Just bought an m.2 NVMe drive, what now? :)

[TooUnskilled]

Hi helpful people!

 

I got the Adata xpg sx8200 pro and added it to my system yesterday. So far I'm unimpressed.

I've never used a similar device before, and my googling has mostly given me outdated information and technical descriptions of the differences between NVMe and M.2, which haven't helped me much (maybe I'm just dumb though

 

1) My first issue I found the root cause of myself, and I *think* I know how to fix it, but would like a confirmation. I installed windows 10 on the drive, but I formatted using drive manager in Windows, which didn't create any of the partitions that usually appear when you install Windows from a bootable disk. Now every time my computer boots, it first goes to my Sata SSD's Windows partition, then switches over to my new drive because I;ve set that windows isntallation as the default one. My guess is I just have to format the drive using the bootable disk (where you choose which drive to install windows on) and then reinstall windows, which should make the drive independently bootable. Am I correct?

 

2) My loading times with games and such haven't been "blazing fast" as I expected. For reference, the drive is on the M.2 slot that's connected to the CPU, not the chipset, the CPU is a 3700x and the motherboard is a x570 Aorus Elite. Latest chipset drivers (not today's release, I'll try that right after) though I'm guessing it shouldn't matter since it's not connected to the chipset? So, other than a bios update and possibly a setting in the bios that I've missed, is there some kind of optimization or driver that I should have gone through/installed? All I found about speeding up a drive of this kind is TRIM, which seems useless for a brand new drive, no?

 

3) Anything else I probably haven't even considered, please feel free to metnion anything you find relevant

 

Thank you!!

[jiyeon]

5 minutes ago, TooUnskilled said:

differences between NVMe and M.2

M.2 is only the form factor, it's not necessarily always a SATA M.2 or an NVME M.2 which is probably where you got confused one.

NVME M.2 and SATA M.2 are two different protocols but the same form factor.

 

6 minutes ago, TooUnskilled said:

My loading times with games and such haven't been "blazing fast" as I expected.

Because NVME SSDs will not make a difference for gaming. You were heavily misinformed if you were under the impression that loading times would magically change if you get an NVME SSD.

[Jurrunio]

4 minutes ago, TooUnskilled said:

differences between NVMe and M.2

M.2 is the name of the connector. NVMe (PCIe is the corrent name if you call the other standard SATA, otherwise SATA should be referred to as AHCI instead) is more of a connection protocol that's faster than SATA.

 

5 minutes ago, TooUnskilled said:

I just have to format the drive using the bootable disk (where you choose which drive to install windows on) and then reinstall windows, which should make the drive independently bootable.

Install Windows to the NVMe SSD without the SATA SSD or any other SATA or NVMe storage device?

 

6 minutes ago, TooUnskilled said:

2) My loading times with games and such haven't been "blazing fast" as I expected.

That's normal? Tbh once you max out speed of SATA, there isn't much gains to go even faster. Either because the game doesn't load all that much stuff, or because it's more about writing to the RAM for the game to run on later.

[Tristerin]

Started replying, nailed it above. 

 

It really only helps with loading Windows a little faster (NVMe) for regular users.  That and space saving for sure.

[Akira Shimazu]

1. yeah, need to focus the boot on the SSD. many of my acquaintance mirror the OS. most of them use fresh install.

2. if you want your game Loading as specifically " Blazing Fast" then you need to move it to SSD., for example, my loading game only increases a little bit when i combine HDD and SSD ( game on HDD) but when I switch to SSD. it's amazingly faster

 

additional Info about SATA and Nvme.

 

PC use to kind of line to read the storage. SATA which use cable and connect it to motherboard and Nvme. which used the PCLE lane. the title of M.2 it just a named of form factor which is smaller than your usual SSD

 

[goto10]

i bought a nvme recently too, it is fasters but is not 3 times faster than a ssd, so i can understand your point of view

 

it wasnt supposed to load games 3 times faster when compared to a ssd, the reading of small files will make it work slower than just reading a single big file, just as it happens with a hard disk or ssd, and games are like that, lots of big and small files all the time

 

if cristaldiskinfo and cristaldiskmark doesnt report anything bad, well, return it and buy a different brand to see if things improve, but this is a case of expectations vs reality

 

 

i think that the cpu processing power and the game itself can be a limiting factor

 

most video editors love these nvme because they work with lots of big files and need access to the instantly and nvme can do that very well, i personally find almost the same as that video, from my old ssd to this nvme the jump is really diminute in these tasks i do, perhaps if we came from a hard disk, things would be different

[Tristerin]

I personally only went to M.2 form factor because:

 

1.) wanted to put my hands on the tech and install one since my motherboards all have the slots

2.) Looks for my current RR2 build with the heat sink I bought for the NVMe drive

3.) space saving, while I have an area I can put 3 more SSDs in my case that's more cable clutter, the more I got into cable management the more I like M.2 form factor.

[TooUnskilled]

6 minutes ago, seoz said:

M.2 is only the form factor, it's not necessarily always a SATA M.2 or an NVME M.2 which is probably where you got confused one.

NVME M.2 and SATA M.2 are two different protocols but the same form factor.

 

6 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

M.2 is the name of the connector. NVMe (PCIe is the corrent name if you call the other standard SATA, otherwise SATA should be referred to as AHCI instead) is more of a connection protocol that's faster than SATA.

I like how you're quoting the part of me saying that's the information I already found, then present it as new information

Not being mean or anything, thanks for confirming what I read, I honestly appreciate it! Just saying I already realized the 2 aren't related/mutually exclusive/etc.

 

11 minutes ago, seoz said:

Because NVME SSDs will not make a difference for gaming. You were heavily misinformed if you were under the impression that loading times would magically change if you get an NVME SSD.

Nope, just that this drive specifically is much faster than my other SSDs at Reading/Writing. Though I did expect that the drive having a better connection to the CPU would make things faster, in a very general sense (I am a newb in many ways)

 

13 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

Install Windows to the NVMe SSD without the SATA SSD or any other SATA or NVMe storage device?

So just pull out the Sata cable from my former boot drive while I install windows? Sounds good, thanks! Though I wonder if there will be some kind of conflict after I plug it back in. Hopefully I only have to pick the new drive as the first boot device and that's that.

15 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

That's normal? Tbh once you max out speed of SATA, there isn't much gains to go even faster. Either because the game doesn't load all that much stuff, or because it's more about writing to the RAM for the game to run on later.

I hadn't considered the possibility that my RAM might be slower than my storage device. I'd buy new RAM, but I think it's not worth spending ~$150+ on 3600CL16 when I already have 3200CL16, can't see it making that much of a dent.

 

16 minutes ago, Wolfycapt said:

1. yeah, need to focus the boot on the SSD. many of my acquaintance mirror the OS. most of them use fresh install.

2. if you want your game Loading as specifically " Blazing Fast" then you need to move it to SSD., for example, my loading game only increase a little bit when i combine HDD and SSD ( game on HDD) but when I switch to SSD. it's amazingly faster

 

additional Info about SATA and Nvme.

 

None of the drives involved is an HDD, but thanks for the feedback regardless!

[Akira Shimazu]

5 minutes ago, TooUnskilled said:

 

I like how you're quoting the part of me saying that's the information I already found, then present it as new information

Not being mean or anything, thanks for confirming what I read, I honestly appreciate it! Just saying I already realized the 2 aren't related/mutually exclusive/etc.

 

Nope, just that this drive specifically is much faster than my other SSDs at Reading/Writing. Though I did expect that the drive having a better connection to the CPU would make things faster, in a very general sense (I am a newb in many ways)

 

So just pull out the Sata cable from my former boot drive while I install windows? Sounds good, thanks! Though I wonder if there will be some kind of conflict after I plug it back in. Hopefully I only have to pick the new drive as the first boot device and that's that.

I hadn't considered the possibility that my RAM might be slower than my storage device. I'd buy new RAM, but I think it's not worth spending ~$150+ on 3600CL16 when I already have 3200CL16, can't see it making that much of a dent.

 

None of the drives involved is an HDD, but thanks for the feedback regardless!

i use HDD as example. my intention was to bring our game drive to a faster SSD. like your boot SSD for instance. sorry for misunderstanding

[Jurrunio]

1 hour ago, TooUnskilled said:

I hadn't considered the possibility that my RAM might be slower than my storage device. I'd buy new RAM, but I think it's not worth spending ~$150+ on 3600CL16 when I already have 3200CL16, can't see it making that much of a dent.

It could very well be something else. Without getting a look at the source code it's hard to tell what the games do during the loading process besides loading in files. There could be some transcoding going on as well as setting up the environment.