Question Question about multiple SSD

Cardinal-

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Feb 19, 2015
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Hello everyone,
I have a 120gb ssd and i want to upgrade to a bigger one, prblly 480 or 500. I also have 1TB hdd. My question is, if i upgrade do i loose any performance by keeping all 3 disks? Like having windows on my 120gb ssd , games on 480gb ssd, and have the hdd for music and maybe games too. Or even get windows on the 480gb ssd and keep the other one (120gb ssd) for having extra games there. Do i stand to loose any performance? Because, i'd prefer to remove the 120gb ssd if 3 disks will cost in performance and use it in some other system later.

Cheers,
George
 

Eximo

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There are bandwidth limitations to everything in a PC. Usually SATA is hooked up to the CPU via DMI and it does have a maximum bandwidth. (That depends entirely on what CPU/Motherboard you have)

Many M.2 slots have direct access to the CPU.

It certainly won't hurt to have additional drives in the system. Only if you exceeded the DMI bandwidth would it be a real problem and that should be hard to do under normal circumstances.
 

Eximo

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Sata ports are on the Northbridge, not the CPU.
PCIE M2 is also usually on the Northbridge.

Yes, but the Northbridge (I prefer chipset, since they got rid of the southbridge a long time ago) communicates to the CPU through a single DMI interface. If everything tries to run at once there are still potential problems. Though on newer platforms that is as much as a 4x PCIe 3.0 interface.

As for direct access to the CPU, that depends on the CPU and motherboard in question. High end Intel boards usually have one M.2 direct to CPU and others going through the chipset. For once they offered more lanes than most boards needed to run dual graphics cards, so they used the excess for the M.2 slot. I know the block diagram disagrees, but excepting boards that support three-way crossfire they can be wired that way and many are. (Though I can't say much for SLI or Crossfire these days)

For AMD, not so much. They have left some general purpose lanes, but I think the great range of CPU support leads them to basically ignore it and use the chipset for everything.
 

USAFRet

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Hello everyone,
I have a 120gb ssd and i want to upgrade to a bigger one, prblly 480 or 500. I also have 1TB hdd. My question is, if i upgrade do i loose any performance by keeping all 3 disks? Like having windows on my 120gb ssd , games on 480gb ssd, and have the hdd for music and maybe games too. Or even get windows on the 480gb ssd and keep the other one (120gb ssd) for having extra games there. Do i stand to loose any performance? Because, i'd prefer to remove the 120gb ssd if 3 disks will cost in performance and use it in some other system later.

Cheers,
George
Assuming these are all SATA devices, you do not lose anything.
My system has 6x SATA III SSDs. All individually running at the same speed as if they were the only system in the box.