im out of the loop, what can storage can i put in

Bolerus

Bolerus

Bolerus

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I am a long way out of the loop with what motherboards can support these days
I have a B550M-DS3H motherboard
my motherboard specification page says
1 x M.2 connector (M2A_CPU), integrated in the CPU, supporting Socket 3, M key, type 2242/2260/2280/22110 SSDs:
  1. AMD Ryzen™ 5000 Series and Ryzen™ 3000 Series Processors support SATA and PCIe 4.0 x4/x2 SSDs
  2. AMD Ryzen™ Ryzen™ 5000 G-Series and Ryzen™ 4000 G-Series Processors support SATA and PCIe 3.0 x4/x2 SSDs
1 x M.2 connector (M2B_SB), integrated in the Chipset, supporting Socket 3, M key, type 2242/2260/2280 SSDs:
  1. Supporting SATA and PCIe 3.0 x2 SSDs
4 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors, integrated in the Chipset:
  1. Support for RAID 0, RAID 1, and RAID 10


so what does that mean in terms an old git like me can understand
currently i have ( please dont laugh)
450 gig C old style Hard drive with op system on
700 gig D old style Hard drive
300 gig E old style Hard drive
500 SATA

so i have stuff spread over then all, so that whilst i have 2 gig of capacity, i have 210 free on one , 175 on another etc

and as 3 of those drives are old style and therefor slower and very old (dotn want to even think how many times i have upgraded the board and cpu but kept the hard drives) I think it is definatly time to upgrade

what options would you go for.

my first thought was make the 500 gig sata the op system drive, and buy a 2 tb to replace the others, but if my board supports M.2 is it better to go with them?

thoughts?

and also, where does an m.2 physically plug in . is that the port, in between the 2 pcie slots ( not sure i will get one in because of my graphics card)

www.gigabyte.com

B550M DS3H (rev. 1.4) Key Features | Motherboard - GIGABYTE Global

Lasting Quality from GIGABYTE.GIGABYTE Ultra Durable™ motherboards bring together a unique blend of features and technologies that offer users the absolute ...
www.gigabyte.com www.gigabyte.com
 
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Mcnumpty2323 said:
If the 500gb sata is a mechanical drive
Then definitely replace it
If its a sata 2.5 ssd then not so bad
Still slower than m2 (nvme m2 don't get a sata m2)

M2 advantage over 2.5 sata ssd
Much faster read and write
But 2.5 sata ssd still has very good access times
M2 nvme drives really shine if got more than 1
Copying files Between them slaughters 2.5 sata ssds

As long as you buy m2 with no heatsink on them
Use the one on motherboard if there is one
Then gpu will go in fine
If no motherboard heatsink
Drives with a small height heatsink probably ok

Could get 500gb or 1tb for windows (m2 gen 4)
2tb m2 gen 4 for storage
If the 500gb sata is a ssd also use for storage
Usually if you use both m2 slots
You will lose 2 sata slots though not looked at that specific boards manual
As its only 4 x sata might be OK

You're going to be kicking yourself
For not upgrading those spinning drives sooner
Solid state drives are probably the biggest advancement ever
When it comes to pcs
Click to expand...
yeah i meant to type 500 gig ssd but my fingers went to SATA instead
 
the other thing, do i need to buy some kind of bracket for the ssd's as it stand the SSD in my system just rests on one of the other hard drives, as there doesent seem to be any where to put it in my case ( i am really showing the age of my system arnt i?)

I also have a 1tb 2.5 inch hard drive from a laptop that was caput... is it worth putting that in or better to just throw that as well and get another proper ssd(or m2)

and thanks for taking the time Mcnumpty, much appreciated
 
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wel well
just looking in my bits draw and found a 256gb

Kingston RBUSNS8154P3256GJ1​


which if i remember was in my laptop, and when i took it to a shop because it was over heating, they swapped it out for a 1 gig one ... cant remember why, i think they said it failed a test( i was going to upgrade anyway so not bothered if they exaggerated the need to replace as i insisted they give me the old one )

got to be worth putting that in and seeing what happens
 
just ran crystaldisk on my current set up, just to get a baseline

all bar one of them ( including the 500 ssd) are showing as Caution, and all of them on the
relocated sectors count ( all between 80 and 100)
so maybe i need to replace the SSD ( or at least have it as a low importance drive ) as well

i will install the M2 this afternoon and try on that


​

 
so, i put the m2 in, stupid finicky little screw gave my fat fingers some trouble.

ran cyrstal disk, and that showed it to be good ( naughty people at the shop in stoke - wont name them as they are an overclockers competitor) may well have told me some fibs.

but then i started getting little hangs for a few seconds, ( i have formatted the m2) then pc locked up and i was then getting no video. but just gave the G.card a push and the power leads a push and seems ok, so may have slightly dislodged my card.

what would be a good test of the M2 before i go down the installing windows path?
 
I just ran crystal mark on all the hard drives
first off i got my lettering wrong. the SSD sata /600 was C not K and showing as ok

c: 500 gig sata/600 2.5 ssd read 555.18 write 523.26 power on 13088 hours
D: 700 gig sata/300 3.5 hdd read 56.27 write 59.65 power on 52712 hours
E: 300 gig sata/300 3.5 hdd read 75.03 write 71.10 power on 39503 hours
F: M2 256gig PCIe 3.0 x2 | PCIe 3.0 x2 read 1618 write863.97 1249 hours
K: 500 gig sata/300 3.5 hdd read 83.65 - power on 33376 hours

so the ssd is 10 times fast than my slowest spinny disk, and the m2 is 3 times fast than that.

And they are all quite old, so newer ones would likely be even fast


i was originally looking at 2TB hard drive ( there are some around £50-60)
then after this conversation changed to look at a big SSD - just saw a crucial 2tb ss ( says upto 540mb/s - so is that slower than my current one) for 88

but then just seen

Crucial P3 2TB M.2 PCIE Gen3 NVME Internal SSD - up to 3500mb/s

£97 from a popular next day delivery site... will that go in my machine?
(oops didnt mean to paste the link, was trying to paste the title - sorry admins)
Crucial P3 2TB M.2 PCIE Gen3 NVME Internal SSD - up to 3500mb/s
(typed it in so i can delete the link)
 
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I had a look in the motherboard manual, and cant see anything about 2 m2s having a bad effect. but I am thinking, if i use the 256gig m2 i have in there now ( installed it earlier) and maybe buy 1tb or a 2tb SSd and put that in along with the 500 gig ssd i have in now ( currently with OP system on) that would do the trick of getting rid of the older slow hard drives, with out too much expense and hassles.

or the 2tb one you linked, with everything on - maybe keep my 500 ssd as a back up

decisions decisions
 
Mm interesting.

Maybe there is a problem with the M2. Windows installation failed. Message was could not create next stage of boot.

Maybe I need to disconnect the other drives first and try again
 
Mcnumpty2323 said:
Shouldn't need nvme drivers
To install windows
My sm951 was one of the early nvme m2
Still installed fine way back then
Without adding drivers during install

A 3rd reason could be faulty installation media
Bad flash drive
Or corruption in the windows media

Yeah if it's possible to only have 1 drive connected
During install
That's my preference too
Easy with sata drives just disable in bios
Or pull the cable off
No easy way to disable m2 nvme drives though
Which is a PITA when you have 5 lol
Click to expand...
I was thinking bad usb install, because it does start the install. But since I put the M2 in I have also noticed the the system doesn't always start properly. Sometimes (about 50%) it locks at the Flash screen. Can't get into bios (no response from del or f12 for boot menu). And it never progresses.

That may well be what went wrong, as the windows install for to a point where it said something like can't proceed to next reboot step

I'm thinking M2 is bad afterall but bit concerned now. If I buy a bigger one and get same thing which would be down to the motherboard I guess. Or could it be graphics card perhaps
 
Quartz said:
Just get yourself a single 2 TB or 4 TB (preferably) PCIe v3 or v4 NVME drive and remove the rest.
Click to expand...
im just concerned that my issues have come from motherboard ( or could it even be graphics card - do the slots share resources) and buying a big nnme may mess me up, i am having lock ups and thing now ( took the m2 out, but still happening)
 
so, I went for it and bought a 1tb gen 4 crucial m2. from a very quick supplier

it came this morning, chucked it in ( disconecting all others first ) and installed windows...

all went fine so far. first start up, windows loaded in about a second.. so quick i doubted the pc was off.

wow.

I the plan is, wiindows and game installs on that drive, data on the 500 ( its actual 480) ssd. might keep the biggest of the slow drives in for now, till i replace with a 1tb ssd in a couple of months ( or knowing me - next week)

Thank you for all your advice folks, much appreciated
 
bah im getting little mini lock ups.
ill click on a window to type and it will be like its ignoring my mouse or keyboard, clicking again seemed to make it work,

was initially in one of the games, then i noticed it in facebook chat
thinking it might be related to my KVM, i put a timer in the background, 1 hour counting including miliseconds, and when it happens that stops / jumps

I have installed graphics card drivers, and done Windows updates

any body have any other quick suggestions.
It does seem to be intermittent . hasnt happened at all in last 5 minutes ( have no games etc in background at the moment)
 
Was a clean windows install.

I have given up for the night... Next thing would be disconnect the other drives. Formatted but left the 480 SSD and the 500drive...
I did notice in bios that the memory has 1 stick in A2 and one in B2.... Would have thought either both in A or in A1 and b1. But never had this issue before so doubt that's the issue.


Does it matter if my remaining cables hard drives are sequential (eg Sata slot 1 and 2)
 
left it running all night ( left everquest on so there was some stuff going on) and this morning ( so far ) it seems fine

if it was just teething problems i can handle that, will monitor and see what happens
 
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