# M.2 SSD Recommendations for Z97 Motherboard



## mafia97 (Nov 24, 2018)

Hi All,

Hope you all are doing good!

I looking to upgrade storage on my system, as HDD is causing slowdowns while playing games and recording the gameplay at the same time.

I have a MSI Z97 Gaming 5 Motherboard, which has a m.2 slot(already populated with a 120GB Kingston Drive). So, I want to upgrade to minimum 1tb SSD and it will be mostly used as gaming drive with gameplay recorded to it at the same time.

While doing a quick search I found these drives :
1) https://www.amazon.in/Internal-Soli...F8&qid=1543039426&sr=8-1&keywords=m.2+ssd+1tb
2) https://www.amazon.in/Crucial-MX500...F8&qid=1543039426&sr=8-4&keywords=m.2+ssd+1tb
3) https://www.amazon.in/Samsung-970-E...F8&qid=1543039426&sr=8-8&keywords=m.2+ssd+1tb

So, please guide me which would be the best drive for my PC(system spec listed).

Thank you for your time.

Have a great day!

Regards,
mafia97


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## newtekie1 (Nov 24, 2018)

The MX500 and the WD Blue are both SATA drives, so they aren't going to perform any better than a drive plugged into a SATA port. The 970 Evo will be faster, but with your M.2 slot only supporting PCI-E 2.0 x2, it will be held back pretty significantly, but it will be faster than a SATA drive, though likely not noticeably.


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## mafia97 (Nov 24, 2018)

newtekie1 said:


> The MX500 and the WD Blue are both SATA drives, so they aren't going to perform any better than a drive plugged into a SATA port. The 970 Evo will be faster, but with your M.2 slot only supporting PCI-E 2.0 x2, it will be held back pretty significantly, but it will be faster than a SATA drive, though likely not noticeably.


So I just get WD Blue as it is the cheapest and will get the job done, right?


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## king of swag187 (Nov 24, 2018)

Yes, PCIE X2 2.0 is limited to around 1GB/S (1000MB/s) compared to SATA's inherent 6Gb/s (550MB/s)
I'd keep the 120GB M.2 and go for whatever is cheaper, a M.2 or SATA 1TB SSD


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## mafia97 (Nov 25, 2018)

king of swag187 said:


> Yes, PCIE X2 2.0 is limited to around 1GB/S (1000MB/s) compared to SATA's inherent 6Gb/s (550MB/s)
> I'd keep the 120GB M.2 and go for whatever is cheaper, a M.2 or SATA 1TB SSD


Thanks for the recommendation, will look for cheaper options only now.


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## Arrakis9 (Nov 25, 2018)

You can also get around the bandwidth limitation by using an adapter to go from m. 2 to pci express. They are pretty cheap :

https://www.amazon.com/Adapter-inte...SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=M.+2+to+pcie


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## king of swag187 (Nov 25, 2018)

However, it might not be bootable depending on the board


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## mafia97 (Nov 25, 2018)

Arrakis9 said:


> You can also get around the bandwidth limitation by using an adapter to go from m. 2 to pci express. They are pretty cheap :
> 
> https://www.amazon.com/Adapter-inte...SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=M.+2+to+pcie


Oh thats nice, that way I can still use the 120GB SSD if I want to. Thanks mate. Got lot of options to think about now.


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