Alternative301

I got these parts today and did some speed benchmarks. They matched the advertised speeds very close being, slightly under. I found that running in Raid does not seem to benefit me in terms of speed. This could be due to maxing out the slot capabilities. (my best guess) The thing i do like is seeing all my storage under one drive though. These drives are very noticeably faster than the last SATA drives. I got 90 to 110 Mbps from a standard hybrid SATA SSD drive to a SATA M.2 or NVME M.2. slow no matter what. I then tried SATAM.2 to NVME PCIE, I got 350-450 Steady mbps on a manual transfer. Last i installed the 2 NVME and booted them via Hardware Raid0 in Asus Bios. The windows install time was around exactly 5 to 6 minutes from a flash USB. Once i installed and updated the drivers of this NVME Raid0 config, I didn't have any other NVME to manually transfer to so I ran a CrystalDisk Benchmark. Read Write Pass 1 3.157Gbps 2.917Gbps Pass 2 2.160Gbps 2.490Gbps Pass 3 1.097Gbps 1.151Gbps Pass 4 0.048Gbps 0.140Gbps My pass test settings were set to Pass 1 - Sequential 1 Mib / Ques = 8 / Threads = 1 Pass 2 - Sequential 1 Mib /Ques = 1 / Threads = 1 Pass 3 - Random 4 Kib /Ques = 32/ Threads = 16 Pass 4 - Random 4 Kib /Ques = 1 / Threads = 1

Thanks for the responses. I bought 2 because the prices on two drives was cheaper in my case instead of buying a gigantic one. I am a power user who does some light editing but mostly i use my PC for Media and Gaming. Overall on average i use around 3 to 4 TB of total storage. I will take this into account when i decide what to do. If it doesn't work as raid, i am sure i will enjoy single use as well. As well i haven't decided to do a drive clone or fresh install. last time i tried a drive clone of Win10 1903, it caused config problems with my Windows.

I am new to doing m.2 installs in general and have a question regarding the speed of doing a Motherboard Raid0 setup vs a Asus Hyper M.2 PCIE expansion card Raid Setup. I am using the Asus PRIME 270m Plus Motherboard. I am currently running my Win10 Pro -x64 Bit on one single Non NVME m.2 SSD. Note - Both Pioneer M.2 NVME i am purchasing are version 3 not version 4. Amazon NVME m.2 Drive Link https://www.amazon.com/Pioneer-Internal-Solid-State-Drive/dp/B07P5QFRGJ?th=1 I also i checked and my Bios and my Bios revision does have the Enable Asus Hyper Expansion card checkbox so i assume its compatible. Amazon Link for my Motherboard Model https://www.amazon.com/ASUS-PRIME-Z270M-Plus-LGA1151-Motherboard/dp/B01N1Q2P77 Asus Hyper Card Amazon Link https://www.amazon.com/ASUS-M-2-X16-V2-Threadripper/dp/B07NQBQB6Z/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=hyper+m.2&qid=1588130084&sr=8-1 According to my motherboard manual and the Hyper specs on amazon, all my Individual Plug or Slot standards are PCIE 3.0 (not PCIE 4.0) at a x4 modifier. The difference being 2 motherboard dedicated direct plug slots or up to 4 on the Asus Hyper Expansion Card. Question 1 ... I am wondering are there benefits to running 2 NVME in Raid0 on the Asus hyper card out of a x16 secondary PCIE slot VS ---> on this z270m board directly(x2)? PCIE slot 1 being used by A Video Card already. Question 2 ... Are Asus Hyper m.2 Expansion cards a Operating System boot compatible technology? I am new to this install and the first time i have done a NVME M.2 Mod. I have been out of the building game and the last installs i did were still Cable based SSD HD and RPM HD Installs. Worst cast scenario is i only drop 50 dollars on the Asus Expansion card and it doesnt load correctly and am forced to use the other config. Question 3 ... Is it faster with my motherboard to run a single NVME from a single PCIEx16 to NVME card adapter for one single NVME drive out of the secondary PCIEx16 Slot or Run a single off the Primary off the Main m.2 Slot of the MOBO? https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07JKR5C3Z/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 (Post Edited for Accuracy) Any information much appreciated. George.