Question Installing replacement NVMe SSD on MSI Z790-P WiFi motherboard ?

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agyaani

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Feb 18, 2019
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I have a PC with an MSI Z790-P WiFi board and right now I have a Samsung 990 Pro 1TB SSD as my OS drive in first M.2 slot which has an inbuilt heatsink. However, within a year my NVME drive life has dropped to around 50% even though it is running the latest firmware.

So I am looking for a replacement NVMe SSD. I have some rewards accumulated on staples and I saw they have a 2TB SN850P that has good reviews. However. it comes with heatsink already attached. So basically, I should be able to set up that drive in slots 2, 3 or 4 or I can use slot 1 and not use the mobo heatsink. Now my question is more academic in nature.

I want to know will it make any difference if I use slot 2, 3 or 4 instead of slot 1 as slot 1? Or is it always better to use slot 1 for the OS drive?

Thanks!
 
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Just to clarify, you shouldn't remove the heatsink that comes with an SSD as it can and will void your warranty. The rest of the slots, besides M.2_1, is wired to the chipset and no it won't matter which slot you populate with the SSD(M.2_2~M.2_4) as they're meant to run at PCIe4.0x4.

Or is it always better to use slot 1 for OS NVME?
If it's for your OS, you won't be able to tell the difference between a PCIe3.0x4 drive and a PCIe4.0x4 drive. To also add, it's moot having the OS on a 2TB SSD. I tend to get a small capacity SSD and install the OS, app's and launchers onto it while a larger, faster SSD is meant as the game library drive. What I meant to say is, I install the slower drive onto a slower slot.
 
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OK, that brings it into context.

239TB in a year is a LOT of data written.
Thats where the 50% comes in.

For instance, my C drive - 1TB 980 Pro, has 1/3 the host writes in 3x the power on hours.
Z9HYjcv.png


Something is doing more than 'just surfing'.
 
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USAFRet said:
OK, that brings it into context.

239TB in a year is a LOT of data written.
Thats where the 50% comes in.

For instance, my C drive - 1TB 980 Pro, has 1/3 the host writes in 3x the power on hours.
Z9HYjcv.png


Something is doing more than 'just surfing'.
Click to expand...
I have habbit of using multiple browsers with literally 100s of tabs open at time. I read something about pagefile recently so have cut down in tabs now.

My RAM usuage was very high at time as well especially with chrome and Firefox.
I had 64 GB RAM (DDR5, 6400mhz) which I thought was good enough for my use and I recently upgraded it to 96GB.
As per the HDD sentinel, I found that a big chunk of degradation of NVME occurred back within 2 weeks in Sep 2024. Like about 15%-20%.
Overall I am not too sure what might have caused all this. I have ESET and malwarebytes installed so I am pretty sure no virus or malware is there.
 
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agyaani said:
However, within a year my NVME drive life has reached to around 50% even though it is running the latest firmware.
I have habbit of using multiple browsers with literally 100s of tabs open at time. I read something about pagefile recently so have cut down in tabs now.
My RAM usuage was very high at time as well especially with chrome and Firefox.
Click to expand...
Move pagefile to a different drive.
Move browser cache to a different drive.

Use Performance Monitor - Disk tab/Disk Activity section and see, what process is performing majority of writes onto SSD.
 
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agyaani said:
Could you please elaborate on how to do that? Also, what drive to use for that? If I use a HDD will that make browsing slow? Or you recommend using a SATA SSD?
Click to expand...
You can move pagefile to a different drive by adjusting virtual memory settings.
www.javelin-tech.com

Adjusting Virtual Memory (Windows Pagefile) for increased SOLIDWORKS Performance

Knowing how to adjust your Virtual Memory (Windows Pagefile) settings can help enhance your SOLIDWORKS performance when applied to your Workstation.
www.javelin-tech.com www.javelin-tech.com

To move browser cache,
  1. determine location of browser cache for your specific browser (different browsers use different locations),
  2. create a partition on another drive (2GB recommended size, may need more),
  3. make sure browser is closed,
  4. move contents of browser cache to new location,
  5. map newly created partition to now empty browser cache location folder.
For example firefox uses following locations for browser cache:
C:\users\username\App Data\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles​
C:\users\username\App Data\Local\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles​

Edge:
C:\users\username\App Data\Local\Microsoft\Edge​
 
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SkyNetRising said:
You can move pagefile to a different drive by adjusting virtual memory settings.
www.javelin-tech.com

Adjusting Virtual Memory (Windows Pagefile) for increased SOLIDWORKS Performance

Knowing how to adjust your Virtual Memory (Windows Pagefile) settings can help enhance your SOLIDWORKS performance when applied to your Workstation.
www.javelin-tech.com www.javelin-tech.com

To move browser cache,
  1. determine location of browser cache for your specific browser (different browsers use different locations),
  2. create a partition on another drive (2GB recommended size, may need more),
  3. make sure browser is closed,
  4. move contents of browser cache to new location,
  5. map newly created partition to now empty browser cache location folder.
For example firefox uses following locations for browser cache:
C:\users\username\App Data\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles​
C:\users\username\App Data\Local\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles​

Edge:
C:\users\username\App Data\Local\Microsoft\Edge​
Click to expand...
Thanks! I will try this out next weekend once I am back after the spring break.
 
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