Question Help with recommendation for NVMe drive please

[Horrgakx]

Hi - I have to admit that I'm confused about these drives, in a previous thread I posted I realised that I bought the wrong type of drive (I bought a Samsung SSD 860 EVO m.2 1Tb instead of its' NVMe equivalent). Subsequently, I don't have the speed from it which I expected.
I have been reading the motherboard manual in order to find which drive I will need. I've looked at NVMe drives on this specialist component site but I'm none the wiser really, I'm still confused about it and I don't want to buy the wrong product again.

My aim is to put a faster drive in and then do an exact copy of the existing drive to the new one, take the old one out, and boot and operate as normal from the new drive.
The motherboard is a an Aourus Z390 Pro and the current drive appears to be installed to the lower of the two ports on the motherboard (which I think is the M2M socket - pages from the manual pasted below for information). It's worth noting that I have an internal CD/DVD and two other hard drives using SATA connectors.

So with this in mind, I'm assuming that I can use the second socket (M2A), so can anyone point directly to the product I'll need which is going to fit the bill please? My budget is between £200-£250, or maybe £300 at a push if I'm buying speed and/or reliability.

 

[USAFRet]

Samsung 970 EVO.

And for transferring from a SATA drive to a new NVMe, read this from Macrium:

Cloned to an NVMe M2 SSD and won't boot forum.macrium.com

The actual cloning process:
-----------------------------
Specific steps for a successful clone operation:
-----------------------------
Verify the actual used space on the current drive is significantly below the size of the new SSD
Download and install Macrium Reflect (or Samsung Data Migration, if a Samsung SSD)
Power off
Disconnect ALL drives except the current C and the new SSD
Power up
Run the Macrium Reflect (or Samsung Data Migration)
Select ALL the partitions on the existing C drive
Click the 'Clone' button
Wait until it is done
When it finishes, power off
Disconnect ALL drives except for the new SSD
This is to allow the system to try to boot from ONLY the SSD
Swap the SATA cables around so that the new drive is connected to the same SATA port as the old drive
Power up, and verify the BIOS boot order
If good, continue the power up

It should boot from the new drive, just like the old drive.
Maybe reboot a time or two, just to make sure.

If it works, and it should, all is good.

Later, reconnect the old drive and wipe all partitions on it.
This will probably require the commandline diskpart function, and the clean command.

Ask questions if anything is unclear.
-----------------------------

 

[Horrgakx]

Thanks for your reply recommending the 970 EVO. Have you seen the ‘980 EVO Plus”? For only a little more it claims to be faster.

I’ll check out that software also for cloning.

 

[USAFRet]

Thanks for your reply recommending the 970 EVO. Have you seen the ‘980 EVO Plus”? For only a little more it claims to be faster.

I’ll check out that software also for cloning.

The PLUS is just the next iteration of that model line.

 

[Horrgakx]

Thanks. I've ordered the plus version and I'll let you know how I get on.

 

[mdd1963]

The 970 is quite fast, with the 970 Plus indeed a couple hundred MB/sec faster (roughly 10% improvement) on sequential reads and writes...

 

[Horrgakx]

To follow up, the new drive is in and working. However I can't use both drives together (I want to re-format the old drive so I can sell it). I've posted in a different thread here about it.