NVMe SSD or SATA3 SSD? Editing on Spectre x360 with no lag: proxies

[andreamrg]

Hello everybody.
I need to upgrade my laptop, which is of course far from the ideal configuration for video editing.
infact this is my mobility laptop which I usually use at home for small projects which doesn't involve heavy loads, FX, and so on.
In my studio I already have a workstation to do the hard work. So this isn't my first editing machine (and it wouldn't be in any case!)

The specs are:

• CPU: Intel i7 6500u (ULV, so it's a mobile dual core cpu)
• RAM: 8GB DDR3 in dual channel (soldered onboard)
• GPU: Intel HD520, which actually allow me to use Mercury OpenCL acceleration, and I found it works very good;
• SSD: actually there's the stock Samsung 256GB SATA3 m.2 slot SSD. This is the part I'd like to replace. I've already checked the specs of my laptop, it can accept both SATA or NVMe SSD;
• Display: QHD IPS 13,3 touch & pen enabled display, 1x Display Port, 1x HDMI.

Video workflow
On my laptop I usually use proxies to edit, to have a light and efficient workflow. With this config I can apply color grading on my footage with no frame drop at all.
The proxies are created with DNxHD 720p LB codec profile, and they have 16Mbs bitrate.
With this I can edit 4K UHD 100Mbs, from Panasonic GH4, with no issues at all. Of course this is far from ideal configuration, infact when I need to finish my project I usually be in front of my studio workstation

Lightroom
in conjunction with Premiere CC 2017 I use Lightroom CC, because I work mainly in photography business. To have a nice workflow there too I use Smart Previews on Lightroom, so I can Develop 1MB heavy DNG file with all the power of being a negative file (exposure, highlights, shadows and so on).

So my actual configuration for storage is the following, for the laptop, which has a mirror copy in my studio.

• OEM Samsung SSD 256GB m.2 SATA: OS, Programs, Scratch Disk, Media Cache, LR Cache (50GB), OneDrive (about 50GB), Dropbox (6GB);
• WD 2TB 2,5" 7200rpm SATA3 via USB3.0: projects, original footage, proxies; has specular copy, HOME <> STUDIO
• 1x NAS with 1x 3,5" WD RED 4TB over Gigabit Ethernet: archived original footage of already delivered project; this has specular copy, HOME <> STUDIO.

The main SSD on the laptop have to be replaced with a bigger one because it's going to out of space periodically.
My main question is: for this configuration, a SATA SSD vs NVMe SSD would worth it? or NVMe SSD would be a total performance waste?

The choice of SSD has fallen on these 3 products, limited by budget unfortunately:

1. Samsung 960 EVO 500GB NVMe m.2 - 250,00€
2. Samsung 850 EVO 1TB SATA3 m.2 - 350,00€
3. Intel 600p 1TB NVMe m.2 - 345,00€

The ideal solution would be the 960 EVO 1TB, but it costs about 450€ and I don't want to spend that amount, knowing I wouldn't benefit of all the performance.
So I have to prioritize speed with less space (960 EVO NVMe 500GB) or space despite being older technology and slower (850 EVO 1TB)?

The perfect mean solution would be the Intel 600p which join space with (theoric) higher speed at the same price of the 850 EVO, but I've read it loses performance on heavy (write) transfer of data. I don't know if LR and Pr CC would transfer so much data during editing and develop operations (we talk about contiguous GBs file write).

About proxies

What's the best place to keep them for having smooth playback? Keep them on the USB3 SATA3 HDD as I'm doing now or is it better to store them onto the SSD?
In that case is better to have them onto SSD I think I should prioritize the space against speed.

Thanks in advance to everyone will try to help me in the choice.
Feel free to comment and criticize anything I've wrote, everyone can make a mistake
Greetings

Andrea M.

[RoninEdits · Accepted solution]

a ssd should be more responsive and faster than the external usb hdd. since the proxies are very low bitrate, chances a sata m.2 ssd should be fine to hold everything. you could copy some proxies to your current ssd to test for yourself, but also keep in mind larger sata ssd's would be slightly faster than your current one. the pcie/nvme samsung 960 would be even faster and more responsive, but i don't think the dual core and your proxies would benefit much from it for the extra cost.

the WD black m.2 ssd is similar to the intel 600p, but if i remember right the reviews placed it just slightly better for performance. i don't think they have a 1tb version out yet, just 500gb and 256gb.

premiere shouldn't be doing much writing while editing, it should just be reading media. windows might be more active with writing to the pagefile as you only have 8gb of ram.