[SOLVED] Which of your M.2 slots is fastest (even though they should be identical?)

[Dylan Beckett]

Hello

I was watching a review on m.2 drives and they said that they tested the same drive in all of their different m.2 slots on their mobo. Even though they were all supposed to be the exact same speed – they said the same drive performed differently on each… faster on some?

Is this common? Is it a negligible difference?

I can understand how you can test ‘most’ of those slots… but there’s no way to test the same drive with the slot the system drive is installed in is there?

I assume if you tried to grab the system drive and pop it in another slot … would that break the windows installation or would it autocorrect the drive letter and destinations etc?

What do you think? Is this a thing?


Thanks for your help

 

[USAFRet]

Moving the OS drive to a different slot does not break anything, as long as that slot is capable of whatever that drive type is.

Performance? "they said..." I'd have to see some numbers. Not just raw benchmarks, but actual user facing performance.

 

[Dylan Beckett]

Moving the OS drive to a different slot does not break anything

So would it work as normal, except that next time you boot up all the software would be redirected to a new drive letter?
I thought it would break all the installed software etc?

Performance? "they said..." I'd have to see some numbers

So you don't think it'd make any difference?


cheers

 

[Lafong]

The OS drive should always be seen as C.

Are you going to put software on a different drive than the OS?

 

[USAFRet]

So would it work as normal, except that next time you boot up all the software would be redirected to a new drive letter?
I thought it would break all the installed software etc?




So you don't think it'd make any difference?


cheers

Its not even a different drive letter.
The OS drive, in a different slot, is still the "C drive".

As far as performance differences...we are well into diminishing returns.

 

[USAFRet]

We see a large performance difference between HDD and SSDs.
Between various flavors of SSD, not so much.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3AMz-xZ2VM

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YoRKQy-UO4

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

 

[Colif]

bios looks for a particular file on a particular drive to know where C is, its location in PC doesn't change that. still has same info

Even though they were all supposed to be the exact same speed – they said the same drive performed differently on each… faster on some?

they would need to run tests a lot of times to establish if its actually true.

 

[drea.drechsler]

....
I thought it would break all the installed software etc?
...

You can very easily change the drive letters in Windows...just open the Drive Manager (type it in Cortana search). But each partition will retain it's drive letter regardless of the hardware location.

UEFI will also 'seek out' the EFI and OS partitions and boot it regardless of where you move the drive it's on.

Windows is way more resilient than many let on, but that can be just as bad as good.

 

[USAFRet]

You can very easily change the drive letters in Windows...just open the Drive Manager (type it in Cortana search).

UEFI will 'seek out' the EFI and OS partitions and boot it regardless of where you move the drive it's on.

Well, you can't change the running C drive.
But in this case, there is NO need to. Whatever the system boots from will be the C.

Move a drive to a different port, with no other changes...no issues.

But all the other drive letters are easily changeable, if desired.

 

[drea.drechsler]

Well, you can't change the running C drive.
But in this case, there is NO need to. Whatever the system boots from will be the C.
....

True...I added that UEFI bit in an edit. It's remarkably resilient, both Windows and NTFS. Coming from the days of DOS, FAT, BIOS (true BIOS, not UEFI BIOS) and MBR, I can relate.

 

[Colif]

UEFI will also 'seek out' the EFI and OS partitions and boot it regardless of where you move the drive it's on.

that is what I meant with mine, I didn't feel like going into too much detail. If its a GPT drive, its likely the windows boot manager in the BIOS itself, has the GUID of the drive in its boot order. it doesn't look for slots, it looks for the drive itself, wherever it is. Doesn't even have to be in the PC, can be a network drive.
GPT = GUID Partition Table
GUID - Global Unique Identification - Every GPT drive on earth has its own identification code.

 

[Pextaxmx]

I think the OP is referring to the CPU direct PCIe vs chipset PCIe M.2 slot for the Intel 11th gen and later boards. If so, the CPU slot is known to be faster.