Question Upgrade SSD for ASUS AM4 TUF Gaming X570-Plus MOBO.

[conticreative]

It's time to update my C drive which currently is a Seagate FIRECUDA 510 1TB - 3450MB/s | 3450 MO/s
My mobo is a ASUS AM4 TUF Gaming X570-Plus (Wi-Fi)

What I need to know is which 2TB (or more) SSD would be best for my MOBO, what difference is there between the two slots and how to proceed on cloning the old SSD into the new SSD. I don't plan to upgrade my rig for at least another 2 to 3 years, so I am not buying the SSD for future compatibility. Very likely when the time comes to rebuild another workstation, the current one is going to be downgraded to my music production area, which is currently using a 5 years old laptop.

Frankly, I haven't kept up with the latest tech news in regard to my components. I built this computer in 2020 and it has been a champ. My only complain is that it takes longer than it should to boot. Probably I did not configure my BIOS properly (I know that because, among other things, Windows 11 won't install unless I make some changes but I have been weary of going over to Win-11 anyway)

I know my MOBO has two slots, which should allow me to clone my current 1TB SSD to a new 2TB (or more) SSD and pick up from there. I have no idea what difference there is between the two.

I am tempted to create a new installation, but I haven't decided yet. As mentioned, I haven't configured my BIOS properly, but maybe I can just switch SSDs, install Win 10, then configure the BIOS to accept windows 11 and after that restore my programs. With Adobe, Steam and other cloud subscriptions I have, it should not take me too long (at least not the Month-long slog it used to be) to restore my workflow configuration.

As you might have guessed I am a bit trepidant. Any unscheduled downtime is going to cost me dearly and I would like to proceed carefully while at the same time not waste money on technologies my MOBO doesn't support.

Thank you.

 

[Bob.B]

It's time to update my C drive which currently is a Seagate FIRECUDA 510 1TB - 3450MB/s | 3450 MO/s
My mobo is a ASUS AM4 TUF Gaming X570-Plus (Wi-Fi)

What I need to know is which 2TB (or more) SSD would be best for my MOBO, what difference is there between the two slots and how to proceed on cloning the old SSD into the new SSD. I don't plan to upgrade my rig for at least another 2 to 3 years, so I am not buying the SSD for future compatibility. Very likely when the time comes to rebuild another workstation, the current one is going to be downgraded to my music production area, which is currently using a 5 years old laptop.

Frankly, I haven't kept up with the latest tech news in regard to my components. I built this computer in 2020 and it has been a champ. My only complain is that it takes longer than it should to boot. Probably I did not configure my BIOS properly (I know that because, among other things, Windows 11 won't install unless I make some changes but I have been weary of going over to Win-11 anyway)

I know my MOBO has two slots, which should allow me to clone my current 1TB SSD to a new 2TB (or more) SSD and pick up from there. I have no idea what difference there is between the two.

I am tempted to create a new installation, but I haven't decided yet. As mentioned, I haven't configured my BIOS properly, but maybe I can just switch SSDs, install Win 10, then configure the BIOS to accept windows 11 and after that restore my programs. With Adobe, Steam and other cloud subscriptions I have, it should not take me too long (at least not the Month-long slog it used to be) to restore my workflow configuration.

As you might have guessed I am a bit trepidant. Any unscheduled downtime is going to cost me dearly and I would like to proceed carefully while at the same time not waste money on technologies my MOBO doesn't support.

Thank you.

Shop for a gen 3 or gen 4 m.2.
Either slot should work.

Perhaps something like this.

Amazon.com

Clone?......look into macrium reflect free.

 

[USAFRet]

It's time to update my C drive which currently is a Seagate FIRECUDA 510 1TB - 3450MB/s | 3450 MO/s
My mobo is a ASUS AM4 TUF Gaming X570-Plus (Wi-Fi)

What I need to know is which 2TB (or more) SSD would be best for my MOBO, what difference is there between the two slots and how to proceed on cloning the old SSD into the new SSD.

Amy new SSD won't be any significant performance increase.

Leave the OS where it is, and maybe add some other drive for more space;

 

[conticreative]

Shop for a gen 3 or gen 4 m.2.
Either slot should work.

Perhaps something like this.

Amazon.com

Clone?......look into macrium reflect free.

I bought Macrium just yesterday. Now I am looking at SSDs. Thank you.

 

[conticreative]

Amy new SSD won't be any significant performance increase.

Leave the OS where it is, and maybe add some other drive for more space;

I am actually not looking for performance increase. I use my desktop for work, some gaming and music making. I have 3 profiles, one for each activity, but for the past couple of years I have had to move my program installation on my old-fashioned spinning drives, to the point where all of Adobe suite (minus Photoshop Beta) is installed on my D drive.
All of my music programs (save for a few plugins I have had forever) are on my X drive along with the stand-alone sound generators.

I am basically living on the edge with that 1TB drive. I cleaned it and recovered 200GB no more than 6 months ago and yesterday I saw the dreaded RED LINE, even though, outside of a few drivers, I haven't installed a game, program or anything else on my C drive.

Yet, plenty of programs unload large files in the AppData folders and it keeps growing by the day.

This is pretty much the one thing I miss about my old MacOS: self-contained programs (although, the last time I used my ancient Mac Mini, some programs also polluted nested folders for no reason).

Is there a way to either move or clean up program detritus from the AppData folders?

I really would love to once again have my Adobe program and especially my music programs run off my C drive instead of the same technology my old Mac Plus had in 1988.

Thank you for the reply. I know that if there is a way ameliorate the situation you will know about it.
Whatever it may be, it also needs to be reliable enough so I don't spend a week repairing my workstation. Been there, done that.

 

[USAFRet]

Applications, even the Adobe suite, don't really take up that much space.

Install and run either WinDirStat, or WizTree.

Run as Administrator, selecting only the drive in question.
Post a screencap here.

Also, a screencap of your Disk Management window.



But, for a new drive and cloning, no problem.
Samsung 970 EVO would work.

We can also go in depth on the clone, if that is the way you choose to go.

 

[conticreative]

Thank you for the WinDirStat angle. I am running it right now and I can already see a big mistake I made a long time ago that is costing me 200GB+ of space in the Cdrive.
In short, it's a Hyper-V linux installation that I forgot to clean up. I thought I did, but obviously I didn't.

This was over 3 years ago and I have stopped using Hyper-v since I discovered I could do the same thing using Windows Sandbox with a minimal amount of redundant setup.
So I put Hyper-V out of my mind.

Thanks to WinDirStat I also discovered that I had programs, I no longer use, that have left behind 2GB crash files and similar junk.

It may take me a while to safely get rid of all that, but I won't need to install a new SSD with quite the same urgency. Still I would like to have a 2TB SSD for other reasons, but we are out of the woods as far as disk space.

 

[USAFRet]

Yep.
WinDirStat can reveal a LOT of forgotten stuff.

 

[conticreative]

I am done with WinDirStat and it looks like some kind of modernist painting.

Besides the Hyper-v BooBoo, I saw that most of the space is taken up by windows user profiles in the AppData folders. In fact, AppData/Local seems to be where most things go and die.

I am a bit nervous messing around with those files, even if some are probably perfectly safe to delete.

For instance, I have several profiles:

Public
Work
Gaming
Work-Alt (this is one I keep in case my own profile gets scrambled. I am sure there are better ways to handle that, but I have had one ever since my Windows Start menu disappeared and I was able to recover using my Alt profile. It's been so long I forgot how I did it).

I saw that I can delete files using WinDirStat , but is there a better way to go about it?
I haven't needed to do this for a long time and I am behind in what the best tools for safely cleaning hard drive are.

Thanks,. You have been a life saver.