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

[Bolerus]

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)

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

 

[alec]

Main m.2 port (M2A_CPU) is right above the GPU PCIe slot. The one you mention between two slots is the scondary one (M2B_SB) and is limited in bandwidth
Still, you will want to take the GPU out temporarily to have better access when installing, especially the small screw for securing the drive

You should definitely get at least a 2TB drive and let it be NVME, since you have the slot and since at that size there is almost no price difference between NVMe and SATA
And put the (fresh) OS on that new drive

Respect to ancient tech HDDs, time let those old timers rest.

 

[Mcnumpty2323]

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

 

[Bolerus]

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

yeah i meant to type 500 gig ssd but my fingers went to SATA instead

 

[Bolerus]

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

 

[Mcnumpty2323]

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

You can shove the ssd anywhere basically
Looks neater if it's on a bracket etc
But doesn't really matter as long as don't sit it
On something very hot
No moving parts to worry about
I have had them dangling anywhere in the case before

The laptop drive will be really slow
You could use it as a backup for one of the other drives
But once you're used to ssds and nvme m2 drives
It will drive you crazy how slow it is
I use a bunch of my old 2.5 ssds in windows storage spaces
You could do the same with mechanical drives
But so slow you wouldn't want to be waiting to copy
A load of data at once to mechanical drives

 

[Bolerus]

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

 

[darael]

Use CrystalDiskInfo to check the health of any drives. If you're unsure, post a screenshot of the CrystalDiskInfo with the drive selected.

I'm a bit of a stickler like yourself. I'm on my second M.2, after getting the upgrade itch when Samsung had a cashback offer on earlier this year - I replaced my 500GB Samsung 970 EVO Plus with a Samsung 990 Pro. But I also have a 3.5" 2TB hard drive, used for documents, pictures, downloads, etc - basically I change the location of Windows user folders to the hard drive. I simply don't see the point in storing infrequently accessed data on a lightning fast SSD, even if it does currently stand with a little over 80% free space. Plus torrents aren't too healthy for an SSD drive, due to the potential number of random writes.

In your position, I'd get the biggest SSD you can afford (like I did this year) as well as a 2.5" hard drive. I plan to replace my 3.5" drive with a 2.5" one when I feel it's worked hard enough to cash in it's pension. If you want to use another SSD like the Kingston, be sure to check it's health first - that might be the sort of drive I would use for torrents, as it's cheap and fast enough.

 

[Mcnumpty2323]

Got 5 x m2 in my build lol
You guys got a bit of catching up to do
And 4 x 2.5 sata ssds As well
Those are merged into a windows storage space
Got my first m2 nvme way back
2015 think it came out
Samsung sm951 and its still going strong
Solid state through and through here
You couldn't pay me to go back to spinners

 

[Bolerus]

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

​

 

[Mcnumpty2323]

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

​

A 500gb ssd is really cheap nowadays
Could just replace it

Or use it similarly to how I do
Storage space with redundancy
If a drive fails you don't lose everything
Storage spaces is sort of like raid
But much more versatile
And part of windows not hardware
So changing motherboard etc is no issue

 

[Bolerus]

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?

 

[Mcnumpty2323]

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 hate m2 screws with a passion
luckily my board has plastic latches instead of those

copy a load of files to and from it probably

 

[Bolerus]

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)

 

[Mcnumpty2323]

Looks like your motherboard can take
1 x gen4 at full speed ie x4
That will also mean could take gen3
As backwards compatible
Gen4 is roughly 7500MBs

The other m2 slot seems to be gen3
And only at x2

Guessing that's because it's classed as a budget motherboard
Even gen3 at x2 will be faster than 2.5 ssd
Those top out roughly at 550MBs

It's probably near same cost
For m2 as 2.5 ssd
At least last time I looked but prices fluctuate

Without reading the motherboard manual
Can't say if you used 2 x m2
Whether you would lose any of the sata ports
Or if gpu would drop to x8
Though won't really notice a difference from x16 anyway

 

[Mcnumpty2323]

You can paste links if to ocuk
Think this gets recommended often
Not the fastest gen4
But of course those are most expensive

WD Black SN770 2TB SSD M.2 2280 NVME PCI-E Gen4 Solid State Drive (WDS200T3X0E)

Order WD Black SN770 2TB SSD M.2 2280 NVME PCI-E Gen4 Solid State Drive (WDS200T3X0E) now online and benefit from fast delivery.

www.overclockers.co.uk

 

[Bolerus]

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

 

[Mcnumpty2323]

Yeah a 256gb will work
For a windows drive and some software
Could clone the windows drive to the 500gb ssd
As a backup

 

[Bolerus]

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

 

[Quartz]

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?

Just get yourself a single 2 TB or 4 TB (preferably) PCIe v3 or v4 NVME drive and remove the rest.