SATA SSD or M.2 Expansion Card on B550?

CraigK · February 29

Hi everyone! Looks like I'm starting to run a little low on storage space so I figured it'd be time to start looking around for options when the time comes. I'm currently using both of my motherboard's M.2 slots which only leaves me with either PCI-E or SATA. The only thing is I'm a bit new/an idiot when it comes to storage...

I'm wondering is whether it'd be better/makes more sense by installing one or more NVMe drives on a 16x PCI-E M.2 expansion card (such as a Asus Hyper M.2 x16 PCI-E 4.0 Get 4 Expansion Card) (because less cable management to deal with) or just using a regular 2.5" SATA SSD in order to maintain the overall fastest read/write speeds possible (I know that any NVME drives on an expansion card would be running on PCI-E 3.0).

Hopefully I didn't leave out any important info.

Thanks in advance to everyone for your help/advice!

The PC in question is running a 5700X on a B550 Aorus Elite AX V2 (rev 1.2) which has the following:

Expansion Slots:

1 x PCI Express x16 slot (PCIEX16), integrated in the CPU:
- Occupied by the GPU
1 x PCI Express x16 slot (PCIEX2), integrated in the Chipset:
- Supporting PCIe 3.0 x2 mode
1 x PCI Express x16 slot (PCIEX1_2), integrated in the Chipset:
- Supporting PCIe 3.0 x1 mode
1 x PCI Express x1 slot (PCIEX1_1), integrated in the Chipset:
- Supporting PCIe 3.0 x1 mode

Motherboard's Storage Interface:

1 x M.2 connector (M2A_CPU), integrated in the CPU
- Occupied by a 1TB Samsung 980 Pro (boot drive) (MZ-V8P1T0CW)
1 x M.2 connector (M2B_SB), integrated in the Chipset
- Occupied by a 500GB Samsung 970 EVO (MZ-V7E500BW)
4 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors, integrated in the Chipset:
- 1 of these connectors is already in use by an existing 1TB Samsung 860 QVO 2.5" SSD (MZ-76Q1T0/AM)

filpo · February 29

7 minutes ago, CraigK said:

1 x PCI Express x16 slot (PCIEX16), integrated in the CPU:

Occupied by the GPU

1 x PCI Express x16 slot (PCIEX2), integrated in the Chipset:

Supporting PCIe 3.0 x2 mode

1 x PCI Express x16 slot (PCIEX1_2), integrated in the Chipset:

Supporting PCIe 3.0 x1 mode

1 x PCI Express x1 slot (PCIEX1_1), integrated in the Chipset:

Supporting PCIe 3.0 x1 mode

since none of these (apart from the GPU's) can do x4 I'd get a SATA SSD but do get one with DRAM cache since I've got one without it and it bottlenecks my network speed to 18mb/s while downloading a game while reading and writing at around 500mb/s

8 minutes ago, CraigK said:

Hi everyone! Looks like I'm starting to run a little low on storage space so I figured it'd be time to start looking around for options when the time comes. I'm currently using both of my motherboard's M.2 slots which only leaves me with either PCI-E or SATA. The only thing is I'm a bit new/an idiot when it comes to storage.

here's some options for a SATA SSD
Crucial MX500 1 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive (CT1000MX500SSD1) - PCPartPicker

Crucial MX500 2 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive (CT2000MX500SSD1) - PCPartPicker

Samsung 870 Evo 1 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive (MZ-77E1T0B/AM) - PCPartPicker (though for this amount of storage I wouldn't recommend it at this price)

CraigK · February 29

1 hour ago, filpo said:

since none of these (apart from the GPU's) can do x4 I'd get a SATA SSD but do get one with DRAM cache since I've got one without it and it bottlenecks my network speed to 18mb/s while downloading a game while reading and writing at around 500mb/s

here's some options for a SATA SSD
Crucial MX500 1 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive (CT1000MX500SSD1) - PCPartPicker

Crucial MX500 2 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive (CT2000MX500SSD1) - PCPartPicker

Samsung 870 Evo 1 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive (MZ-77E1T0B/AM) - PCPartPicker (though for this amount of storage I wouldn't recommend it at this price)

Thanks again for the info! The MX500 was the SATA SSD I was looking at since all of Samsung's 2.5" SSDs seem to always be pricier compared to others with comparable cashe.

On another note (just to make sure I'm understanding what I've been reading online), I'm guessing that an expansion card running PCIE 3.0 2x (if that were even possible) would be slower than even a regular SATA SSD (with or without cache) just due to the limited bandwidth?

filpo · February 29

2 minutes ago, CraigK said:

I'm guessing that an expansion card running PCIE 3.0 2x (if that were even possible) would be slower than even a regular SATA SSD (with or without cache) just due to the limited bandwidth?

Most likely since a normal pcie 4 NVME of the same price at 4 lanes would do about 3k mb/s and at half the lanes and one pcie gen lower I’d expect more like 1k mb/s or even less

Blue4130 · March 1

3 hours ago, filpo said:

Most likely since a normal pcie 4 NVME of the same price at 4 lanes would do about 3k mb/s and at half the lanes and one pcie gen lower I’d expect more like 1k mb/s or even less

PCIe 3 x2 is 2GB/s full duplex. Much faster than a SATA ssd. Those top out at 550 is MB/s. Also SATA will be AHCI while PCIe is nvme, so the IOPS will be much higher on the NVME, it will feel snappier.

Blue4130 · March 1

5 hours ago, CraigK said:

I'm wondering is whether it'd be better/makes more sense by installing one or more NVMe drives on a 16x PCI-E M.2 expansion card (such as a Asus Hyper M.2 x16 PCI-E 4.0 Get 4 Expansion Card)

You would only be able to use one ssd on that card since you are lane limited. If you wanted to use more than one ssd, you'd need a card with a plx chip on it. They are generally much more expensive.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B25VPFMK?ref=emc_s_m_5_i_n&th=1

Something like this one...

CraigK · March 2

On 2/29/2024 at 7:41 PM, Blue4130 said:

You would only be able to use one ssd on that card since you are lane limited. If you wanted to use more than one ssd, you'd need a card with a plx chip on it. They are generally much more expensive.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B25VPFMK?ref=emc_s_m_5_i_n&th=1

Something like this one...

Gotcha, makes sense. So effectively depending on the amount of storage I'd want to get, it could (in theory* be less expensive and faster to actually go for an NVME and card combo compared to getting a SATA SSD with cashe)?

*Providing I just do some searching for deals...