Hey everyone! I have a B450M STEEL LEGEND motherboard and I've already installed a WD BLACK M.2 drive in the primary M.2 slot. I'm running low on storage space and need to add more GB. I noticed that the second M.2 slot is SATA3. Should I use this slot for another SSD or would it be better to go with a standard SATA SSD instead? Any advice? Thanks!
4 Answers
Just a heads up, M.2 SATA drives and regular SATA3 drives are basically the same in terms of speed, both maxing out around 550MB/s. So if you find a good deal on a 2.5" SATA SSD, it could be the way to go instead!
Honestly, if you're considering saving a bit, a standard 2.5" SATA SSD is likely cheaper than an M.2 SATA SSD. That might be worth checking out!
If you're just looking to store large files that aren't accessed often, going for the SATA3 option could be fine. But for gaming? I wouldn’t recommend it for that.
You can use that second M.2 slot, but I'd recommend getting an NVMe drive instead of a SATA one. The M.2 slot supports both NVMe and SATA, but NVMe drives perform significantly better and aren't that much more expensive. If you can, try switching your current drive to that slot and check if your UEFI detects it. It'll give you a good idea of what works best for your setup!
Thanks for the tip! I’m definitely leaning towards getting an NVMe drive now.
Exactly! Grab a Gen4 NVMe drive; they're about the same price, and you’ll get better speeds, especially for random read/write operations. Plus, it maxes out the theoretical limits of your setup!