Help deciding which M.2 SSD I could get

[flightoftherat]

Hi

I hope you are fine!

I have a Z370 mobo and it's capable of the following:

Manual: http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/LGA1151/ROG_STRIX_Z370-G_GAMING_WI-FI_AC/E13613_ROG_STRIX_Z370-G_GAMING_WI-FI_AC_UM_v2_web.pdf?_ga=2.92748629.915000026.1520535192-1265339875.1519948834

Well, this is my reality:

The 1080ti is so bulky that it covers the second PCIE port

Now, I have a 4 TB SATA and it's alright but I was totally impressed with the speed of those M.2 NVMe drives, they are also so dead silent (And I don't think I can live with my SATA HDD cracking all day long). So, I want to leave the HDD for games, heavy files and so on and install into the SSD the OS and some programs and games which would benefit from that great speed.

The question is, what can I really install? I don't understand anything about SDD and M2 drives. As far as I know the M.2 are the fastest but how can install one of those?

What's the Hyper M.2 card?

Do I use the available PCIE port (PCIE x1) or the M.2 ports? What's the difference?

This board has 2 M.2 ports. One is at the bottom:

And this other one has a vertical stand:

Now, what would be the difference between these two?

Thank you for your help!

 

[JaredDM]

Just get an M.2 SSD that uses the M key and install it into the M.2 slot on your motherboard. You'll also want to be sure you get one that's NVMe so it's actually using the PCIe lanes rather than the SATA ones (some early M.2 SSDs only used SATA lanes which is included in the M.2 port).

I think the difference with the vertical/horizontal is just the length of the SSD it'll accommodate. The vertical can fit up to 110mm while the horizontal only supports 42, 60 & 80mm lengths.

Something like this will work nicely in either port: https://www.samsung.com/us/computing/memory-storage/solid-state-drives/ssd-860-evo-m-2-sata-250gb-mz-n6e250bw/?cid=pla-ecom-mul-27,000,002

 

[Dunlop0078]

The hyper x thing is an adapter for systems who don't have an m.2 slot, the vertical one is also an adapter but for a pcie x1 slot also for systems with no m.2 slot. Your motherboard has an M.2 slot so you would put your m.2 drive in there, you don't have to use the second PCIE X16 slot.

As for whether you should get an NVME M.2 drive, they are very fast for file transfers either on the drive or to another NVME drive. In terms of load times in games, boot times, app launch times, etc they are typically not much faster than a good SATA SSD while being more expensive. If you just want the latest and greatest and don't care about the price look at the samsung 960 EVO or PRO NVME SSD's. If you want something that is cheaper per GB and pretty much just as fast in most situations look at say a samsung 850 EVO or a crucial MX300.

 

[flightoftherat]

^^ The M.2 (1) socket (horizontal) at the botton of the board supports SATA & PCIE and the M.2 (2) socket (vertical) supports only PCIE 3.0 x 4 mode. It means the socket (2) is better as it doesn't share bandwidth with SATA 1? I read that when a M.2 shares bandwidth with SATA, happens to be slower...

Ok I'll follow your guide, the V-Nand stuff is the same as the NVME? Which is better?

Why some M.2 cards are connected to the PCIE ports? I know I can't 'cause the GPU covers everything, but just asking...

And the Hyper M.2, what's that...

What a mess, too many questions! :lol:

 

[flightoftherat]

Dunloop0078: I'll take note.

I want it for programs, load times, games... I don't care about transferring files to other SSD device. So, is NVME still recommendable? JaredDM recommended a M.2 SSD which is V-NAND...what does it stand for?

I'll take a look to the drives you have mentioned.

Last question, which M.2 socket on my board do you recommend to use?

Thanks a lot

 

[flightoftherat]

This one: Samsung 960 EVO

https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-960-EVO-Internal-MZ-V6E500BW/dp/B01M20VBU7

The reviews say that I have to watch out for the lanes, otherwise the drive won't run at the intended speed.

My GPU is a Strix 1080ti connected to the PCIEx16 port. The processor is a i7 8700k. Like that M.2 drive is PCIE based, am I good to go?

 

[gasaraki]

Just get a PCIe M.2 drive and plug it in to the M.2 slots, either the vertical one or the one that's under the second PCIe slot.

 

[JaredDM]

^^ The M.2 (1) socket (horizontal) at the botton of the board supports SATA & PCIE and the M.2 (2) socket (vertical) supports only PCIE 3.0 x 4 mode. It means the socket (2) is better as it doesn't share bandwidth with SATA 1? I read that when a M.2 shares bandwidth with SATA, happens to be slower...

An SSD will only ever use SATA or PCIe lanes at a single time. It'll never use both. If PCIe is available on the motherboard and supported by the SSD it'll default to that. If one is lacking, it'll drop down to the slower SATA lanes. Your motherboard's M.2 slot supports PCIe, so as long as you get an NVMe SSD it'll be using PCIe and completely ignore the SATA lanes available on the slot.

As to your questions relating to V-NAND and NVMe, they are two different things. V-Nand has to do with the type of memory used on the SSD itself. NVMe has to do with the communications protocol used to communicate between the motherboard and SSD. The same SSD can be both V-NAND and support NVMe mode.

 

[flightoftherat]

Simply wonderful. One last question, what about the lanes thing? I don't want to unpower my GPU!