M.2 and NVMe drives. Take advantage of your motherborard features!

[Thinder]

I just ordered a Samsung 970 EVO Plus 500 GB PCIe NVMe M.2 (2280) Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) (MZ-V7S500), frankly I didn't know what an M.2 drive was until I started to explore my motherboard user book.

 

The M.2 port was empty and I need more storage, so I thought I might just as well use it, Amazon was selling this 500GB Internal Solid State Drive for £95.00 and I had precisely the same amount of credit on my Amazon Gift Card.

 

I'm still unsure on how I'm gonna use it but I have to transfer 240GP of data from an old HD to "something else", this will help, my options are; transferring OS to this new drive, transferring Games, including DCS to this new drive, use it as extra storage space.

 

Here are the motherboard and the SSD data:

 

B450 GAMING PLUS MAX

NVMe support, up to 32 Gb/s using PCI-Express Gen3 x4, Supports STORE MI

 

970 EVO Plus NVMe M.2 SSD 500GB

Capacity

500GB (1GB=1 Billion byte by IDEMA)

PCIe Gen 3.0 x 4, NVMe 1.3

Up to 3,500 MB/s

Average: 5.8 W * Maximum: 9 W (Burst mode) * Actual power consumption

Power consumption (Idle)

Max. 30 mW * Actual power

 

 

 

 

[VpR81]

I also found out recently, that my fairly old MB has a M.2 NVMe port and just upgraded it with a 2TB NVMe 2280 SSD. Sadly it's only PCIe 3.0, but better than nothing. I made 4 volumes (wich is the maximum i think) out of it to have individual drives for C:\ 250GB Win 10 Pro only, D:\ 500GB for DCS, E:\ 500GB for Star Citizen and the rest is F:\ for a second Steam libary with the newer games wich (i think) benefit most from NVMe. Kept my 2 SATA SSDs for older games and other software. I know DCS (and Star Citizen) propably won't exceed 300 - 350GB in the nearby future, but i simply like to have a lot of free space left. If i where you, i'd create a C:\ volume for Win only and the rest of your M.2 for DCS (or the game you prefer). Just as organisational measure.

 

 

Cheers

[Thinder]

I also found out recently, that my fairly old MB has a M.2 NVMe port and just upgraded it with a 2TB NVMe 2280 SSD. Sadly it's only PCIe 3.0, but better than nothing. I made 4 volumes (wich is the maximum i think) out of it to have individual drives for C:\ 250GB Win 10 Pro only, D:\ 500GB for DCS, E:\ 500GB for Star Citizen and the rest is F:\ for a second Steam libary with the newer games wich (i think) benefit most from NVMe. Kept my 2 SATA SSDs for older games and other software. I know DCS (and Star Citizen) propably won't exceed 300 - 350GB in the nearby future, but i simply like to have a lot of free space left. If i where you, i'd create a C:\ volume for Win only and the rest of your M.2 for DCS (or the game you prefer). Just as organisational measure.

 

 

Cheers

 

Thanks for your reply.

 

I already have a separated SSD for the O.S (Windows 10 Pro), and another one for Games, both 240 GB, with space for a third one next to them on the side of the box, so far, I didn't have anything to complain about when it comes to speed.

 

My third drive is an old HD at the bottom location in the box, and I have to transfer its content to a larger one, so I am not sure if I want to go through the trouble of a new install (the one I have now is fairly stable) just to take advantage of this new drive. Anyway, surprisingly it is on its way to be delivered to me right now (Sunday morning, the driver deserve a medal).

 

What I can do is to use it for storage but also for Paging files, it will free the drive I use for this purpose and help clear the O.S drive as well...

[VpR81]

I'm not a hardware expert, but i would assume that you waste your money using the NVMe SSD as a simple storage volume. All games i reinstalled on the M.2 SSD (Witcher 3, GTA V, ArmA 3, Doom, Prey, Star Citizen, Resident Evil remakes and a few more) run better than on the SATA SSD before. Maybe it's just me, but everything feels somehow smoother right now. IMO one of the best upgrades for my PC so far.

 

 

Cheers

[javelina1]

I've been using a separate NVMe drive for my O/S, one for the flight sims, and one for the page file. Working great. Just gotta watch your MB settings to make sure you don't install peripherals that could impede the full bus speed of the NVMe and your PCIe thingy's... I had to do a little rearranging, but I'm at full bus speeds for all...

[Thinder]

I'm not a hardware expert, but i would assume that you waste your money using the NVMe SSD as a simple storage volume. All games i reinstalled on the M.2 SSD (Witcher 3, GTA V, ArmA 3, Doom, Prey, Star Citizen, Resident Evil remakes and a few more) run better than on the SATA SSD before. Maybe it's just me, but everything feels somehow smoother right now. IMO one of the best upgrades for my PC so far.

 

 

Cheers

 

It's a question of size. I intend to purchase a 2 TB SSD for storage but not in the near future, as I said, I had the credit on my Amazon Gift card so it was convenient to use it for storage for the time being.

 

I cleaned up the C drive (Videos, Pictures, Documents) and still have enough space to transfer the content of my HD as soon as I receive the Corsair SATA cable I ordered, because since I equipped my new case, the actual cable is not long enough to reach both the HD at the bottom of the case and the two SSD on the side, as soon as I can, I'll copy the content of the HD and keep it as archive.

 

Right now my priority is the HP Reverb G2, so it's going to take a few month before I can spend some dosh on a larger SSD for storage, but I don't feel the need to improve on the speed of my SATA right now, it runs at 6Gb/s, if there is a bottleneck it might be the cables, but then again, 6Gb/s is fairly standard for cables, I can check on them but I believe the right cables were provided with the board.

 

......

[hansangb]

I just ordered a Samsung 970 EVO Plus 500 GB PCIe NVMe M.2 (2280) Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) (MZ-V7S500), frankly I didn't know what an M.2 drive was until I started to explore my motherboard user book.

 

The M.2 port was empty and I need more storage, so I thought I might just as well use it, Amazon was selling this 500GB Internal Solid State Drive for £95.00 and I had precisely the same amount of credit on my Amazon Gift Card.

 

I'm still unsure on how I'm gonna use it but I have to transfer 240GP of data from an old HD to "something else", this will help, my options are; transferring OS to this new drive, transferring Games, including DCS to this new drive, use it as extra storage space.

 

Here are the motherboard and the SSD data:

 

B450 GAMING PLUS MAX

NVMe support, up to 32 Gb/s using PCI-Express Gen3 x4, Supports STORE MI

 

970 EVO Plus NVMe M.2 SSD 500GB

Capacity

500GB (1GB=1 Billion byte by IDEMA)

PCIe Gen 3.0 x 4, NVMe 1.3

Up to 3,500 MB/s

Average: 5.8 W * Maximum: 9 W (Burst mode) * Actual power consumption

Power consumption (Idle)

Max. 30 mW * Actual power

 

 

 

 

 

You wont see any difference in DCS playing time. I tested DCS on SSD and m.2 with various scenarios And everything was +/- few seconds. Sometimes SSD was faster, sometimes NVMe was faster etc.

 

But if I had a choice, I would put the OS on the NVMe. If you have most of the modules/maps/DLC from DCS, it'll be pretty close to 500GB with Windows installed. So I'd think carefully before moving DCS onto the new NVMe drive.

 

 

[Thinder]

 

 

You wont see any difference in DCS playing time. I tested DCS on SSD and m.2 with various scenarios And everything was +/- few seconds. Sometimes SSD was faster, sometimes NVMe was faster etc.

 

But if I had a choice, I would put the OS on the NVMe. If you have most of the modules/maps/DLC from DCS, it'll be pretty close to 500GB with Windows installed. So I'd think carefully before moving DCS onto the new NVMe drive.

 

 

Right now I'm dealing with a failing HD which takes the best part of 8 hours to transfer a single 4.67 GB M4V Video File, I'll be lucky if i can salvage the document and software I need to retrieve from it.

 

I'm not going to touch the O.S, it's stable, I don't change what works in my systems and I prefer to keep the games and the OS separated, that's the reason why I have a dedicated disk for both.

 

I transferred the games (DCS and DCS_Beta) and set the paging files on the new drive, but I always can move anything to a different drive at any time, during tests with Crystal DiskMark, it shows an excess of speed of about > 3000MB/sec compared to the other SSD in both READ and WRITE.

 

[BitMaster]

 

Right now I'm dealing with a failing HD which takes the best part of 8 hours to transfer a single 4.67 GB M4V Video File, I'll be lucky if i can salvage the document and software I need to retrieve from it.

 

 

 

MAKE A BACKUP WHILE YOU CAN !

 

Admins have no mercy with people who do not make Backups. Even if they had it wouldn't change the fact of data loss.

 

[Gunfighter6]

Speaking of NVMe M.2 drive, I just bought one today and I just want to have DCS on it. What is the best way to do that without reinstalling the whole thing? I've searched the net but there is not really a clear answer. Some say move, some say install fresh, some say need deactivate first, some say don't need that anymore, so I'm totally confused.

 

I really don't want to reinstall as I have CV1 running, ViacomPro, Jetseat all that stuff not to mentioned I finally was able to get decent settings running around 45 fps and I don't want to screw that up. All I want to do is make DCS on it's own drive.

 

I noticed for me, I have some DCS folders in \program files and some in \program files (x86). If moving is best do I move them all? I have Windows 10 64 bit running.

Please advise on the best course of action.

 

Thank you all in advanced!

[Thinder]

Speaking of NVMe M.2 drive, I just bought one today and I just want to have DCS on it. What is the best way to do that without reinstalling the whole thing? I've searched the net but there is not really a clear answer. Some say move, some say install fresh, some say need deactivate first, some say don't need that anymore, so I'm totally confused.

 

I really don't want to reinstall as I have CV1 running, ViacomPro, Jetseat all that stuff not to mentioned I finally was able to get decent settings running around 45 fps and I don't want to screw that up. All I want to do is make DCS on it's own drive.

 

I noticed for me, I have some DCS folders in \program files and some in \program files (x86). If moving is best do I move them all? I have Windows 10 64 bit running.

Please advise on the best course of action.

 

Thank you all in advanced!

 

What I have done and how I've done it. (If you're not sure what you're doing you can make copies of your folders first).

 

Download and prepare latest installer. (I had two, Client and OpenBeta).

 

Create a Game folder on new drive.

 

Open your DCS folder, select/cut all of it.

 

Paste inside Game folder on new drive, copy the files address. ex: E:\Games

 

Start installer once the whole files are moved to new drive and select the new E:\Games address within the game folder, you don't need to reinstall fully, the installer just need to register your new folder address.

 

If you can't see the DCS updater on your desktop, copy from game folder and paste to desktop, rename to DCS or DCS Beta, example of target E:\Games\DCS World OpenBeta\bin\DCS_updater.exe

 

Restart.

 

Once you've done that your game should start, check your settings and preferences as some of the might change during the process, but my games works without problem now, including recent update and new terrain and campaign.

 

 

 

 

[Gunfighter6]

Hi Thinder, thank you very much for the detailed instructions. I will try this weekend!

[Gunfighter6]

Got it working, thanks again. I moved the game on to the NVMe M.2 drive as D:\Eagle Dynamics and it is working except for some missing icons which is not an issue for me. Another question is about the page file, where do I set it and how much? I have 64Gig of RAM. Currently page file is on boot drive as system managed which is an SSD but seems to be stuttering. Should I put the page file on the new NVMe M.2 drive with DCS?

[Thinder]

Got it working, thanks again. I moved the game on to the NVMe M.2 drive as D:\Eagle Dynamics and it is working except for some missing icons which is not an issue for me. Another question is about the page file, where do I set it and how much? I have 64Gig of RAM. Currently page file is on boot drive as system managed which is an SSD but seems to be stuttering. Should I put the page file on the new NVMe M.2 drive with DCS?

 

Good question. There are tutorials on Youtube about page files. Since your new drive has such a higher speed than your SDDs, you could set your page files on it without a deficit in speed, which is what I have done, then set them as "adjust for best performance of programs". I have roughly twice the amount of RAM set as paging files (98.304Mb), leave the minimum required of the C drive (or O.S drive).