My gaming PC currently has a 1TB WD Black SN750 M.2 drive running the operating system and a 2TB PNY CS2130 M.2 drive for games. I bought a 4TB Samsung 990 EVO Plus and can only install two NVMe drives internally. Would it be sensible to move the operating system onto the 2TB PNY drive and use the new 4TB Samsung drive as my games library, or would it be better to assign them the other way around?
3 Answers
I’d actually put the Samsung 4TB drive in the OS slot and use it as the main drive overall. It has a newer controller, PCIe 4.0 support, and TLC NAND, so it should have better sustained performance than the PNY CS2130. The difference probably won’t be dramatic during everyday use, but there’s little benefit to putting the stronger drive under the games-only workload.
Yes, that setup should work without any major issue. NVMe drives are generally fast enough that either one will feel responsive as an OS drive, especially for normal desktop use and gaming. After reinstalling Windows, remember to add the new games drive to your game launcher’s storage locations so it can install and find your library there.
You could also keep all three drives by using an M.2-to-PCIe adapter, assuming you have a usable slot with enough clearance. With a large graphics card installed in the Gigabyte X570 AORUS ELITE system, though, the available PCIe x4 slot may be blocked, so moving one drive to a USB NVMe enclosure is another option. If you migrate the operating system to the PNY, do a clean Windows installation or properly wipe the old system setup rather than relying on Windows updates to refresh it.

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