Hi MADe,
I do this for much of the very same reasoning that you've laid out in your post.........and have been doing this for quite some time (even back in my HDD usage days).
But the other reasoning for getting an AHCI PCI-E SSD to use on the M.2 slot is for performance reasons as well.
Since paging is still being used w\ games today (AH is 1 of them) all I'm doing is using my SSD's in a method to mitigate the performance issues that paging can create while running games (freezing while page outs occur) by taking full advantage of their latency & transfer speeds while at the same time setting up 1 SSD to be used as a sacrificial lamb to absorb the brunt of the abuse from Prefetch, SuperFetch and paging (all to speed up HDD usage due to the liabilities of a disk platter and floating reader head in a HDD....Prefetch and SuperFetch will cause a lot more preemptive READS to occur from my boot NVMe SSD to system mem but ALL page out WRITES to disk...which do by FAR the most damage to a SSD...from system mem will go to the SSD that I have placed the PAGING FILE on....not to my boot NVMe SSD. The NVMe SSD will only be written to most is when you shut the computer down as all resident data in system mem is written back to the boot drive before power down to preserve the data. Then use a large enough SSD w\ the paging file on it to allow TRIM plenty sector acreage to easily do the garbage collection and provisioning duties on it) to reduce the cost of replacement. Games do put a pretty good load on a computer's components and IMHO a lot of untapped gaming performance is found in optimizing a computer's subsystem performance capabilities......not just the components themselves. Now if the adage of price\performance ratio is applied then this stuff doesn't look as appealing........not because it is WRONG, it is simply due that for the cost incurred to achieve it is it worth the investment vs what you can have now w\o the extra cost to get the extra performance...no matter how large OR small the improvement?
I wager that this question can only be truthfully answered by the INDIVIDUAL users themselves, NOT the tech sites or reviews alone as from their testing they can give really good objective info OR they can also give influenced and sometimes biased opinions based on the individual's POV concerning the subject\component at hand. So in the end it is up to the individual to decide and then accept the consequences of the decision made whether good or bad, right or wrong, perceived or real.
So since I AM a pronounced computer geek and have been blessed to be able to enjoy this hobby of mine I do tend to seek out all possibilities of computer performance capability and am willing to put some funds on the line to find out what I want to know for myself.
So since I now have an unused M.2 slot using 2 PCI-E 2.0 lanes thru the X99 chipset that are KNOWN to be faster that the SATA lanes (10Gbps vs 600Mbps) thru it so I should be able to insert an AHCI PCI-E SSD in this slot & use it to do the dirty work of taking the paging writes which should improve the speed of this process mainly by lowering the LATENCY speed of initiating the process even more vs using a SATAIII SSD while improving the actual DATA TRANSFER RATES from system mem to the AHCI PCI-E SSD vs a SATAIII SSD to effectively REDUCE the OVERALL impact of paging on the performance of Aces High (or any other game\software that will use a paging file) even more on my box while at the same time PROTECTING the NVMe PCI-E SSD from all this to prolong its useful service life (what I am currently doing w\ 1 of the SATAIII SSD's in my box and have validated this usage of SSD's for myself over the last 4 yrs). 1 thing that you have done w\ SSD's that I haven't done is to use them in a RAID array. But this is just 1 aspect of real world optimization of my computer's subsystem along w\ it's components to deliver more overall system performance from it utilizing the existing technology at hand today so this isn't pie-in-the-sky thinking or usage. It's real and is available to be had. The performance gains may end up either 1.) being so small that I can't detect it by the means that I may be using to measure this OR 2.) undetectable by the means that I may be using to measure this.....BUT that doesn't PROVE this process to be WRONG. All known DATA says that the results should be tangible (real). I'm gonna attempt to find that out for myself. The process I KNOW is real and does work but I also know that there is a point in all this where the results will become ILLOGICAL from a technical standpoint as well as at that point it won't really matter.
Heck I may already BE at that point AFAIK................
What I didn't say or have contended is that this is PRACTICAL from a price\performance ratio standpoint.....in reality using current performance metrics along w\ the costs to achieve what I'm doing, this would be considered a POOR, UNNECESSARY CHOICE from a TYPICAL CONSUMER's usage standpoint to run games\software on a computer....and I myself would wholeheartedly AGREE w\ that and also would not attempt to PERSUADE anyone to DO what I do. I just post to provide the info of what I do and the results of what I have done so all can then read and DECIDE on their OWN what THEY want to do w\ it as we're all GEEKS who regularly visit and especially post in here so the info is IMHO relative to the discussion in general.............
I'm not the typical computer consumer...................
But to demonstrate that I DO look at the cost side as well while I'm in my "creative element" I've NOT cancelled doing this but I HAVE changed from using the 256Gb model of the Samsung SM951 to the 128Gb model for costs consideration.............sav
ed myself $75.00 in the process.....also real money......
The SSD should be here sometime this week................ I'll post back to let ya know how it goes..............
