... in fact, you lack enough PCIe and DMI lanes between PCH and CPU to even carry maximal SSD bandwidths ... a high-end SATA SSD will suffice. The system might not be quite as snappy and responsive with SATA SSD but it'll definitely be an upgrade from the rust drive you've got spinning now. HDD to SSD is a singularly spectacular performance increase; SSD to PCIe/M.2/NVMe is still a performance increase but not as impressive, "normal people"* don't consistently make full use of the impressive performance specs in their "day-to-day" use anyhow.
* ROG folks being "abnormal people" in this context - gamers, power users, enthusiasts, overclockers, etc - nothing less than maximum possible performance will do!

[feihtthief]

Went with the guide from @chris_tronic (to add NVME support to the G751JY BIOS)
https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?99677-ASUS-G751-JY-BIOS-211-NVMe-Upgrade-Guide-Step-by-Ste...

Borrowed a 960 EVO drive from a colleague to test with. That worked.

So I'm going to save up for a NVME drive instead.

I know I can't use the full potential of a modern NVME drive in the G751JY due to PCI Gen2, but at least I won't lose any performance by going from AHCI down to SATA.

Leaving this post here for anyone else who is faced with the same dilemma.