Question New Samsung 990PRO

[rgh43]

MB is a ASUS Prime B760M A

ASUS Prime B760M A MB

My Grandson has a new PC with a Kensington 2TB M2 type SSD & he is going to make the 2TB a backup drive adding a new Samsung 2TB 990 Pro as the “C” Drive, can that be place in a open M2 slot or will that affect the speed since it is in a different slot than the original Kensington is. Or would they have to swap slots to utilize the speed of the 990 Pro? Would be nice if it doesn’t have to be moved since the Kensington is a bit awkward to get out & move to the open area the spare 2 slot is located inn, also making it akward to get the 990PRO into the vacated slot..
Planning on using Macroom Reflect to clone the new drive, any thoughts?
Does anyone know if the Samsung Magician program has a clone program?

Also he is into Gaming so does it make any difference in speed if the Games are loaded to the backup drive rather than being on the C drive with Win11 etc.

 

[Lutfij]

https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/LGA1700/PRIME_B760M-A/E21665_PRIME_B760M-A_UM_WEB.pdf?model=PRIME B760M-A
The motherboard has 2x M.2 slots that both operate at a max of PCIe4.0x4 speeds, your grandson can drop the Samsung 990 Pro into either slot. I would advise that the BIOS for the motherboard is updated prior to dropping in any device upgrades.

Kensington 2TB
Could you ask your grandson what the model of the Kingston 2TB drive is? If this drive is slower in speeds than the Samsung 990 Pro, then it's best to make the Samsung drive the game library drive.

 

[rgh43]

Hope this is what you need.

Amazon says; Kingston NV2 2TB M.2 2280 NVMe Internal SSD | PCIe 4.0 Gen 4x4 | Up to 3500 MB/s | SNV2S/2000G​

Info I found somwhere?? Internal Solid State Hard Drive, Seq. Read Speeds Up to 7,450 MB/s for High End Computing, Gaming, and Heavy Duty Workstations, MZ-V9P1T0B/AM

I’m going to download Samsung Magician to test the Kingston 1st. I will also call iBuy for info.

 

[USAFRet]

Does anyone know if the Samsung Magician program has a clone program?

Part of Magician is Samsung Data Migration.


You WILL need to access and remove the Kingston at the end of this clone 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
Both drives must be the same partitioning scheme, either MBR or GPT
Download and install Macrium Reflect (or Samsung Magician (which includes Data Migration), if a Samsung target SSD)
If you are cloning from a SATA drive to PCIe/NVMe, you may need to install the relevant driver for this new NVMe/PCIe drive.
Power off
Disconnect ALL drives except the current C and the new SSD
Power up

Verify the system boots with ONLY the current "C drive" connected.
If not, we have to fix that first.

Run the Macrium Reflect (or Samsung Data Migration)
Select ALL the partitions on the existing C drive

[Ignore this section if using the SDM. It does this automatically]
If you are going from a smaller drive to a larger, by default, the target partition size will be the same as the Source. You probably don't want that
You can manipulate the size of the partitions on the target (larger)drive
Click on "Cloned Partition Properties", and you can specify the resulting partition size, to even include the whole thing
[/end ignore]

Click the 'Clone' button
Wait until it is done
When it finishes, power off
Disconnect ALL drives except for the new SSD. This is not optional.
This is to allow the system to try to boot from ONLY the SSD

(swapping cables is irrelevant with NVMe drives, but DO disconnect the old drive for this next part)
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.
-----------------------------

 

[geofelt]

Samsung magician includes a simple C drive mover that works with samsung target drives.
Read the included user instructions.
The move should work with the new ssd in the second slot.
Warning, a full drive may take a couple of hours to move.
When done, you will want to remove the original m.2 which has not been changed.
I know it is a pain but it must be done.
Keep as a backup if you don't need the space.
1. Running with only the new samsung 990 verifies that the app worked properly.
2. The second m.2 slot is likely a lower performing slot and not the best to take advantage of the 990.