I'm working on upgrading my SSD setup and I have a few questions. I originally built my PC and installed a 1TB Gen 4 P310 in the M.2 slot 1 of my MSI Mag X870E Tomahawk motherboard. Now, I've got a 4TB Gen 5 Rocket 5 SSD that I want to install as well. My plan was to place the Gen 5 drive in slot 1 and move the P310 to slot 2. However, I noticed on MSI's site that the M.2_2 slot shares bandwidth with the USB 40Gbps ports. Since my P310 is a Gen 4 drive, would it be better to place it in slot 3 instead? My current thought is to keep the Gen 5 in slot 1 and put the Gen 4 in slot 3. Also, I have a question about the Gen 5 SSD I got from a friend – it lost its sticker. Will the motherboard's heatsink thermal pad still make enough contact to cool it properly?
1 Answer
For your setup, placing the Gen 4 SSD in slot 4 is a good move if you want to avoid shared lanes. Just a heads up though, I’ve lost Bluetooth connectivity when using slot 4 alongside the USB 2 ports, so it might be problematic there too. If you want full speed in slot 2, you’ll need to disable USB4 since it's using CPU lanes. As for the heatsink, it should work great even without the sticker. That thermal pad will still provide good contact to cool your SSD effectively!
Would I notice a big difference in performance if I switch to slot 2 and disable USB4 compared to sticking with slot 4? And can I safely install the SSD in the heatsink without its sticker?