Upgrading My SSD

[CKiser]

I am looking to upgrade my current SSD.  My PC has a 500GB SSD and a 2TB HD.  I want to upgrade the SSD to 2TB for work.  I only have one M.2 slot on my motherboard (B450M PRO-M2 MAX) so I need to wholesale replace the current SSD with a new one. I want to make sure get something compatible.  The specs on the motherboard say it supports PCIe 3.0 x4.  Can anyone recommend a compatible SSD or point me in the right direction?

 

Thanks

[RokinAmerica]

Not knowing what you do with the pc and not knowing what it is makes this a little harder to help, but if there is not a compelling reason to put everything onto your current SSD  instead of on another drive, (is the SSD in the M.2 slot or is the M.2 slot the only open slot? Hard to tell from post) but assuming it is in the M.2 slot, do you have other SATA slots open? If so, I would leave the current drives as is and add a 2TB SATA to the mix and not have to fudge with the system. 

 

Please give us the info on your PC so we know what is available.

[Hinjima]

7 minutes ago, CKiser said:

I am looking to upgrade my current SSD.  My PC has a 500GB SSD and a 2TB HD.  I want to upgrade the SSD to 2TB for work.  I only have one M.2 slot on my motherboard (B450M PRO-M2 MAX) so I need to wholesale replace the current SSD with a new one. I want to make sure get something compatible.  The specs on the motherboard say it supports PCIe 3.0 x4.  Can anyone recommend a compatible SSD or point me in the right direction?

 

Thanks

M.2's are generally backwards compatible so a Gen 4.0 M.2 will work in a 3.0 motherboard, obviously at 3.0 speeds.

Whats your budget and use case, you say work but what does work consist of?

There are plenty of 2TB M.2's out there that are decent on a budget and there is no point in getting a super fast M.2 if you are already limited by the 3.0 speeds.

[-rascal-]

The motherboard's M.2 slot is rated at PCI-E 3.0 speed, but you can still put a newer PCI-E 4.0 or 5.0 M.2 SSD in there.

It will just run at PCI-E 3.0 X4 speed, rather than the advertised PCI-E 4.0 or 5.0 speed.

[CKiser]

More info

PC is a bit old at this point but hardware is listed below.

Nvidia RTX 3060
AMD Ryzen 7 3700X

32 GB Ram

Windows 11 Pro

500GB SSD Drive

2TB SATA HDD

B450M PRO-M2 MAX Motherboard

 

I use the PC primarily for WFH as a 3D artist.  Main programs at the moment are Unity and Speed tree, occasionally photoshop/substance.  I also game regularly.  My WFH files are taking up the majority of the 500GB SSD, so I would like to upgrade it to have more space.  Budget I would say would be $500

[Hinjima]

12 minutes ago, CKiser said:

More info

PC is a bit old at this point but hardware is listed below.

Nvidia RTX 3060
AMD Ryzen 7 3700X

32 GB Ram

Windows 11 Pro

500GB SSD Drive

2TB SATA HDD

B450M PRO-M2 MAX Motherboard

 

I use the PC primarily for WFH as a 3D artist.  Main programs at the moment are Unity and Speed tree, occasionally photoshop/substance.  I also game regularly.  My WFH files are taking up the majority of the 500GB SSD, so I would like to upgrade it to have more space.  Budget I would say would be $500

$500 US or Canadian?  $500 US can get you a decent 4TB M.2 considering the 3.0 limitations, you dont need a top tier 5.0 M.2 SSD.

[CKiser]

$500 US

[Hinjima]

Just now, CKiser said:

$500 US

You can use PcPartPicker to look through some M.2's.

 

Here is a link to filter settings: 2TB - 4TB, M.2 PCIE 3.0 - M.2 PCIE 4.0.  Price lowest to highest.

You can get a 4TB for $500 US

https://pcpartpicker.com/products/internal-hard-drive/#A=1800000000000,4096000000000&c1=di_m2.pcie_30_x4,di_m2.pcie_40_x4&t=0&f=122080&sort=price&page=1

[CKiser]

5 minutes ago, Hinjima said:

You can use PcPartPicker to look through some M.2's.

 

Here is a link to filter settings: 2TB - 4TB, M.2 PCIE 3.0 - M.2 PCIE 4.0.  Price lowest to highest.

You can get a 4TB for $500 US

https://pcpartpicker.com/products/internal-hard-drive/#A=1800000000000,4096000000000&c1=di_m2.pcie_30_x4,di_m2.pcie_40_x4&t=0&f=122080&sort=price&page=1

Thank you!

[CKiser]

Does it matter if the SSD has a cache?

[-rascal-]

7 hours ago, CKiser said:

Does it matter if the SSD has a cache?

 

SSD with dedicated cache is typically better.

If it's a cache-less drive, then it will use some the storage space as cache.

 

If your art files are large / high resolution, or if you are working with large video files, you want a SSD with cache.

It will help keep the sustained reads/writes speeds.

 

WD SN850X and the Samsung 990 Pro comes to mind.

Other alternatives SSDs with cache:

• Crucial T500
• Patriot VP4300 (non-Lite version)
• WD SN7100 (no dedicated DRAM caching, but uses some hybrid caching, actually performs very good)

[Lurking]

11 hours ago, CKiser said:

Does it matter if the SSD has a cache?

Usually SSD with DRAM also have better components/technology. So that alone makes a difference. And DRAM will improve performance a bit and wear the NAND less. An internal SSD without DRAM, will use system RAM (if it has HMB technology) . but that is "far away" and has to go through CPU first. So having DRAM directly on SSD is better. 

 

And if you ever use the m.2 in an USB-enclosure, you can't use the system RAM and would rely on DRAM on the SSD. 

 

I have no idea how many % the above matters. But I know, even my old PCIe3 SSD with DRAM, still are really fast in real life. 

 

If you want good performance for many years, Samsung Pro is a good option. Samsung also has the best SSD software (for updating firmware etc.). Cry once.... 

[Mina G]

@CKiser it looks like you heavy user do you write a lot of data to the SSD if so i suggest you try to find high TBW , high capacity device with dram and good SLC chaching 

 

and although you motherboard is only 3rd gen usually the good ones is the faster higher ones (of course consult the spec sheet first ) 

 

i would suggest this https://www.kingston.com/en/ssd/gaming/kingston-fury-renegade-nvme-m2-ssd

it's over budget but has insane TBW for consumer SSD 

and always buy it with heatsink you don't want to run this without heatsink unless you have one 

 

and of course 4th gen  samsung pro although lower TBW than kingstone  but solid if not one of the best and has better firemware and software support than kingstone 

 

the TBW here is for warrent so for example if SSD is 600 TBW and you wrote those TBW then the warranty is void that's why always the manufacture put conservative TBW not too low but not the actual TBW 

 

in addition TBW doesn't paint the whole picture but it's a good induction how the manufacture trust  it's product