Question Please help me work out which SSD to buy

[MrYossu]

My PC has an X570 AORUS ELITE motherboard, which supports PCIe 4.0 x4/x2 (info blindly picked up from their web site).

I have a Corsair Force MP600 1Tb SSD, which is almost full, and am looking to upgrade to a 2Tb drive.

An article here says that "the PCIe 4.0 Samsung 990 Pro is our current choice for the best SSD overall, " which is from 27th Apr, so I guess is still relevant.

I had a look on Amazon (not necessarily to buy from there, but to see what's available at what price), and got very confused. Searching for this drive gave quite a lot of results. Even when you cut out the 1Tb drives, and the 4Tb (which I don't need yet!), there are still quite a lot. The only thing I saw that caught my eye was that one had a heat sink. My PC does often run quite warm, so for a few Pounds more, a heat sink seems sensible (assuming it actually does any good of course).

Anyone able to advise what would be the best/right choice? I am a software developer, and don't play games. Not sure if you need anything else there.

My full current specs can be seen here, in case there's any info I missed.

Thanks for any advice you can give.

 

[Math Geek]

i tend to favor sold AND shipped by amazon or by the Samsung store. i avoid the 3rd party sellers and will even go somewhere else if needed to do so.

there is just too much fraud and fakes out there to risk it in my opinion, especially on amazon which has been on a downward spiral for years now. .

don't know if the UK has better consumer protection but here in the US i avoid 3rd party sellers pretty much every change i get unless there is literally no other option.

as for the heatsink model, not really a bad idea if your case is already on the warm side. your mobo only comes with one so adding it to your second drive is probably worth it.

such a different design than my X570s aorus elite which has 3 m.2 slots and more features....

 

[kira-faye]

Alternately, the WD SN850X is a great choice, and can sometimes be cheaper depending on sales and such.

 

[geofelt]

As Math Geek suggested, avoid 3rd party sellers on Amazon or Newegg.
You want a product sold and shipped directly from Amazon or Newegg.

Unless you have an app that depends on long sequential reads from the ssd,
Heat sinks and very high benchmarks are not very useful.
Most of your I/O will be small random I/O.

If budget is no issue, by all means buy a faster ssd with a heat sink.
You want good airflow over your motherboard, regardless.

You are not likely to notice any difference.
These experts could not tell any difference:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DKLA7w9eeA

 

[BrickStation]

I also agree that the WD SN850X is a great choice, I have a 2TB that I use for games. Although, it isn't much faster in a PCIe 3.0 slot than my previous Crucial MX500 SATA drive, at least while gaming.

My other choices would probably be the Kingston NV1 or NV2 depending on whether you prioritize PCIe 3.0 or 4.0 compatibility. I also prefer to select from brands that have established reputations such as Samsung or Seagate. Alternatively, you could consider getting another SATA drive, but it might be a good idea to upgrade to modern hardware.

 

[MrYossu]

i tend to favor sold AND shipped by amazon or by the Samsung store. i avoid the 3rd party sellers and will even go somewhere else if needed to do so.

Thanks to everyone for the advice on that point. I do generally tend to favour Amazon as a seller, but it's good to know I'm not just being paranoid.

such a different design than my X570s aorus elite which has 3 m.2 slots and more features....

Hmm, could be I got the wrong board, I'm no expert. I looked in the system info to see what I and and searched for it. Here's the info I saw...

...and here is the actual motherboard...

You can see the Mp600 right above the graphics card, but I can't see another m.2 slot. Would it/they be anywhere else?

Most of your I/O will be small random I/O.

Actually, a significant amount of my I/O can be in large chunks, as Visual Studio does a lot of disk work when compiling a large project. Not saying that this would be a noticeable factor, as any of these SSDs might be fast enough but there can be a lot of I/O at times.

If budget is no issue, by all means buy a faster ssd with a heat sink.

I wouldn't say budget isn't an issue, it was more that if I was already spending £170, an extra £20 would be worth it if it would help keep the heat down.

You want good airflow over your motherboard, regardless.

As it happens, I recently moved the PC so it's got more space around it, and it has helped.

Thanks again to everyone. Any further advice would be appreciated.

 

[MrYossu]

Forgot to say thank you to all for the recommendations of other drives. As far as I can see, the WD SN850X is slightly faster, and the model with the heat sink is slightly cheaper than the Samsung without, so I can't see any reason not to favour the WD SN850X.

I would be interested to know if there is a way to plug both into the motherboard, as if so, I could very easily clone the existing one onto the new one, then remove the old and run the new as my C: drive. Not sure how I'd clone the old one otherwise.

Thanks again.

 

[Math Geek]

you def have the right model number. they redid the x570 chipset removing the need for the fan on top of it and called it the x570s. while at it, they added some extra features it looks like.

as to your second question, you should be able to run both the new and old ssd's at the same time. you actually have the mp600 in the second m.2 slot. the first one is under the cover just below the cpu and above the top pcie slot.

that's actually a heatsink for the first slot. should be a small screw holding it down on the left hand side in the pic under that small cable. so if you want to run the new one as your C: drive, then put it into that top slot, clone your old drive to it, then use that mp600 for data storage or whatever.

 

[MrYossu]

@Math Geek Thanks for the explanation, I didn't realise that was another slot.

Looks like I'm sorted then. Thanks again to everyone who helped.

 

[Math Geek]

No prob enjoy your new bountiful storage option

 

[MrYossu]

No prob enjoy your new bountiful storage option

Sad thing is, I probably won't really notice it. It's not like a new monitor, where you see the benefit right in front of you. Increased storage is more a case of removing a problem! Still, that's something worth having.

Forgot to clarify. When I get it, I can plug it into the other slot, and presumably when I reboot, it will show up as a new drive. I can then clone my current C: drive to it, power down, remove the old drive and power up. Now the problem I see is that the PC might not know where to boot. I imagine the new drive won't be allocated C, will the PC still boot? This will be the only drive on the PC with an OS, but all the file paths will be wrong, as things will point to C, and this will probably be something like F (as D is a second internal drive and F is an external backup drive).

Any suggestions for how I migrate to the new drive without problems?

Thanks again

 

[geofelt]

The clone process will create an exact image of your C drive.
When you boot, with only one drive present, it will become the C drive.

If your new drive is Samsung, use their ssd migration aid which is a logical copy, not a clone.
It is the simplest way I know of.
Be prepared for a long process, depending on how much data you have. 4 hours might be reasonable

Tool & Software Download | Samsung Semiconductor Global

Download various software related to your product, including Samsung Magician, designed for use with Samsung's memory products, and find related information.

semiconductor.samsung.com

 

[USAFRet]

Any suggestions for how I migrate to the new drive without problems?

-----------------------------
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 Data Migration, if a Samsung SSD)
If you are cloning from a SATA drive to PCIe/NVMe, 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
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 specifiy 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
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.
-----------------------------

 

[Math Geek]

as they've said above, the cloning process makes the new drive an exact copy of your current drive so it'll boot fine on its own as c drive. do verify it works though before doing anything with that old drive.

my question is why not leave the mp600 installed for extra space or other use? once cloned and CONFIRMED IT IS WORKING, then set the new drive in bios as the boot device and then format the old drive to remove all the partitions and such. make it one single partition for use as whatever extra space you may need.

 

[MrYossu]

-----------------------------
Specific steps for a successful clone operation:
-----------------------------

Wow, thanks for the amazingly detailed instructions! I hope it's as easy as you describe.

I already have Macrium installed, as I use it for nightly disk images, so will probably use that for the job.

Thanks again

 

[MrYossu]

my question is why not leave the mp600 installed for extra space or other use? once cloned and CONFIRMED IT IS WORKING, then set the new drive in bios as the boot device and then format the old drive to remove all the partitions and such. make it one single partition for use as whatever extra space you may need.

I may well leave it in, I was trying to work out how best to achieve the migration.

As it happens, I already have a 3Tb Seagate HDD second drive inside the PC, so I'm not sure I would need the mp600 as well.

Thanks again

 

[MrYossu]

Arrived today, installed easily enough (except they didn't include the little screw you need to hold it in, which I thought was a bit cheap), clone went absolutely fine. Whole thing took just over an hour.

Thanks again to everyone for all the great advice, and especially to @USAFRet for the detailed instructions.

 

[35below0]

Arrived today, installed easily enough (except they didn't include the little screw you need to hold it in, which I thought was a bit cheap), clone went absolutely fine. Whole thing took just over an hour.

Thanks again to everyone for all the great advice, and especially to @USAFRet for the detailed instructions.

I didn't see it mentioned in this thread! But there is a thin film under the heatsink of that M.2 slot.

You have to remove that when installing the NVMe drive! Please check your manual, or check physicaly if the film is still there.
It certainly won't help cool the drive if it's still there.

👍

 

[MrYossu]

I didn't see it mentioned in this thread! But there is a thin film under the heatsink of that M.2 slot.

You have to remove that when installing the NVMe drive! Please check your manual, or check physicaly if the film is still there.
It certainly won't help cool the drive if it's still there.

Ooh, I didn't know that!

Please can you explain this a bit more. Is this film on the motherboard, or on the SSD? Please explain as if you were talking to a complete ignoramus, and you won't be far wrong!

Thanks

 

[Math Geek]

the film is on the underside of the heatsink you removed to get to the top m.2 slot. just have to pull it off. it's not glued or anything.

 

[35below0]

Ooh, I didn't know that!

Please can you explain this a bit more. Is this film on the motherboard, or on the SSD? Please explain as if you were talking to a complete ignoramus, and you won't be far wrong!

Thanks

@Math Geek answered it.

You can see what it looks like on this picture: https://www.vortez.net/contentteller.php?ct=articles&action=file&id=43636

The thin blue film is what needs to be removed, IF it exists. Not all motherboards feature this, though it is common.

 

[MrYossu]

@Math Geek answered it.

You can see what it looks like on this picture: https://www.vortez.net/contentteller.php?ct=articles&action=file&id=43636

The thin blue film is what needs to be removed, IF it exists. Not all motherboards feature this, though it is common.

Thanks to both of you for the clarification.

It didn't have the blue film on, so I'm OK on that score, but I didn't realise that the thing I took off was a heatsink. I removed it, put the new SSD in its place and put the heatsink in a drawer, as I wouldn't see any way it would go on top of the SSD. Was I supposed to put this on top of the SSD?

The right-hand end (in the pic, ie the one without the screw) slotted into the place where the SSD's connections were, so I don't know how I would keep it on at the right-hand end.

If it makes any difference, I bought the version of the SSD with a heatsink, which judging by the pictures is taller than the one without, so maybe it's not supposed to fit back over the drive.

Thanks again, any further clarification would be a help.

 

[35below0]

Thanks to both of you for the clarification.

It didn't have the blue film on, so I'm OK on that score, but I didn't realise that the thing I took off was a heatsink. I removed it, put the new SSD in its place and put the heatsink in a drawer, as I wouldn't see any way it would go on top of the SSD. Was I supposed to put this on top of the SSD?

The right-hand end (in the pic, ie the one without the screw) slotted into the place where the SSD's connections were, so I don't know how I would keep it on at the right-hand end.

Look at the motherboard manual. The explanation on how to fit it should be there.
It is a heatsink meant to be used with NVMe drives that come without one.

If it makes any difference, I bought the version of the SSD with a heatsink, which judging by the pictures is taller than the one without, so maybe it's not supposed to fit back over the drive.

Thanks again, any further clarification would be a help.

If your SSD has a heatsink, then the motherboard heatsink isn't needed, or can't be used.