Area-51 R5, SSD upgrade options

I replaced my OEM M.2 SSD with a 2TB Samsung 970 Evo Plus. Cloning was easy with Macrium Reflect. I also added two - 2TB Crucial MX500 2.5" SSDs in the U.2 drive brackets.

M.2 PCIe adapter is also an option.

Thanks, that's helpful! So, it seems that your Evo is taking advantage of the NVMe interface and hitting 3,500MB/s reads, while the Crucial maxes out at 560 MB/s.

I've had 27 years in the software business and I've yet to clone a drive lol. I may need to do so if that's the only way of getting the fastest read speeds from the M.2 SSD drive, esp. if they are 6x faster than SATA SSD drives.

*I was looking at these for comparison:

Crucial MX500 500GB 3D NAND SATA 2.5 Inch Internal SSD, up to 560MB/s - CT500MX500SSD1 : Amazon.ca: Electronics

Samsung 970 EVO Plus 2TB NVMe M.2 Internal SSD (MZ-V7S2T0B/AM) [Canada Version] : Amazon.ca: Electronics

No, you cannot get anything higher than 3500 MB/S on your system unless you buy an adaptor that has RAID functionality and does not require bifurcation of the PCIE X8 or X16 slot to operate. If you are plugging that mentioned adaptor in a regular X4 slot that's going to provide 3500 MB/S at best.

I am pretty sure a regular SATA SSD is a much better option in your case, and you can always use 2 or more in a raid configuration if speed is a concern.

Try with 1 and see if the speed works for you. I am sure it will be fast enough.

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@EricJGML wrote:

My current config is 512GB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD (Boot) + 2TB 7200RPM SATA.

Which is the best upgrade path?

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What I don't understand is how you ran out of room on your C-drive with 512gb SSD? That should be plenty of space for all Windows, Apps, Programs, and maybe even a couple of your favorite games. 

If you just want space for games, you can just install a 2tb SATA-3/600 SSD (and don't mess with C ). Remember, in Steam you can have multiple game folders. 

Personally, I would also replace that (big, hot, loud, heavy) 2tb spinner-HDD with a 2tb SATA-3/600 SSD. It will be much faster.

I didn't consider RAID, but I am now! With this adapter I can get two 2 TB M.2 SSD drives and use a RAID 0 config, get fast speeds and tons of storage. Thanks for the suggestion!!

Thanks for the warning, I'm just learning about "bifurcation" now. The specs only say:

I'm not an expert; but be careful with that linked adapter. I do not believe the Alienware motherboard supports bifurcation, and I do not see anything in that adapter marketing that indicates a controller for bifurcation to support dual M.2 drives.

This is an adapter that has a controller that provides bifurcation for a motherboard that does not support bifurcation LINK 

I'm a full-stack software engineer, so my boot drive has tons of development tools, SDKs, project files and npm packages, etc. Some data I can migrate to another drive, but that will take time. The main problem is there will likely never be enough room for cache clips from video editing software - which is currently taking up 150 GB on my HDD as I can't use my boot drive due to lack of space.

But since I'm now considering two M.2 SSD drives in a dual M.2 SSD RAID PCIe X4 host card with a RAID 0 config, I should be cooking with gas.

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@EricJGML wrote:

1. I'm a full-stack software engineer, so my boot drive has tons of development tools, SDKs, project files and npm packages, etc. Some data I can migrate to another drive, but that will take time.

2. The main problem is there will likely never be enough room for cache clips from video editing software - which is currently taking up 150 GB on my HDD as I can't use my boot drive due to lack of space.

3. But since I'm now considering two M.2 SSD drives in a dual M.2 SSD RAID PCIe X4 host card with a RAID 0 config, I should be cooking with gas.

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1-2. I see. Then go ahead and upgrade your NVMe-SSD C-Drive to a 1tb or 2tb NVMe-SSD.

3. Not what I would suggest.

I think it's better to use the simple/inexpensive PCIe x4 NVMe-SSD Adapter Addin cards that link a single NVMe-SSD directly to the PCIe-bus. One SSD per card, one card per slot. You don't need an overly complicated and expensive solution. Put a nice 2tb-NVMe-SSD in it.

And please don't forget about using 2.5inch SATA-3/600 SSDs for simple storage and what-not.

Hopefully you did not go ahead and purchase that "RAID" card yet. It's one of those cards that I consider rip offs, although technically speaking they are telling the truth.

This is a RAID controller, however, it only supports B key drives. They have it listed on the specs page, but not on the main page.

M.2 interfaces: 2 x M.2 SSD interface with B Key only, NOT for NVMe

So the issue is B key is 2 lanes only, 10 Gbps maximum transfer raid. (1250 MB/sec)

I don't see the point of using a RAID with 2 B key drives, as it will be slower than a single single B/M or M key drive in a regular M2 socket using PCIe 3.0 x 4 link speed.

This card only accepts M2 SATA SSD's and not M2 NVMe SSD's.

Thanks again everyone. In the end I got an external M.2 enclosure with a 2TB gaming SSD. Simple, and that will work for now.