Quick question - The S4 Mini website lists the Samsung 960 Pro in its example configuration. Is it true that it is a very premium SSD that offers very little extra (in the way of real world gaming performance) in comparison to more affordable SSD's?
If you are a gamer or you just browse the web, then sure, you can get a cheaper M.2 SSD. I still recommend M.2 over 2.5" for lots of reasons...easier build, reduces cables, gives GPU more breathing room, possibly speed...
Jay has a great review of a budget M.2 drive
on his awesome channel.
However...
The 960 pro is my favorite piece of computer hardware. Period. As a content creator the 960 Pro is the FIRST drive that has removed all disk bottlenecks from my workflow, which saves me a ton of time. Most people can just render overnight, but I have so many videos across so many platforms (most of them are private) that I need disk speed. I no longer have to work with proxy media...I can work in real time off the drive. Rendering directly to the drive saves me time. Capturing via SDI I can ISO record 4k right to my drive, saving even more time. This wasn't possible a year and a half ago. the 950 PRO was my favorite piece of equipment, and the 960 utterly nukes it from orbit.
Something I don't understand is the notion of buying a 350 dollar CPU but a slow disk drive. I would call it a pet peeve but it's not that serious, I just don't get it. The bottleneck for most applications these days isn't your CPU, it is the disk. Even media encoding...check out your disk useage, that is where your are going to be pegged.
So it depends on what you do, but for me, the 960 actually makes the MINI a replacement work station for video.
correct me if I'm wrong josh but the example configuration is just an example of what you could put in it and most likely is what josh had around to test that the example does work together.
Yup! I only want to give an idea of what can be done. Don't get me wrong, I do recommend the parts and use them for my customer builds unless asked for something different, but the whole point of a chassis like this rather than a laptop is customer creativity.
I can notice the difference between my previous 500+MB/s SSD and the 950 Pro I have now. It's not so immense as the step from HDD to SSD, but with heavy usage it's definitely there.
Yeah this is my 950 pro, and I definitely noticed a 4x difference in read.
The 960 is
40ish% faster...