Old computer storage options ?

[slowpoke]

Hello folks.
My trusty old i7-2600k is holding up quite well so far (for what i need it for), however one of the non-boot storage drives started to make some uneasy sounds, needs replaced.

Checked current trends and it looks i might want in on some nvme action, however no ports to plug it in.
Motherboard is MSI Z68A-GD55-G3.

Is there any way to get a fat quick 1tb nvme into it ? I'm still booting off a 120gb Corsair Force3.
Am i destined to keep with sata drives ? PCI NVMe adapter cards ? so i can reuse new drive later in upcoming upgrades?

No point in major upgrades at this point as i will be replacing whole machine some time in 2020 to some of dat rgb gaming goodness, but that's a question for another day.

Educate me, please.

 

[Semple]

I wouldn't bother tbh. I'm not sure if an adapter would give the best possible speeds of an NVME drive anyway, so there would be no point wasting your money if you're looking at upgrading next year.

As it's for secondary storage, I would just buy a decent sized ssd.

 

[slowpoke]

At this point i'm thinking speeds dont much matter, i'm looking ahead and will be reusing it in new build, but now i'm cramped a bit, might as well get adapter and proper nvme. Just exploring how viable are them adapters ? It is going to be faster than near 10year old mechanical drive, but how much of a brake old mobo puts on modern nvme via adapter ?

 

[Avalon]

Even a humble PCIe gen 3 x1 slot will give you 985MB/s R&W, which is almost twice as fast as SATA6 AHCI SSD’s in the real world, realistically a gen3 x4 slot is 3.9GB/s, so while you loose a little theoretically on the top end, the answer is stupidly fast compared to what you have now. As you aren’t after bootable storage, it’s a no brainier - the x4 adapters are under £4 delivered, so it’s hardly a major cost to add for the ability to have a much faster drive and carry it forward next year. Will you notice the real world differences? Well that’s a while other conversation, but it’s unlikely due to diminishing returns unless you have a very specific usage pattern.

 

[Cyber-Mav]

You can get pcie x4 adapter to fit nvme drives for less than 5 quid. Gets you full speed of the nvme drive depending on your motherboards pcie version. These adapter/ riser cards have the added benefit of putting the nvme drive in a better position for cooling.

 

[slowpoke]

So, say if i get one of these:
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/wd-b...-solid-state-drive-wds100t3x0c-hd-55v-wd.html

...what adapter do i get ? I see there's some differences in M/B keys on them drives ? What would be compatible to run this in 4x or 16x PCI slot ?

 

[slowpoke]

Happy to report that WD Black SN750 works as storage on Z68A-GD55(G3) motherboard. Bought el-cheapo pcie adapter off ebay.
Read/write is about 1500mb/s according to crystal. On second gen pcie. Not too shabby.

BIOS doenst see it as bootable, but thatd fine, its an old mobo afterall.

#Edit# Hm. Crystaldiskinfo reports current transfer mode as gen2.0 x4 pcie, but "supported gen 3.0". not sure what that means...