SSD and Formatting when moving to another location on same PC

[electricblue73]

Do you always need to format your existing SSD when you just want to move it to another location on the same pc?



I want to install a PCIE SSD card that fits a 2.5" ssd and would like to move my boot drive to the PCIE card instead of the SATAIII drive, on the same PC. I want to do this because I want to take advantage of my OS and programs running faster and smoother when things get more intense as I am working on the PC (music production, photoshop/video editing etc...)

If I do this and then set the Boot drive option to the PCIE card, will everything work fine without the need to format my boot drive? Or do I still need to format it and reinstall windows 10?

My assumption is since I already formatted my boot drive on my PC, it won't be looked at as something "foreign" to the computer, it will be recognized as the boot drive as long as it is assigned to boot option 1 in BIOS, after changing the location from SATA to PCIE slot.

How does this actually work?

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

Your motherboard BIOS may not have option to boot from an SSD attached to a PCIe SATA card, and if that's the case it could only be used for storage.
What I'm saying is, you can't take it for granted. It depends on specific motherboard model & BIOS version.

 

[USAFRet]

Do you always need to format your existing SSD when you just want to move it to another location on the same pc?



I want to install a PCIE SSD card that fits a 2.5" ssd and would like to move my boot drive to the PCIE card instead of the SATAIII drive, on the same PC. I want to do this because I want to take advantage of my OS and programs running faster and smoother when things get more intense as I am working on the PC (music production, photoshop/video editing etc...)

If I do this and then set the Boot drive option to the PCIE card, will everything work fine without the need to format my boot drive? Or do I still need to format it and reinstall windows 10?

My assumption is since I already formatted my boot drive on my PC, it won't be looked at as something "foreign" to the computer, it will be recognized as the boot drive as long as it is assigned to boot option 1 in BIOS, after changing the location from SATA to PCIE slot.

How does this actually work?

"I want to install a PCIE SSD card that fits a 2.5" ssd and would like to move my boot drive to the PCIE card"
Doesn't work like that.
Are you talking about a whole new PCIe drive in a PCIe slot, or an adapter for your current SATA SSD in that PCIe slot?


1. What motherboard is this?
"assumptions" often result in tears.

2. A SATA III SSD that is moved to an adapter in a PCIe slot will still only run at SATA III speed.
You're not gaining anything.

 

[electricblue73]

I have a Gigabyte X299 Designare EX motherboard

 

[electricblue73]

Do you always need to format your existing SSD when you just want to move it to another location on the same pc?



I want to install a PCIE SSD card that fits a 2.5" ssd and would like to move my boot drive to the PCIE card instead of the SATAIII drive, on the same PC. I want to do this because I want to take advantage of my OS and programs running faster and smoother when things get more intense as I am working on the PC (music production, photoshop/video editing etc...)

If I do this and then set the Boot drive option to the PCIE card, will everything work fine without the need to format my boot drive? Or do I still need to format it and reinstall windows 10?

My assumption is since I already formatted my boot drive on my PC, it won't be looked at as something "foreign" to the computer, it will be recognized as the boot drive as long as it is assigned to boot option 1 in BIOS, after changing the location from SATA to PCIE slot.

How does this actually work?

"I want to install a PCIE SSD card that fits a 2.5" ssd and would like to move my boot drive to the PCIE card"
Doesn't work like that.
Are you talking about a whole new PCIe drive in a PCIe slot, or an adapter for your current SATA SSD in that PCIe slot?


1. What motherboard is this?
"assumptions" often result in tears.

2. A SATA III SSD that is moved to an adapter in a PCIe slot will still only run at SATA III speed.
You're not gaining anything.

I have Gigabyte X299 Designare EX motherboard

I'm looking at something like this: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00WUZPMHE/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

[USAFRet]

Still unsure of what you're actually looking to do.

It seems that you want to move your current 2.5" SATA III SSD to a PCIe slot?
If so...why?

 

[mdd1963]

Are we desperately short of SATA ports, or...?

the peak 500-540 MB/sec transfer capabilities of the SSD will be 100% identical after this move, if viable.....

 

[USAFRet]

I'm looking at something like this: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00WUZPMHE/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Performance change = 0%.

 

[electricblue73]

Still unsure of what you're actually looking to do.

It seems that you want to move your current 2.5" SATA III SSD to a PCIe slot?
If so...why?

Just wanted to know if there really was a speed difference between the two. I am building a new PC for music production and photo/video editing so i want to make my PC run as fast and smooth as possible. I read in a couple forums that ppl were claiming they notice a big difference in the PC performance when running intense programs when using their SSD boot drive (OS/programs) through the PCIe lanes., but there obviously is a mixed bag of reviews relating to this issue.

What if you put an M2 NVME like a Samsung in a PCIe card? Will it be faster than SATAIII?

 

[electricblue73]

Are we desperately short of SATA ports, or...?

the peak 500-540 MB/sec transfer capabilities of the SSD will be 100% identical after this move, if viable.....

Not short of SATA ports right now, just wanted to know if there is a real world difference between the two. Just want to make my new PC build running as fast and smooth as possible before I start downloading all my programs and software I will be using. Thanks for your reply!

 

[USAFRet]

Still unsure of what you're actually looking to do.

It seems that you want to move your current 2.5" SATA III SSD to a PCIe slot?
If so...why?

Just wanted to know if there really was a speed difference between the two. I am building a new PC for music production and photo/video editing so i want to make my PC run as fast and smooth as possible. I read in a couple forums that ppl were claiming they notice a big difference in the PC performance when running intense programs when using their SSD boot drive (OS/programs) through the PCIe lanes., but there obviously is a mixed bag of reviews relating to this issue.

What if you put an M2 NVME like a Samsung in a PCIe card? Will it be faster than SATAIII?

An NVMe drive (Samsung 970 EVO, for instance), in a dedicated m.2 slot, will certainly be "faster" than a SATA III SSD in whatever port or slot it is in.

If you're building a new system, design it with using an NVMe drive in one of the native ports.
My next system, in the next 6-12 months, will have 2x NVMe drives.
Probably a 500GB Samsung 970 for the OS and applications, and a 1TB 970 for "files".
Add a couple of other SSD's for other stuff.

Don't rely on using a standard SATA III SSD in a PCIe adapter as gaining any speed.

 

[electricblue73]

Still unsure of what you're actually looking to do.

It seems that you want to move your current 2.5" SATA III SSD to a PCIe slot?
If so...why?

Just wanted to know if there really was a speed difference between the two. I am building a new PC for music production and photo/video editing so i want to make my PC run as fast and smooth as possible. I read in a couple forums that ppl were claiming they notice a big difference in the PC performance when running intense programs when using their SSD boot drive (OS/programs) through the PCIe lanes., but there obviously is a mixed bag of reviews relating to this issue.

What if you put an M2 NVME like a Samsung in a PCIe card? Will it be faster than SATAIII?

An NVMe drive (Samsung 970 EVO, for instance), in a dedicated m.2 slot, will certainly be "faster" than a SATA III SSD in whatever port or slot it is in.

If you're building a new system, design it with using an NVMe drive in one of the native ports.
My next system, in the next 6-12 months, will have 2x NVMe drives.
Probably a 500GB Samsung 970 for the OS and applications, and a 1TB 970 for "files".
Add a couple of other SSD's for other stuff.

Don't rely on using a standard SATA III SSD in a PCIe adapter as gaining any speed.

USAFret, thanks for the advice. I initially wanted to put one M2 NVME (500GB) natively on my MB in the beginning but then I learned it would disable a whopping 4 SATA ports on the mobo.I have 8 SATA ports on my mobo and I wanted to use all of them. I use a lot of large sample libraries so I want to spread them out among several different SSDs to keep the work load to a minimum while I'm using my DAW and also for my project files, and I need some for my video/photo files. If I used 2 NVME, I probably would end up using the PCIe cards to put some of my SSD's which could also work, but it would sure be nice to use all the native SATA ports that the mobo already has.

Looks like I will ditch the PCIe SSD card for now. Thanks again for your advice and replies.