M.2 SSD Upgrade

Antony101 · 17 Sep 2023 at 18:35

So my trusty old Sabrent Rocket 512GB is coming up for retirement as I currently have a clean OS with three Steam games installed and it's full.

What is the go to drive these days and the sweet spot for pound per GB?

I've currently got an MSI Z390 MEG Ace motherboard so not 100% sure what would be compatible with this.

Tetras · 17 Sep 2023 at 20:43

You have 3x M.2 slots (PCI-E 3.0), so there's no need to pull the Sabrent.

Based on OCUK prices, I'd go with either the PCIE3 SN570 1TB (£39.95), or the 2TB PCIE4 Firecuda 520 (£94.99). They're both TLC with decent ratings for TB written.

FYI, your manual says you lose SATA ports:
- SATA2 if you put a SATA drive in M.2 slot 1.
- SATA5 if you put a SATA drive in M.2 slot 2.
- SATA5 and SATA6 if you put a PCIE drive in M.2 slot 2.

Antony101 · 17 Sep 2023 at 20:53

Thanks Tetras!

I'm not a big fan of having more than one drive on my PC as it gets messy and irks me a little.

I'll look at getting the 2TB as a single drive and I'll keep the Sabrent as a spare for when I do a full upgrade and it can go in my partners machine. I look forward to you replying first in that thread too when I make it :cry:

I can't believe it's under £100 for 2TB, my old 128GB Crucial SSD cost way more and that only feels like a few years back!

Tetras · 17 Sep 2023 at 21:23

Antony101 said:
I look forward to you replying first in that thread too when I make it

I'm not always first, sometimes I got to reboot the AI 'n such

Antony101 said:
I'm not a big fan of having more than one drive on my PC as it gets messy and irks me a little.

Really? Even with M.2 drives? I get it with SATA, because the cables, but M.2 drives are practically invisible once installed.

Antony101 said:
I can't believe it's under £100 for 2TB, my old 128GB Crucial SSD cost way more and that only feels like a few years back!

Yeah, flash and ram are probably at record lows right now, think they're expected to go back up in new year as they're aware they made way too much

Antony101 · 17 Sep 2023 at 21:49

It's not even the cables or the drive itself, it's windows and how badly it manages multiple drives sometimes. I'd rather just have the one large drive and not have to worry about it.

Tetras · 17 Sep 2023 at 22:00

Antony101 said:
It's not even the cables or the drive itself, it's windows and how badly it manages multiple drives sometimes. I'd rather just have the one large drive and not have to worry about it.

I'm writing this from a PC with 5 drives (2x SATA, 1x PCIE M.2, 1x HDD, 1x external USB) so not sure what the problem is, but eh, you do you

Gray2233 · 17 Sep 2023 at 22:03

Tetras said:
I'm writing this from a PC with 5 drives (2x SATA, 1x PCIE M.2, 1x HDD, 1x external USB) so not sure what the problem is, but eh, you do you

I have four, my larger nvme is partitioned into two on top. I've ran multiple drives like this for going on 20 years without issue lol.

Currently on w10.

Antony101 · 17 Sep 2023 at 22:11

In all honesty, it's likely just a me thing :cry:

I'm a bit of a tidy freak so I think the "mess" just rubs me the wrong way. Not sure how you guys sleep at night :cry:

tamzzy · 18 Sep 2023 at 00:49

@Tetras @Gray2233 damn you guys are maddddd

i only have 2 drives in mine (both m.2)
2tb sn850x for boot/prog/games, 2tb sn770 for ~~pr0n~~ media files

Antony101 · 18 Sep 2023 at 12:50

Okay, stupid question coming up.

Can my motherboard run a PCIE4 drive, will it just run at PCIE3 speeds?

As I'm thinking of a socket change at some point I'll likely end up with a motherboard that supports PCIE4 sometime this year.

Tetras · 18 Sep 2023 at 15:28

Antony101 said:
Can my motherboard run a PCIE4 drive, will it just run at PCIE3 speeds?

I can't speak for all drives, but the Firecuda 520 that I suggested says in the datasheet that it is backwards compatible and will run @ gen 3 speeds.

Most PCIE4 drives that I've checked also confirm that they will run in a PCIE3 board.

Armageus · 18 Sep 2023 at 15:36

Antony101 said:
It's not even the cables or the drive itself, it's windows and how badly it manages multiple drives sometimes. I'd rather just have the one large drive and not have to worry about it.

But if you're using it for games, it's largely invisible thanks to Steam's library feature. Just create a new steam library on the new SSD, and games automatically install there (and you can move games from your existing NVMe easily - leaving it for just your OS install and anything else that won't easily move)

Antony101 · 18 Sep 2023 at 15:40

Armageus said:
But if you're using it for games, it's largely invisible thanks to Steam's library feature. Just create a new steam library on the new SSD, and games automatically install there (and you can move games from your existing NVMe easily - leaving it for just your OS install and anything else that won't easily move)

I didn't realise Steam had fleshed out support for multiple drives. If that's the case it may actually be worth keeping my current drive as an OS / Software drive.

I would assume I'll need a new drive with a heatsink in that case? I believe my motherboard only has the one slot with a heatsink.

Armageus · 18 Sep 2023 at 15:43

Antony101 said:
I didn't realise Steam had fleshed out support for multiple drives. If that's the case it may actually be worth keeping my current drive as an OS / Software drive.

Yep dead easy these days:

Steam Support :: Moving a Steam Installation and Games

help.steampowered.com

Tetras · 18 Sep 2023 at 16:24

Antony101 said:
I would assume I'll need a new drive with a heatsink in that case? I believe my motherboard only has the one slot with a heatsink.

Most drives don't need a heatsink if you're just gaming and in some cases you don't want one for clearance reasons, but you can check the reviews before you buy, to see if the drive is a toasty one.