Question Need help picking an M.2 drive, does it even matter which one I get?

[pcbuilder777]

I would like to add another M.2 drive in my PC. According to my motherboard's manual the following are compatible:

I believe I'll just be using it for emulating older consoles like playstation 1 and 2. I'm a bit of a cheapskate and don't want to spend more on it than I have to! I have a hard drive currently in but it has a health status of "caution" for a current pending sector count 100 so I assume I should just go ahead and replace it. Any recommendations for m.2 drives for my needs would be appreciated. Thank you very much.

 

[helpstar]

would get at least an 1TB pcie/nvme from Samsung with at least 5years of warranty

 

[Lutfij]

I would like to add another M.2 drive in my PC
Make and model of your motherboard? What M.2 SSD do you currently have? If you're on a PCIe3.0x4 drive as of this writing, you can move that to the chipset driven M.2 slot, then grab a PCIe4.0x4(assuming it's PCIe4.0x4 speeds) drive of larger capacity and then populate that in the CPU driven M.2 slot. On a side note, please make sure you're on the latest BIOS version prior to dropping in new SSD's/rams.

Just an FYI, if you have mission critical data on that HDD, then you might want to accept how things will unfold if the drive goes South. Furthermore, do not rely on an SSD with your mission critical data, so if anything replace the HDD with an HDD but the suggestion for the SSD, holds and would net you benefits in the long run.

You might want to mention where you're located, what your budget for the M.2 SSD is and your preferred site for purchase is.