Help with a new Ssd!

[Nikolas G]

Hi new here but a huge fan of the channel. Been watching for 10+ years unfortunately never learned that much about the fine details of computing . So I have this pc it was given to me and told the Ssd boot drive is bad and I need to replace it I’d love a good recommendation on what I should replace it with also how to find out what motherboard it has so I know if I can go m.2 would be nice it says the board is intel b365 but can’t tell if it’s Msi or asrock any help is appreciated. Also side note I’d love to hear what everyone’s first thing they would upgrade on this pc 

[Radium_Angel]

CPU-Z will give you all the info you need on your system.

[Nikolas G]

10 minutes ago, Radium_Angel said:

CPU-Z will give you all the info you need on your system.

Thank you I will get that as soon as I get it up and running I don’t have my hands on the cpu yet and it doesn’t have a boot drive which I need to get before I can download software lol but thanks for the tip 

[Radium_Angel]

Just now, Nikolas G said:

Thank you I will get that as soon as I get it up and running I don’t have my hands on the cpu yet and it doesn’t have a boot drive which I need to get before I can download software lol but thanks for the tip 

No worries. As to an SSD or m.2 (assuming the board has one, a visual inspection will confirm this) unless you are looking for all out performance, any name brand one will do just fine. Samsung is popular around here.

Also, I'd probably replace the power supply first, most pre-builts come with naff ones.

[SpookyCitrus]

It's a 9th gen intel motherboard so it should be compatible with Nvme SSD drives, you'll need to manually check under the GPU for either the model of the motherboard if it has an M.2 slot, it should also have a slot directly below the CPU socket. Otherwise if it's an unmarked board you're not going to be able to find the model without getting into an OS. So if you can't yet you'll want to manually check for slots or the model of the board.

[Dedayog]

26 minutes ago, Radium_Angel said:

No worries. As to an SSD or m.2 (assuming the board has one, a visual inspection will confirm this) unless you are looking for all out performance, any name brand one will do just fine. Samsung is popular around here.

Also, I'd probably replace the power supply first, most pre-builts come with naff ones.

SSD and M.2 are the same thing.    Earlier today someone referred to SATA as SSD and M.2 as NVMe.  Is this the new way of using terms?

 

 

[Radium_Angel]

3 minutes ago, Dedayog said:

Is this the new way of using terms?

That's what I am seeing.

[Dedayog]

3 minutes ago, Radium_Angel said:

That's what I am seeing.

So someone asks what M.2 to get?  I need an M.2, homies!!

 

No.

 

That and the 2K people can F right off

 

 

[Nikolas G]

5 minutes ago, Dedayog said:

So someone asks what M.2 to get?  I need an M.2, homies!!

 

No.

 

That and the 2K people can F right off

 

 

So I don’t know the terminology obviously lol that’s why I’m asking for help but it does seem like for me it would be easier to distinguish the difference of the two by what port to connect to Im aware that there are probably a dozen differences between the two besides where to plug it in but for me that seems the most important to decide which to get 

[Dedayog]

7 minutes ago, Nikolas G said:

So I don’t know the terminology obviously lol that’s why I’m asking for help but it does seem like for me it would be easier to distinguish the difference of the two by what port to connect to Im aware that there are probably a dozen differences between the two besides where to plug it in but for me that seems the most important to decide which to get 

Well there are SATA drives that are 2.5" like a laptop HDD.  There are SATA M.2 drives and there are NVMe M.2 drives, so using M.2 is to mean NVMe is like asking about a truck but meaning Ford trucks.

 

 

[Nikolas G]

5 minutes ago, Dedayog said:

Well there are SATA drives that are 2.5" like a laptop HDD.  There are SATA M.2 drives and there are NVMe M.2 drives, so using M.2 is to mean NVMe is like asking about a truck but meaning Ford trucks.

 

 

This is good to know I could only find sata drives that are 2.5” and nvme that are m.2 after a quick search on Amazon so could you tell me which one would be best for a boot drive and storage device? 

[Dedayog]

12 minutes ago, Nikolas G said:

This is good to know I could only find sata drives that are 2.5” and nvme that are m.2 after a quick search on Amazon so could you tell me which one would be best for a boot drive and storage device? 

Best boot - NVMe.  If you can even notice the difference., but you did ask for BEST.

 

Storage - whichever is best bang/buck.  

 

Namely, there isn't a very noticeable difference in boot times or game performance between slower SATA drives and uber fast NVMe with how files are sought and loaded.  See the disagreement here and some videos I linked:

 

 

Really, SATA and NVMe are like a Corvette and Ferrari.  Which is faster?  Arguably the Ferrari, but they both beat the shit out of the Honda (HDD).

 

As long as you HAVE a few SSDs in your machine, you're good.   Just don't put anything that needs performance on a HDD.  Otherwise you're good with SATA, NVMe, M.2, or PCiE addon card.

[Mark Kaine]

On 2/14/2023 at 6:31 PM, Nikolas G said:

I’d love to hear what everyone’s first thing they would upgrade on this pc 

Nothing.  first check it for a month or so if everything works or something is strange...

 

Then you could get more hard drives IF you need the space.

 

Otherwise no? a keyboard, mouse, monitor and you're good to go.