Boot drive or game drive for the Samsung 990 Pro?

[ZeekAncient]

So, I got a Samsung 990 Pro 2TB drive coming in this week. I have my operating system on a Samsung 970 Evo Plus. Should I migrate the 970 Evo to the 990 pro, or just leave the 970 Evo as the boot drive, and make the 990 Pro a game drive?

Obviously, the 990 pro is faster, so I am going to migrate the 970 Evo over to it, the 970 Evo is staying in the PC regardless, as a storage drive, but I figure, will the OS really notice a difference it being on the much faster 990 pro. Sure, the 990 pro is theoretically twice as fast, but how much will that really make a difference with the operating system? They are both still staggeringly fast.

Why I question whether this type of speed is capable of being tapped by the OS, yet. I will migrate the 990 pro and that will be my system drive. But would any of you not migrate 970 Evo and just use the 990 pro as a storage drive?

[ZeekAncient]

emoticorpse eredeti hozzászólása:

Illusion of Progress eredeti hozzászólása:

You don't need to reinstall. Cloning makes it quick and simple, more so than it's ever been with modern options.

The idea of cloning did leave me for a moment. But now that I'm reminded of it, I might as well say I prefer not to do it and advise anyone else not to do it if they can help it. That's my preference, I'd explain my reasons but this is probably already getting tl;dr.

As for cloning, I can say that I have done it many times, with various different drives, and can say that is easy and painless. Have never run into an issue.

Just use any data migration tool, and you would be surprised how quick it is. Also, depends on the size of the drive, and allocated space, but even cloning a 1TB drive doesn't take too long.

Just don't power off, or unplug the drives, while in the process. Hard to unplug them when they are both in the MB, but I have done it before where I had to use a SATA to USB adapter, with the SATA drive connected to it outside the PC, and went off without a hitch.

Cloning is what you do when switching out your system drive, and don't want to have to restart over and reinstall Windows. Why should you have to do that when you are just upgrading Boot Drive?

Afterwards, the data still remains on both drives. So, even if the cloning process fails. As long as the original Host drive still has all its data, you can just boot from that, and start the process over or whatever else. But I have never had the process fail.

Afterwards, when you are sure that everything boots well from the new drive, you can format your old drive and do whatever you want with it.

Always a good idea to backup before cloning.

So, in all actuality, I am getting a new 1TB 970 Evo Plus when the 990 Pro comes in. 990 Pro will be in there like it has been in there the whole time, and I have a new 970 Evo Plus storage drive for games, or whatever.

[emoticorpse]

ZeekAncient eredeti hozzászólása:

emoticorpse eredeti hozzászólása:

The idea of cloning did leave me for a moment. But now that I'm reminded of it, I might as well say I prefer not to do it and advise anyone else not to do it if they can help it. That's my preference, I'd explain my reasons but this is probably already getting tl;dr.

As for cloning, I can say that I have done it many times, with various different drives, and can say that is easy and painless. Have never run into an issue.

Just use any data migration tool, and you would be surprised how quick it is. Also, depends on the size of the drive, and allocated space, but even cloning a 1TB drive doesn't take too long.

Just don't power off, or unplug the drives, while in the process. Hard to unplug them when they are both in the MB, but I have done it before where I had to use a SATA to USB adapter, with the SATA drive connected to it outside the PC, and went off without a hitch.

Cloning is what you do when switching out your system drive, and don't want to have to restart over and reinstall Windows. Why should you have to do that when you are just upgrading Boot Drive?

Afterwards, the data still remains on both drives. So, even if the cloning process fails. As long as the original Host drive still has all its data, you can just boot from that, and start the process over or whatever else. But I have never had the process fail.

Afterwards, when you are sure that everything boots well from the new drive, you can format your old drive and do whatever you want with it.

Always a good idea to backup before cloning.

I actually like to format/re-install, not sure what's wrong with me. My main issue with cloning though is that I see it as a "sloppy" job. That's why I don't do it (well, on rare occasions I do but I know I did a sloppy job). I want my hardware optimized and the way I personally see it is that if Windows wasn't installed properly around the new hardware setup, it's risking "un-optimized" performance. Along with the fact that the slight difference in swapped out pieces might be causing the issues I run into down the road. That's just how I ended up seeing it.

And that goes DOUBLE for if the install has already aged quite a bit (like years since last fresh install) and if you've installed/uninstalled many things.

[Phénomènes Mystiques]

I use the M.2 as an online game drive for faster loading. Just make sure you are using UEFI if you use M.2 as a boot drive. And please read your Motherboard User Manual pertaining to the M.2 usage, they all vary.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Especially if the 970 is already a smaller drive; I'd just keep using this one for an OS Drive, use the new 2TB SSD for Games.

[ZeekAncient]

I was thinking that as well, pretty much what the post is about. I mean, if the OS is not going to see a marginal difference in operation being on the faster drive, and traditionally you want a smaller drive to have your OS on, why even go through the trouble of the cloning process?

I will clone the drive anyway, just because, but not cloning it and just using the 990 pro as a storage drive is very much a viable option.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Well OS or Gaming; neither of these are going to see a jump in actual real world performance by using a PCIE 4.0 or 5.0 NVME SSD compared to an older but decent PCIE 3.0 SSD like a 970 EVO.

Until more games start supporting DirectStorage; all those PCIE 4.0 / 5.0 SSDs performance stats don't mean much of anything to a Gamer.

Now if you are doing "work" where having those higher Read/Write/IOPS actually matters, ok then. But in Gaming, LOL nope.

[ZeekAncient]

Yeah but both the 990 Pro and 970 drives will follow me a long way. PCI-E 5.0 SSDs, and that speed is still in its infancy, so it is not like PCI-E 4.0, or even 3.0 speeds, will be obsolete any time soon. I think it was plenty important to have plenty of M.2 storage for the future. With the advent of Direct Storage, which is still in its infancy, there will come a time when that speed will be important for games, and what not.

So, having it is really just for bragging rights, and benchmark scores, which is always fun. But if I was going to get more storage anyway, I at least want something fast. At least as fast as what kind of drive you are able to put into a PS5, lol. Might not see the benefits of that speed just yet, but like I said, these drives will be in my system/systems for a long time.

So, don't be sour puss, lol. But I am sure you will try to be a downer and buzzkill anyway. Just kidding. You are right though. LMAO!

[Bad 💀 Motha]

From the looks of things, by the time DirectStorage is actually a real thing with PC Games; Windows 12 will be the normal everyday OS and we'll be well past 2025 at that point.

[ZeekAncient]

Will still be using those drives, lol.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

I hope they can find a way to get 8TB or more onto a 2280 NVME SSD.
2TB and 4TB options just aren't enough.

I have 2x NVME drives and 1x 8TB SATA SSD (870 EVO)
Would be nice to have everything on NVME drives though for sure.

[ZeekAncient]

But I know what you mean about space. I was just thinking that even 2TB drives and 4TB drives will not be enough soon. And what about in 2025, and beyond.

I had 6TB, a 1TB 970 Evo, a 4TB 870 Evo, and a 1TB 850 Evo, and I am pretty much at the limit of all three, accounting for how much free space I'd like to keep on all three. Pretty much there now.

I wanted to add more NVMe storage, and my CPU/MB is PCI-E 4.0 compatible, so I wanted a PCI-E 4.0 drive. On sale for $180, but I had a $30 gift card, so I only paid $150. So, not a bad deal for a 2TB 990 Pro. Will now have 8TB of space.

Definitely don't need to have that kind of speed right now, but it is still nice to have something fast. Even if it is to shave a couple seconds, or points of a second, on loading times, and have everything be the snappiest that it could be. At least I won't have to worry about storage and storage speeds being a bottleneck for a while.

[Andrius227]

Might as well buy an 8tb samsung 870 QVO. Its not fast but its very cheap. Its QLC so less durable, but at 8tb it can do 2880 TBW which is a ton. Ideal for games.

I have 3 of them. No need to waste money on speed, capacity is all that matters.