Boot drive
Boot drive
It doesn't really matter which slot you place the NVMe drive in; as long as it's properly connected, the installation will work.
It varies by motherboard design. Usually, the main M.2 port is located at the front of the board.
Your setup with the B550 Asus Strix still works fine. The main PCIe buses are there, so swapping the M.2 slot won’t affect performance or compatibility.
Here are the details of the top and bottom M.2 slots: one M.2 socket 1 featuring an M key, supporting various storage devices (SATA & PCIe 4.0 x4), and another M.2 socket 2 with an M key, compatible with SATA & PCIe 3.0 x4 devices. Performance will remain smooth unless the drive is not PCIe 4.0.
It's important to remember that certain older boards won't power on unless they're placed in the main slot. This shouldn't cause any issues now.