upgrade 2014 and 2015 imacs to SSD or PCIe?

[GMac7]

Hi hope you are all well, a quickish question?

I hear about PCIe lanes i think x2, Sata 3, thunderbolt 2.

Am i best just wanging in a samsung Evo in the easy to reach sata3? or will dismantling it all to put in a PCIe drive be worth it or is it throttled and not much point?

Thanks for reading guys.

G

 

[velocityg4]

Even x2 PCIe 3.0 will provide a much faster connection than SATA III. Especially in IOPS. When you compare NVMe to AHCI performance for reading and writing tons of tiny files.

That being said. For everyday use. You won't see much difference between a good SATA SSD and an NVMe SSD. Most daily use things aren't taxing enough to overwhelm either. Besides something like the time it takes to install an OS update or restart. Unless you don't have enough RAM. Then you'll notice some difference in heavy page file use.

The Samsung 870 Evo is excellent for SATA.

 

[GMac7]

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[GMac7]

Even x2 PCIe 3.0 will provide a much faster connection than SATA III. Especially in IOPS. When you compare NVMe to AHCI performance for reading and writing tons of tiny files.

That being said. For everyday use. You won't see much difference between a good SATA SSD and an NVMe SSD. Most daily use things aren't taxing enough to overwhelm either. Besides something like the time it takes to install an OS update or restart. Unless you don't have enough RAM. Then you'll notice some difference in heavy page file use.

The Samsung 870 Evo is excellent for SATA.

Thanks so much for taking the time here!! Have been on many sites trying to find answers but also getting a lot of conflicting information.
If you have time may I just expand on your reply?

We sometimes do some pretty huge documents in photoshop on the iMacs (however our 2014 macbook pro ( proprietary PCIe 16gb) handles the files fine), and we use the mac mini as a simple file server.

- In your opinion is it worth the big strip-down faf to install the PCIe or will a sata3evo do the job? - basically I'm mainly after no lag especially now creative cloud, google drive and the like are doing a lot more in the background.

- when installing new updates new os - do any of the options require additional faf apart from the normal click update? ive also read some ssd's cant just do a - carbon copy-stick it in-boot-it works.(The firmware does not get updated when installing to a third party SSD.)

How do I send you a paypal beer?!!

specs:

imac 2014 - 24gig ram with 1tb fusion
- SATA III
- NVMe/PCIe 2.0 x2

iMac 2015 - 32gig ram -with 1 tb fusion
- SATA III
- PCIe 2.0 x4

mac mini 2014 - 4gb 2tb HDD
can take a pcle but needs adapters

 

[GMac7]

Thanks for the advice, in the end I bought a new OWC Aura Pro X2 1TB for 140 on ebay. Will test before install!!

There are many drives out there that supposedly work, and many people have used converters, but they seem to have to bend them in a little bit, or need to update hardware, or brake on install, but many have pulled it off..

Very interestingly, the 2015 27 imac doesnt have a PCIe! even though many forums report it does, maybe some of the processor versions supported?! Anyway That was a good find!!! thanks OWC!

So the 2015, 27inch mac will have this followed for sure, a great work around!! - https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/How+to+Add+An+SSD+To+The+27-Inch+iMac+(Late+2015)/67309

and the mac mini an SSD too.

Seen some of the speed reports for this age of Mac, and unless you are doing something like heavy video editing, these machines are great! Plus you get the retina which costs 550-800 just to find the used monitor version alone (LG and Mac teamed up to make the 5k - LG Ultrafine 5K Display Monitor 27" (27MD5KL) - note 4k 27 inch wont do retina, 5 doubles the res)

I love that macs refuse to bend and stay strict on the ethos of developing the best ways of doing things, its just a shame this costs a fortune ? and often leads to random parts that need researching, and even randomer information out there!

Thanks for the help

Case closed! (untill i need to upgrade again!!!)