[SOLVED] question about using dual NVMe M.2 storage drives

Gfost73

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hi , I am working on building anew machine, and was curious about using dual NVMe M.2 storage drives, I know they are the new tech and are very fast (or so im lead to belive and I am sure they are ) .. my question is , are they similar to "traditional HDD" in the way the OS sees and uses them? like if I install 2, will the OS just see them as C, and D or whatever they letter maybe, or is it not quite that simple. the board I'm looking at does have dual slots, and id like to use them if they are better than a SSD or HDD, and I'm sure they are much better than a HDD, but if a SSD are easier to install then I would go with those as well as I am told there like 10x faster loading than a HDD, this is a link to the motherboard I settled on in case you need more info from its specs ASUS ROG STRIX B450-F GAMING
any info would be greatly appreciated.. thanks again
 
Solution
are they similar to "traditional HDD" in the way the OS sees and uses them? like if I install 2, will the OS just see them as C, and D
If I've understood your question correctly, yes they will be seen seperately. If you install 2 M2s, you will have 2 storage drives in your disk list.

I know they are the new tech and are very fast (or so im lead to belive and I am sure they are )
Just remember M2 are in fact SSDs, it's just a different form factor.
You're referring to form factor 2.5 SSDs.
These are M.2. Form factor SSDs.
Then they have different interfaces depending on what bus they use (SATA / PCIe) NVMe in effect = PCIe SSD.

Depends in what way and what you want. In benchmarks and in theory, yes NVMe is...

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are they similar to "traditional HDD" in the way the OS sees and uses them? like if I install 2, will the OS just see them as C, and D
If I've understood your question correctly, yes they will be seen seperately. If you install 2 M2s, you will have 2 storage drives in your disk list.

I know they are the new tech and are very fast (or so im lead to belive and I am sure they are )
Just remember M2 are in fact SSDs, it's just a different form factor.
You're referring to form factor 2.5 SSDs.
These are M.2. Form factor SSDs.
Then they have different interfaces depending on what bus they use (SATA / PCIe) NVMe in effect = PCIe SSD.

Depends in what way and what you want. In benchmarks and in theory, yes NVMe is significantly faster because it uses the PCIe bus rather than a SATA bus however in real world application there is little difference when it comes to load up times etc.

If your referring to faster boot up, faster load times of games etc. Then you'll notice less than 1 second difference between an NVMe and SATA SSD. Data transfer is different, but that tends to only become significant if you are constantly moving large data.

So yes, they are significantly better than a HDD, but not so much from a standard SSD
 
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Gfost73

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oh ok .. thanks for that info , so more or less they are just SSD made smaller.. performance wise not too different.. Ive never had a SSD , so I'm sure either would be a huge upgrade from a traditional HDD, I just wasn't sure if certain settings would have to be enabled or things in Bios etc to get them to work, but seems there just "plug and play" and honeslty I just was considering them because I figured they were the newest option . I'm not building a machine for benchmarking or large data file transfers or to be the "fastest" Im so used to old tech anything will seem much faster to me .. lol.. I just figured being new they might be best option where they really are not so expencive , but Im sure I can get a 2.5SSD cheaper (or larger for same price) so I guess I will have decisions to make..
 

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You'd be hard pressed to find a good PC WITHOUT an SSD nowadays.

Don't get me wrong, the theory of the NVMe M2 is excellent and theoretically it does have much higher data transfer due to not being capped by a SATA bus, it's just in application, we can't really use that yet. So maybe in the future it may become more relevant, but currently, it will save you less than a second load up time if that's what your after.

Again, large data transfer is a different story in most cases.

But jumping from HDD to ANY SSD will be a huge improvement I assure you (in loading times etc.).
 

Gfost73

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yes my PC hardware is on the older side, that's why I figured it was time to upgrade to more modern tech and I suppose even if I dont get any right now, at least the board will support should I choose to in future, i dont do large transfers and a 1 second difference in real world, well that I wont even notice lol.. could you recommend a good brand of SSD? I know like everything there are good and garbage .. I am budgeting 150-200$ for the storage and would like around a TB if possible, more if I could
 

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yes my PC hardware is on the older side, that's why I figured it was time to upgrade to more modern tech and I suppose even if I dont get any right now, at least the board will support should I choose to in future, i dont do large transfers and a 1 second difference in real world, well that I wont even notice lol.. could you recommend a good brand of SSD? I know like everything there are good and garbage .. I am budgeting 150-200$ for the storage and would like around a TB if possible, more if I could
Well the model is more important, but there are brands who generally hold the trophy for being the most well reputed:

Generally Samsung hold 1st place, but Intel and Crucial also make some excellent ones.
Just make sure you don't go cheap of the cheap, because the cheapest ones won't have things like DRAM, which is a big performance hit.
 

Gfost73

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funny you said Samsung because this is the one I was just looking at .. its more than enough space for my needs SSD would you consider this a good choice? (as you said models matter as much as brand) and I agree each brand often have ok , good, better , best kind of options.. would this one say be better than just ok.. I know it wont be beast as Ive seen some 4x as
much lol