I'm new to building PCs and need to expand my storage. My ASUS Prime Z490M-Plus currently has a 500GB drive that's full, and I believe the motherboard has two M.2 SSD slots. I'm looking for a compatible 1TB drive, mainly for storing games, but I'm not sure whether I should buy a PCIe 3.0 or PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD, or use a regular 2.5-inch SATA SSD instead. What would be a good option and anything I should know before installing it?
4 Answers
If you might move your operating system onto this drive later, avoid very low-end models that use QLC flash and have relatively low endurance. For a secondary game drive they can still be adequate, but a better-quality TLC-based SSD is a safer long-term choice. Also check that the drive is the standard M.2 2280 size before buying.
For a game library, you don’t need an especially high-end SSD. Pick the cheapest 1TB NVMe drive from a known brand with decent reviews. A 2.5-inch SATA SSD is also perfectly usable for games if it costs less, since your motherboard should have SATA ports and your power supply should include SATA power connectors.
A PCIe 4.0 drive is still compatible; it simply won’t reach its advertised Gen 4 speeds on this system. Unless the price difference is tiny, there’s little reason to pay extra for Gen 4 here. A 1TB PCIe 3.0 NVMe drive from a reputable manufacturer should be more than enough.
The board has two NVMe M.2 slots, and PCIe versions are backward compatible. A PCIe 4.0 SSD will work in a PCIe 3.0 slot, but it will run at PCIe 3.0 speeds. Since this motherboard doesn’t provide full PCIe 4.0 support for the NVMe slots, a reputable, inexpensive PCIe 3.0 NVMe drive is usually the best value for game storage.
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