SSD dilemma

[ReD023]

I just build a new system on a MSI MPG B550 gaming plus. My issue is that I was stupid enough not to order a SSD and postponed it to later because I was not sure on what SSD to get. I went with a board with 2 M.2 slots so I could carry over my old SATA M.2 SSD. Now that I finished the build after days of moving my old machine in the new case because I was so exited for building watching all these LTT vids. I am now every exhausted and stressed out because my setup is a hard to build and very crammed up.

 

OK long story short I did not put my old SSD in the top slot. It does not work in the bottom slot. I though I use the bottom for my old and put a new one in top. Would have been perfect.

 

Now I do not know what to do. I can not access the top M:2 slow because my cooler is so huge. I have a GPU with a CPU AIO mounted on it and the radiator in the top and arctic freezer 50 on the CPU. There is not enough space to undo the CPU cooler without basically undoing my entire build. I have windows in that SSD and want to test games.

 

But considering speed it looks like if I get a new SSD I would be best putting it in the top, problem now is I HAVE to put my old slow SSD in the top to even use it. Its very old and low and i even bought it used ti I guess I just sell it and order a new SSD. I do not have thermal paste and undoing the CPU cooler without reapplying is OK but if I plug in my old one at the top I do not want to regret it later when I buy a NVME.

 

There are two threads that touch on this one is this

That is very confusing to me. So I like to know some facts. So I have 2 HDDS and one SATA cable SSD plugged into SATA ports. Will this slow the lot down? I like to know actually proven facts and now what some dude is thinking. He speaks of 2000 mb/s that would be a total luxury for me anyway so I am not sure if I should even care of I get 3000 or whatever instead. My old SSD is 500mb its more about speed so I want to get a new one for games, of course I want to get a good one. Thinking Tier C or Tier B even. Would be feel bad to sacrifice speed of a new drive but at the same time how noticeable is it even for loading times in games? I mean the CPU has to do thing during loading ...

 

PCIE 3.0 x4 is the speed of the bottom slot? But only when no SATA devices are plugged in? Or when using them at the same time? How much is that exactly? Is that enough for a Tier C/B SSD? If so I could just plug it in now and put hte new one bottom later without having to undo anything.

 

I am not looking forward to unplugging my CPU cooler so what do you think I should do. I am leaning towards selling my old M.2 (I wish I would just go with a cable SSD honestly. There was not even a point putting it as M.2 in my old PC because the speed was SATA anyway. Damn it, why does this board not support SATA m.2 on the bottom slot. A adapter card for this old SSD seems like a waste of money and I would have to w8 for it to arrive anyway. Its really a shame that the 2nd tier slot does not support it. I should have figured this out and bought and plugged in a new SSD in the top slot early on.

 

I guess I have to test games with a HDD now. Because have Linux and important stuff in my cable connected 250gb SSD. That are also all on use for backups ...

 

I probably can not w8 and will just mess up my thermal paste or break something in my system when messing around. It was soooo fast going from being exited about building to just being utterly annoyed and stressed out by it.

[Trinopoty]

From the looks of it, only your top slot even supports SATA SSD. So basically, you're out of options. You have to plug your SATA SSD in the top slot to work.

The 2nd slot only supports NVMe.

[ReD023]

21 minutes ago, Trinopoty said:

From the looks of it, only your top slot even supports SATA SSD. So basically, you're out of options. You have to plug your SATA SSD in the top slot to work.

The 2nd slot only supports NVMe.

Dude that is what I said. Did you even read my post? This is not helping. I have said my options and there are more then one. And no I am NOT "out of options".

 

1st: Plug my old one top now, get my old machines windows carried over, start testing games ... buy a new fast one and plug in in bottom. 1x rebuild everything.

 

2nd: Plug my old one in top as well but buy a new one and put it top and AGAIN rebuild my entire system to reach the top slot a 2nd time and sell the old SSD. 2x rebuild everything.

 

3rd option is to never plug in my old SSD at all. Buy a new one, plug it straight into the top slot and do not mess with my system until the new SSD arrives. 1x rebuild everything.

 

I am leaning towards the 3d but if I actually get to know the factual speeds and if they matter for games load times or just for benchmarks I would have a easier time deciding that is why I asked for FACTS.

This is me again registering at a forum thinking it will be different here. Forums are plagued with people who have no valuable input but post anyway.

[leclod]

2 minutes ago, ReD023 said:

Dude that is what I said. Did you even read my post? This is not helping. I have said my options and there are more then one. And no I am NOT "out of options".

 

He's not a dude, you're a dude

[YoungBlade]

1 minute ago, ReD023 said:

This is me again registering at a forum thinking it will be different here. Forums are plagued with people who have no valuable input but post anyway.

As someone who has been using various forums over the past few decades, let me give you some solid advice: Don't post a huge wall of text if at all possible. Keep your initial post concise. Even if someone reads the whole thing instead of skimming it, it can be difficult to keep track of it all.

 

Also, don't tell people trying to help you that they have no valuable input.

 

If this is how you approach every forum, it's no wonder you've had bad experiences.

 

---

 

As for your asking for "facts" the difference between SATA SSD speeds and NVMe SSD speeds are rarely noticeable. I've used both, and honestly can't tell a difference except when transferring large files.

[ReD023]

Fantastic typical forum/Twitter/Reddit vibes here. Love it - NOT

 

I already smelled this from miles away that this will be hijacked into some ridiculous discussion about off topic crap. And no, someone who can not be bothered to read my "wall of text" is NOT "trying to help". Not at all. If you do not have anything meaningful to say than STFU and do not post. If you have the attention span of a goldfish and can not be bothered. Do not read, move on, DO NOT POST!

 

But I guess things will never change. I heard this "trying to help" BS when responding with facts over and over and over again. Just replying with something that I already know basically repeating what I said is NOT "trying to help".

 

But yeah I am supposed to say "thank you" to every random fuck who pollutes threads with nonsense out of boredom. I specifically ask for "facts and not what someone thinks". Because I have experience with forums and already smelled some BS answer that does not help regarding the speed.

 

"I think it will be fine" kind of BS answers.

 

It's not my job to prepare some kind of condensed list in hope that this will not happen, it would happen anyway. Look at every forum, every thread. Everything is just full of pollution. This is why StackExchange kind of sites are extremely popular. I do not know if there is a hardware one or if they would deem it "to localized" asking for speeds on my specific mainboard. I use them for software but sometimes the rules are too strict.

[Trinopoty]

I have no idea what sort of solution you're asking for. You seem to have a pretty good view of the situation and your options. Don't know what anyone can do to help with your situation.

[CerealExperimentsLain]

So, the board has two M.2 slots.  One does NVME and SATA, the other does NVME only.  You installed a SATA drive into the NVME only one.  Thus your computer has no main storage.  You are already aware of this and know that the solution is to move the drive from one slot to the other.

 

You are also aware that the top slot, that does NVME and SATA is also the PCIE 4.0 slot, where as the lower slot is PCIE 3.0.

 

The idea of the lower NVME only slot sharing resources with the six SATA ports however is silly.  The chipset has TEN lanes.  Four lanes are dedicated to either PCI_E3 or M2_2.  The other onboard stuff and the x1 slots are on other lanes.

But, in short, and you already knew this, you gotta move the M.2 SATA drive to the other slot.  As much as you complain about it being painful to do so, well, you got no choice.  ...But you knew this.

I'm confused by this thread honestly.  The OP knew the problem and solutions all in the first post.

[ReD023]

Well actual facts about the speed of the bottom slot would help. I am not looking for a "solution" but information to make a decision. The talk about connected SATA drives in the linked Reddit thread was to vague and to confusing to me, it is an an archived state and ended up unconfirmed and confused.

 

The guy said something about sharing lanes with SATA. So again, does the fact that drives are connected automatically slows the slot down? Does each connected drive slow down the m.2 further? Did he have SATA drives connected or not? I really know nothing about this area but this guy may have figured it out (somewhat). I mean he even got 3500mb/s read in that slot it seems and just another benchmark was slower for some reason. So if I get like a WD_750 that has 3470MB/s read speed and if I can max that out on the bottom slot anyway while having 3 SATA ports in use I would not have to bother and just put it bottom. I just to not want to be the one ending up with half the speed when I first test it.

 

There is also this

 

Where two people say picking the top slot for your top SSD is best because directly linked to CPU, it all makes sense but if I can end up reaching 3500mb/s on the bottom slot anyway why should this bother me? This is why I am asking.

These are the kind of things I am bothering myself about. But the more I think about it I should probably just plug the damn SSD in and buy a new one for bottom.

 

Probably some technical reason but it just so unfortunate that the weaker slot has no support for the slow old SSDs. The other way around it would make way more sense. Are all B550 boards this way? Or is it just this one?

[ReD023]

1 hour ago, CerealExperimentsLain said:

So, the board has two M.2 slots.  One does NVME and SATA, the other does NVME only.  You installed a SATA drive into the NVME only one.  Thus your computer has no main storage.  You are already aware of this and know that the solution is to move the drive from one slot to the other.

 

You are also aware that the top slot, that does NVME and SATA is also the PCIE 4.0 slot, where as the lower slot is PCIE 3.0.

 

The idea of the lower NVME only slot sharing resources with the six SATA ports however is silly.  The chipset has TEN lanes.  Four lanes are dedicated to either PCI_E3 or M2_2.  The other onboard stuff and the x1 slots are on other lanes.

But, in short, and you already knew this, you gotta move the M.2 SATA drive to the other slot.  As much as you complain about it being painful to do so, well, you got no choice.  ...But you knew this.

I'm confused by this thread honestly.  The OP knew the problem and solutions all in the first post.

Btw I read this after my last comment just so you know.

 

I was about to thank you but then you went on talking in the 3rd person to me and seem to fail to get why I opened the thread. You saying the lane theory is silly is EXACTLY the kind if information I am looking for. So you are saying without actually spelling it out that I will be able to max out common fast NVMEs with PCIE 3.0 on the bottom slot no matter what?

 

The fact that you failed to get my dilemma makes me trust you less but I think we could be on the right track here.

 

4 lanes does not tell me much but I think 4 lanes is also what the CPU has dedicated to the top slot if I remember correctly just top is PCIE 4.0 and bottom PCI 3.0. So basically the top slot is only needed for very old or very high end PCIE 4.0 SSDs.

I guess I wait a little for more input and I just go for it and put the old one top after all.

 

The linked reddit thread is still a unsolved mystery and if people end up having 2000 m/bits bottom and 3000 top this does matter! There could be other things making the bottom slot sub-optimal even if the guys theory is wrong.

[CerealExperimentsLain]

16 minutes ago, ReD023 said:

Btw I read this after my last comment just so you know.

 

I was about to thank you but then you went on talking in the 3rd person to me and seem to fail to get why I opened the thread. You saying the lane theory is silly is EXACTLY the kind if information I am looking for. So you are saying without actually spelling it out that I will be able to max out common fast NVMEs with PCIE 3.0 on the bottom slot no matter what?

 

The fact that you failed to get my dilemma makes me trust you less but I think we could be on the right track here.

 

4 lanes does not tell me much but I think 4 lanes is also what the CPU has dedicated to the top slot if I remember correctly just top is PCIE 4.0 and bottom PCI 3.0. So basically the top slot is only needed for very old or very high end PCIE 4.0 SSDs.

I guess I wait a little for more input and I just go for it and put the old one top after all.

 

The linked reddit thread is still a unsolved mystery and if people end up having 2000 m/bits bottom and 3000 top this does matter! There could be other things making the bottom slot sub-optimal even if the guys theory is wrong.

Wow...  I'm just... Gonna not answer the rest of this for you but I'll give you a hint: Read the manual.

[FmPhenom]

3 hours ago, ReD023 said:

I just build a new system on a MSI MPG B550 gaming plus. My issue is that I was stupid enough not to order a SSD and postponed it to later because I was not sure on what SSD to get. I went with a board with 2 M.2 slots so I could carry over my old SATA M.2 SSD. Now that I finished the build after days of moving my old machine in the new case because I was so exited for building watching all these LTT vids. I am now every exhausted and stressed out because my setup is a hard to build and very crammed up.

 

OK long story short I did not put my old SSD in the top slot. It does not work in the bottom slot. I though I use the bottom for my old and put a new one in top. Would have been perfect.

 

Now I do not know what to do. I can not access the top M:2 slow because my cooler is so huge. I have a GPU with a CPU AIO mounted on it and the radiator in the top and arctic freezer 50 on the CPU. There is not enough space to undo the CPU cooler without basically undoing my entire build. I have windows in that SSD and want to test games.

 

But considering speed it looks like if I get a new SSD I would be best putting it in the top, problem now is I HAVE to put my old slow SSD in the top to even use it. Its very old and low and i even bought it used ti I guess I just sell it and order a new SSD. I do not have thermal paste and undoing the CPU cooler without reapplying is OK but if I plug in my old one at the top I do not want to regret it later when I buy a NVME.

 

There are two threads that touch on this one is this

That is very confusing to me. So I like to know some facts. So I have 2 HDDS and one SATA cable SSD plugged into SATA ports. Will this slow the lot down? I like to know actually proven facts and now what some dude is thinking. He speaks of 2000 mb/s that would be a total luxury for me anyway so I am not sure if I should even care of I get 3000 or whatever instead. My old SSD is 500mb its more about speed so I want to get a new one for games, of course I want to get a good one. Thinking Tier C or Tier B even. Would be feel bad to sacrifice speed of a new drive but at the same time how noticeable is it even for loading times in games? I mean the CPU has to do thing during loading ...

 

PCIE 3.0 x4 is the speed of the bottom slot? But only when no SATA devices are plugged in? Or when using them at the same time? How much is that exactly? Is that enough for a Tier C/B SSD? If so I could just plug it in now and put hte new one bottom later without having to undo anything.

 

I am not looking forward to unplugging my CPU cooler so what do you think I should do. I am leaning towards selling my old M.2 (I wish I would just go with a cable SSD honestly. There was not even a point putting it as M.2 in my old PC because the speed was SATA anyway. Damn it, why does this board not support SATA m.2 on the bottom slot. A adapter card for this old SSD seems like a waste of money and I would have to w8 for it to arrive anyway. Its really a shame that the 2nd tier slot does not support it. I should have figured this out and bought and plugged in a new SSD in the top slot early on.

 

I guess I have to test games with a HDD now. Because have Linux and important stuff in my cable connected 250gb SSD. That are also all on use for backups ...

 

I probably can not w8 and will just mess up my thermal paste or break something in my system when messing around. It was soooo fast going from being exited about building to just being utterly annoyed and stressed out by it.

 

2 hours ago, ReD023 said:

Dude that is what I said. Did you even read my post? This is not helping. I have said my options and there are more then one. And no I am NOT "out of options".

 

1st: Plug my old one top now, get my old machines windows carried over, start testing games ... buy a new fast one and plug in in bottom. 1x rebuild everything.

 

2nd: Plug my old one in top as well but buy a new one and put it top and AGAIN rebuild my entire system to reach the top slot a 2nd time and sell the old SSD. 2x rebuild everything.

 

3rd option is to never plug in my old SSD at all. Buy a new one, plug it straight into the top slot and do not mess with my system until the new SSD arrives. 1x rebuild everything.

 

I am leaning towards the 3d but if I actually get to know the factual speeds and if they matter for games load times or just for benchmarks I would have a easier time deciding that is why I asked for FACTS.

This is me again registering at a forum thinking it will be different here. Forums are plagued with people who have no valuable input but post anyway.

 

2 hours ago, ReD023 said:

Fantastic typical forum/Twitter/Reddit vibes here. Love it - NOT

 

I already smelled this from miles away that this will be hijacked into some ridiculous discussion about off topic crap. And no, someone who can not be bothered to read my "wall of text" is NOT "trying to help". Not at all. If you do not have anything meaningful to say than STFU and do not post. If you have the attention span of a goldfish and can not be bothered. Do not read, move on, DO NOT POST!

 

But I guess things will never change. I heard this "trying to help" BS when responding with facts over and over and over again. Just replying with something that I already know basically repeating what I said is NOT "trying to help".

 

But yeah I am supposed to say "thank you" to every random fuck who pollutes threads with nonsense out of boredom. I specifically ask for "facts and not what someone thinks". Because I have experience with forums and already smelled some BS answer that does not help regarding the speed.

 

"I think it will be fine" kind of BS answers.

 

It's not my job to prepare some kind of condensed list in hope that this will not happen, it would happen anyway. Look at every forum, every thread. Everything is just full of pollution. This is why StackExchange kind of sites are extremely popular. I do not know if there is a hardware one or if they would deem it "to localized" asking for speeds on my specific mainboard. I use them for software but sometimes the rules are too strict.

 

53 minutes ago, ReD023 said:

Well actual facts about the speed of the bottom slot would help. I am not looking for a "solution" but information to make a decision. The talk about connected SATA drives in the linked Reddit thread was to vague and to confusing to me, it is an an archived state and ended up unconfirmed and confused.

 

The guy said something about sharing lanes with SATA. So again, does the fact that drives are connected automatically slows the slot down? Does each connected drive slow down the m.2 further? Did he have SATA drives connected or not? I really know nothing about this area but this guy may have figured it out (somewhat). I mean he even got 3500mb/s read in that slot it seems and just another benchmark was slower for some reason. So if I get like a WD_750 that has 3470MB/s read speed and if I can max that out on the bottom slot anyway while having 3 SATA ports in use I would not have to bother and just put it bottom. I just to not want to be the one ending up with half the speed when I first test it.

 

There is also this

 

Where two people say picking the top slot for your top SSD is best because directly linked to CPU, it all makes sense but if I can end up reaching 3500mb/s on the bottom slot anyway why should this bother me? This is why I am asking.

These are the kind of things I am bothering myself about. But the more I think about it I should probably just plug the damn SSD in and buy a new one for bottom.

 

Probably some technical reason but it just so unfortunate that the weaker slot has no support for the slow old SSDs. The other way around it would make way more sense. Are all B550 boards this way? Or is it just this one?

 

36 minutes ago, ReD023 said:

Btw I read this after my last comment just so you know.

 

I was about to thank you but then you went on talking in the 3rd person to me and seem to fail to get why I opened the thread. You saying the lane theory is silly is EXACTLY the kind if information I am looking for. So you are saying without actually spelling it out that I will be able to max out common fast NVMEs with PCIE 3.0 on the bottom slot no matter what?

 

The fact that you failed to get my dilemma makes me trust you less but I think we could be on the right track here.

 

4 lanes does not tell me much but I think 4 lanes is also what the CPU has dedicated to the top slot if I remember correctly just top is PCIE 4.0 and bottom PCI 3.0. So basically the top slot is only needed for very old or very high end PCIE 4.0 SSDs.

I guess I wait a little for more input and I just go for it and put the old one top after all.

 

The linked reddit thread is still a unsolved mystery and if people end up having 2000 m/bits bottom and 3000 top this does matter! There could be other things making the bottom slot sub-optimal even if the guys theory is wrong.

You are one long winded mutha aint ya...............

 

[ReD023]

Yeah good riddance. WTF do you expect. Super disrespectful 3rd person talk in this thread like you talk to everyone else but me when I am the main person reading this thread. And why would you actually clearly spell out the info I am looking for? Or did you still not get it? And why would you link to A SOURCE. NOOOO of course not, same at reddit guys. Just some random people saying something on the internet, what could go wrong.

 

And read the manual is a stupid advice at this point. And funny thing is I am actually not the manual reader type of guy but even if I would have read it, the m.2 installation only shows you he top slot and says nothing about the bottom slot not supporting SATA. So even blaming me for not reading it would be fail. The specs (they may be printed on the manual as well not sure). Say it but NOT he actual installation guide. It says that it deactivates one PCI_E3 a slot I do not need and do not care about. So what else am I supposed to find there?

 

Could actually be a video idea (or written benchmark) for a tech channel/website to benchmark speeds of PCIE 3.0 SSDs in top and bottom slot on this board and other B550 boards to see if there is a difference. I for sure will not be doing that. I plug it in and be done with it now I guess. Maybe someone already did it and did more than some random reddit dude.

[tikker]

2 hours ago, ReD023 said:

It's not my job to prepare some kind of condensed list in hope that this will not happen,

It kind of is, in your own interest. It's not our job to read a book of backstory and try to figure out what the question is. Honestly most of your first post does talk about your dilemma what to plug in where and whether to rebuild or not. That is simply unfortunate, nothing more nothing less. I spent my evening yesterday cleaning and rebuilding my full custom loop only to find out I needed to reseat the GPU after I had filled everything. Shit happens, that's just how PC builds go. You are aware which ports are suitable for your drive, so it is indeed hard to make out what you are actually asking. So on to that.

 

This is one of those situations where you whip out the trusty manual of your board.

3 hours ago, ReD023 said:

PCIE 3.0 x4 is the speed of the bottom slot?

Yes, as per the manual, and it does not support SATA drives.

3 hours ago, ReD023 said:

But only when no SATA devices are plugged in?

No. The type and generation of the slot simply sets the maximum bandwidth that can pass through.

3 hours ago, ReD023 said:

How much is that exactly?

The maximum bandwidth of PCIe 3.0 x4 is 3.938 GB/s.

 

Here is the configuration of the B550 chipset:

The "pick one" bits come down to how your motherboard is configured. You can have a PCIe 4.0 x16 GPU and a PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe drive with dedicated lanes directly from the CPU. The other stuff is shared rom the 10 chipset lanes. 4 of those are dedicated to SATA and the rest is available for whatever from USB ports to other PCIe or SATA stuff. According to your manual the bottom port supports PCIe 3.0 x4 and will disable the other large PCIe slot (to save bandwidth). So your motherboard has 10 chipset lanes, 4 of which are dedicated to PCI_E3/M2_2 and 4 of which appear to be dedicated to the SATA ports. The remaining two then service both the two PCIe x1 slots and the two remaining SATA ports or perhaps it drops M2_2 to x2 instead of x4. It doesn't seem like it though, looking at the block diagram in the manual, but data is vague around it.

 

Since they are all connected through the same PCIe 3.0 x4 link, you could see a performance hit if you were to hit enough devices that are serviced by the chipset at once.  After all, there is only 3.9 GB/s to go around.

[CerealExperimentsLain]

3 minutes ago, ReD023 said:

but even if I would have read it, the m.2 installation only shows you he top slot and says nothing about the bottom slot not supporting SATA. So even blaming me for not reading it would be fail.

 

Though, to be fair, you did say you didn't read the manual, which would explain why your assertion as to what the manual says about M2_1 and M2_2 in terms of NVME and SATA support is incorrect.

[ReD023]

Thanks, this took some sweet time until some actually facts and numbers with source drop. Not planned to get that deep into it but interesting. "serviced by the chipset at once" sounds fine to me. I am not trying to copy things around while playing games or whatever so I assume I just overthought this and will just go ahead not and use the top slot for my SATA M.2 and later plug in a new one PCE 3.0 bottom.

 

Quote

The maximum bandwidth of PCIe 3.0 x4 is 3.938 GB/s.

 

That is a lot. So the SSDs sold with PCIE 4.0 spec now do not actually need it?

 

Specs and Manuals !== Reality. I think I am doing good by being what seems overly cautious about this. Specs are THEORETICAL. Reality is different, you know that. Look at your ISP advertised speed vs reality. May be not the best example but you get what I mean. I knew from the start that this the bottom slot supports PCIE 3.0 drives, just not that SATA is not possible. That lead me to a bunch of confusing things including the linked reedit post that is, i say it again, a unsolved mystery.

 

The bottom slot is even closer to the SATA ports physically ...

 

There better not be a Gamers Nexus video trashing MSI's mainboard for having unusually slow speeds in bottom M.2 the day I plug mine in LOL.

 

5 hours ago, CerealExperimentsLain said:

 

Though, to be fair, you did say you didn't read the manual, which would explain why your assertion as to what the manual says about M2_1 and M2_2 in terms of NVME and SATA support is incorrect.

You purposefully left THIS PART OUT

 

5 hours ago, ReD023 said:

... The specs (they may be printed on the manual as well not sure). Say it but NOT he actual installation guide. It says that it deactivates one PCI_E3 a slot I do not need and do not care about. So what else am I supposed to find there?

Exactly what I said, the Specs are printed in the manual but on the pages where it comes to the actual installation they do NOT tell you this, they tell you to that it deactivates the slot but not that you can not put in any SSD in M2_2.

 

Anyway its in! And we can end this. I post some SSD benchmarks when I get one and put it in the bottom slot.