Which SSD Will Fit My Motherboard (2nd SSD)

fd9 on 22/11/2021 - 06:12

Hi All,

Just wondering if someone could do a quick sanity check to make sure I am buying the right SSD.
Didn't want to purchase it and realise it isn't compatible.

My current one is at 95% capacity.

Ideally, I would like to keep that one in there and add another one in the second slot.

My motherboard: B460 PRO
https://www.asus.com/au/Motherboards-Components/Motherboards…

In terms of ports it has:
1 x M.2 Socket 3, with M key, type 2242/2260/2280 storage devices support (SATA & PCIE 3.0 x 4 mode)*2
1 x M.2 Socket 3, with M key, type 2242/2260/2280/22110 storage devices support (PCIE 3.0 x 4 mode)

I currently have in my PC:
Samsung 970 EVO 1TB NVMe 1.3 M.2 (2280) 3D V-NAND SSD

Would I be able to add this into the second slot?
https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/664920
Crucial P1 1TB M.2 NVMe SSD

Use case: office/study only. No gaming.

Thank you in advance.

Computing Computer Component Motherboard SSD

Comments

  • smashman42 on 22/11/2021 - 06:53
    +3

    Yeah you're fine, the only limit is you can't put a SATA M.2 drive in that second slot, anything NVMe is all good.

    • fd9 on 22/11/2021 - 06:56
      +1

      Perfect. Thank you for the advice and savings me from the stress of trying to make sense of all this.

      • smashman42 on 22/11/2021 - 07:06
        +2

        If you can stretch the budget I'd personally try to get a 2TB secondary drive

        I think the best $$$/GB value point on NVMe drives is still 1TB, with 500GB being more than half the price and not really worth it, and 2TB scaling to pretty much double the price of 1TB so similar value, but the price totally blows out for 4TB.

        I ran into the problem with M.2 slots when I upgraded as I have a 500GB Evo 970 NVMe primary and a WD Blue 3D SATA M.2 secondary, and none of the boards secondary slots seem to support SATA any more, so cheap M.2 to 2.5" adaptor for me.

        • fd9 on 22/11/2021 - 07:55

          Thanks for typing that.
          Sorry I am real dumb - is there a benefit in getting a 2TB drive other than future proofing?

          • smashman42 on 22/11/2021 - 08:32
            +1

            @fd9: Most of the performance gains level off at the 1TB point, so no benefit other than more free space.

            The 500GB ones can be a bit munted compared to the bigger drives cause of the number of NAND chips and therefore parallel channels they can use to transfer/receive data - basically bus width like on GPUs memory if you're familiar with that?

  • Caped Baldy on 22/11/2021 - 07:07
    +1

    I had a quick look. It'll fit but wasn't 100% clear if the second slot is NVMe as well. Best to move the Samsung evo to see if it works to confirm.

    https://dlcdnimgs.asus.com/websites/global/products/57fhaedf…

    • fd9 on 22/11/2021 - 07:57
      +1

      Thank you for taking the time to look into that for me.
      So if I move my samsung one across and it "works" its NVMe?
      Or do I have to run something or look up something to confirm.

      Sorry for the noob questions!

      • Caped Baldy on 22/11/2021 - 08:09
        +1

        yeah pretty much. It should just work but may need to switch the boot drive in the BIOS. More than likely it will work but this is just confirmation.

        I had another look - PCIE 3.0 x 4 pretty much seems to mean NVMe.

        After installing the second drive you will need to add as storage in windows so use the Disk Management tool. Drive should appear in the tool but not windows explorer. Right click in the tool, create the volume and follow the prompts.

        I am wondering what files you have on the main drive to fill up when it's mainly just study/office.

        • fd9 on 22/11/2021 - 08:19
          +1

          Ah I see.
          Thank you very much. I wouldn't have thought to check that otherwise.

          Honestly its doing my head in - the digital clutter I have accumulated. I do an annual spring clean of my hard drives every year but it just seems to never fix it.

          • Family photos and videos
          • 8 years worth of university studies, with associated notes, videos and other things
          • I use a study tool called Anki (a spaced repetition program) and the images there can take up a lot of space as well.
          • Audio files that I listen to

          I should probably get rid of them but I get a nagging feeling of - if I ever will need them again - because some of them took a very long time to make.

          • Caped Baldy on 22/11/2021 - 08:33
            +1

            @fd9: Fair enough. Highly recommend having backups for the really important stuff.

            • fd9 on 22/11/2021 - 08:39
              +1

              @Caped Baldy: Thanks! I have everything backed up on a old spinny external hard drive (non SSD).

              And then one copy on my current SSD

              Do you reckon they could both fail at the same time haha?

              I've got a 200gb google drive plan with the irreplaceable stuff just in case but thats at 95% capacity.

              • Caped Baldy on 22/11/2021 - 08:54
                +1

                @fd9:

                Do you reckon they could both fail at the same time haha?

                quite unlikely. I've got some portable HDDs too but I don't check that they're still working…

                If the photos are on google photos you can "optimize" storage so they take up less storage space but there is a decrease in resolution.

                • fd9 on 22/11/2021 - 09:49
                  +1

                  @Caped Baldy: That's good to know.
                  The photos of my parents are irreplaceable.

  • Neilzy on 22/11/2021 - 09:37

    It'll run both the 970 and P1. Both Slots support NVME; the top slot supports both NVME & SATA, the bottom slot only supports NVME.

    Do also note that slot M.2_1 (the top one) shares bandwidth with SATA6G_1 , so if you have M.2_1 populated as you intended and decide at a later date to plug in a sata drive, then dont use the SATA6G_1 port as it wont work.

    • fd9 on 22/11/2021 - 09:49

      Thanks Neilzy for confirming! Interesting, thanks for the info.

  • animasoIa on 22/11/2021 - 09:55
    +1

    Just be careful if you are using any of the PCIe slots (say slot 3 & 4). Some motherboards disable a PCIe slot when the 2nd M.2 is populated.

    • fd9 on 22/11/2021 - 12:43

      Ah okay. Wasn't aware of that. Thanks!

      • animasoIa on 22/11/2021 - 12:46
        +1

        Couldn't find any info re that on your motherboard so I guess you are safe? Mine specifically says: "PCI_E4 slot will be unavailable when an M.2 SSD is installed in the M2_2 slot."

        • fd9 on 22/11/2021 - 12:46

          Ah okay. Great news. I appreciate you taking the time to look it up for me :)

  • AndyC1 on 22/11/2021 - 10:04
    +1

    I would take a step back and ask yourself the following questions before buying a second SSD:
    1) What is taking up the space? (Grab Treesize Free" and look)
    2) Does the stuff that is taking up the space does it need to be on a fast or slow media?
    3) Is there anything that can be archived onto a USB (preferable multiple for safe storage)?
    4) Do you have data and the OS segregated somehow on the existing SSD? This allows you to move/backup the data in the future allot easier.

    If you find that you need the stuff that is taking up the space on a fast media then grab an SSD otherwise saver the money and grab a bigger cheaper HDD for data/archive storage.

    If you are going to buy another SSD think if you can splurge then think about getting a faster SSD and make it your boot SSD and then relegate the existing SSD for data storage.

    • fd9 on 22/11/2021 - 12:43

      I see. That's something to think about. Thanks for taking the time to write that up for me.
      1) Will do.
      2) I would prefer something that I can do a windows search bar quickly to find the required file.
      3) Thats an option I didn't consider. Thanks!
      4) All of my data + windows OS files are on the same hard drive currently. I will have to read into the process of moving that to the new drive I buy and then moving other stuff back to the current one. Hopefully its not too complicated!

      • AndyC1 on 22/11/2021 - 13:31

        Sounds like based the posts above you need to look very carefully about putting your data potentially into one C:\DATA directory where all of your data and files live in sub directories of this (name it whatever you want). This will allow you to move/backup the data easily and spring clean it.

        BTW I hope you also spring clean the OS every few months with something like CCleaner to get rid of the OS crap.

Login or Join to leave a comment
Login Join