Discuss the Aorus B550M Elite SSD inquiry.
Discuss the Aorus B550M Elite SSD inquiry.
Hello, I own an Aorus B550M Elite motherboard. I have two M.2 SSDs—one 500GB for the operating system and another 1TB for storage/games. I'm wondering which slots are best for each drive. The motherboard image shows M.2 slots, and currently my OS is in slot #2 while the storage drive is in slot #1. Is that the right setup? Thanks!
Sure, I can provide you with an overview. You're considering using the top slot for your storage drive since you play games and rely on your PC for gaming, and it's the faster option.
It largely comes down to personal preference, but most experts suggest placing your operating system on the fastest storage device to ensure optimal performance for both desktop and Windows applications. Store game libraries on slower drives, as you rely heavily on the OS and access each game infrequently. This approach typically works best with SSDs or traditional hard drives, where running the OS on the slower drive would be inefficient and unnoticeable.
That's a clear breakdown. The OS drive is always active, which helps. I looked into it—PCIe 3.0 lane gives about 1 GBps, and two lanes add up to roughly 2 Gbps. My NV1 SSD reads and writes at around 2.1GB to 1.7GB per second, according to Kingston's specs. Using the PCIe 3.0 x2 slot shouldn't slow it down; in fact, it might improve performance since it leverages more bandwidth.
I'm not very familiar with the topic, but it's likely that even if it does matter, it probably won't be obvious in most situations. You can search for drag races on YouTube comparing SSDs, hard drives, etc., at various speeds to get some insight.