Can an M.2 slot ONLY support NVME and NOT support SATA?

[Flaky]

as well as the Kingston A2000 M.2 SSD drive which I am currently using as my windows drive

No, you are not. Screens prove that you installed the OS on the other SSD, not the kingston.

 

[dj2018]

well I have to beg to differ as you say that I have installed windows on my Samsung ssd. that is not correct I will give you the screenshots of both the Samsung ssd and the Kingston and let you see for yourself. now you are going to tell me after you see these screenshots that I have items from windows on my Samsung SSD and not on my C: drive... The M.2 SSD

well I have to beg to differ as you say that I have installed windows on my Samsung ssd. that is not correct I will give you the screenshots of both the Samsung ssd and the Kingston and let you see for yourself. now you are going to tell me after you see these screenshots that I have items from windows on my Samsung SSD and not on my C: drive... The M.2 SSD

if i have to i will use the samsung magician to wipe the samsung ssd drive then you will see what i mean

 

[EarthDog]

well I have to beg to differ as you say that I have installed windows on my Samsung ssd. that is not correct I will give you the screenshots of both the Samsung ssd and the Kingston and let you see for yourself. now you are going to tell me after you see these screenshots that I have items from windows on my Samsung SSD and not on my C: drive... The M.2 SSD

From the information provided, the ATTO result on C:\ looks to be a standard SATA drive... Your Evo 860 has speeds up to 550/520 and the ATTO result shows 520/460. The Kingston drive should be a lot faster.

If you run ATTO on the G:\ drive, what does performance look like?

It seems to me that the Samsung SSD label in 'this pc' is not correct....

 

[dj2018]

I will do that for you now earthdog, but honestly how can it be even possible that I have windows installed on my Samsung SSD when there are no objects recorded only on the C: drive
but i will do a screenshot with atto and on my Samsung SSD and post the results for you... many thanks in taking your time to help me

 

[EarthDog]

I will do that for you now earthdog, but honestly how can it be even possible that I have windows installed on my Samsung SSD when there are no objects recorded only on the C: drive
but i will do a screenshot with atto and on my Samsung SSD and post the results for you... many thanks in taking your time to help me

Because drive letters (outside of C:\) and labels can be anything. It is possible whoever labeled the drive as Samsung simply got it wrong.

But again, look at the ATTO result... that is standard SATA speeds from (what appears to be) your EVO. Maybe the G:\ drive will show the same, I don't know... but that is what it looks like to me seeing a couple of your screenshots.

 

[dj2018]

hi there ,

I named the Samsung ssd Letter G as it was not displayed when in installed my M.2 SSD in my system, but anyway I will send the screenshot to you and unfortunately I will be late giving any answers as being boxing day I am out celebrating

 

[EarthDog]

hi there ,

I named the Samsung ssd Letter G as it was not displayed when in installed my M.2 SSD in my system, but anyway I will send the screenshot to you and unfortunately I will be late giving any answers as being boxing day I am out celebrating

Well, that answers that. Clearly this drive 'labeled' Samsung is NOT the Samsung. The speeds you are seeing there are obviously from the Kingston NVMe drive. Though they are lower than it is rated (but ok for the bus it is on), it is clearly a lot faster than the Evo 860 and SATA3 6 Gbps speeds.

You installed your OS to the slower SATA based Samsung drive and have mis-labeled the Kingston drive as Samsung in This PC.

Have fun on boxing day!!!

 

[TheLostSwede]

How many A+E SSDs are there, anyway?

See the "if there is a match" fragment in what you just quoted.
I mean, the only important thing is the interfaces supported. If you have a mismatch, it won't work.

It is still a match, as an B+M keyed drive did in an M keyed slot, but the latter can be PCIe only, which means as in the case of the OP, the B+M keyed SATA SSD will physically fit, yet but function s it needs a SATA interface.

Do not reinstall. MBR/GPT does not affect the speed. Swede had to confuse this with something else.
Please provide mentioned Crystal disk info shot.

It does affect speed massively, no confusion on my part. NVMe drives need to use GPT, not MBR if you want the full performance out of them.
Despite the fact there was a mixup, the Kingston NVMe drive is still at half speed, as you can see.

 

[EarthDog]

It does affect speed massively, no confusion on my part. NVMe drives need to use GPT, not MBR if you want the full performance out of them.
Despite the fact there was a mixup, the Kingston NVMe drive is still at half speed, as you can see.

I searched but came up empty. Got any links handy to read?

 

[TheLostSwede]

I searched but came up empty. Got any links handy to read?

I did the mistake myself the first time I got an NVMe drive for starters, got nowhere near the full speeds of the drives until I changed to GPT.
Others here in the forum has had the same problem too.
I can't find any actual benchmark comparisons either.
It's apparently possible to convert an MBR drive to GPT without losing data.

 

[NoJuan999]

When I first installed my Samsung 970 Evo nvme m.2 drive in November I formatted it as MBR by mistake and just recently converted it to GPT.
I used this guide to convert it without any data loss:

How to convert MBR to GPT drive to switch BIOS to UEFI on Windows 10

A PC with UEFI is more secure and faster than the legacy one using BIOS, and here's how to switch.

www.windowscentral.com

MBR Speeds:

GPT Speeds:

 

[dj2018]

hi,
thank you for all the information, but before I begin is It better first to unplug my Samsung SSD drive and then first of all reboot my pc to see if earthdog is correct and that there is files written on my Samsung SSD which are Hidden " hence" showing zero objects?
I will do that and post a screenshot minus the Samsung SSD

ok I have to problem solved ..however I was confused to find that windows indeed did install on the Samsung SSD and was apparently showing up as being used by the Kingston M.2, now one more thing I now since installing windows in UEFI have now 3 partitions on my Kingston, is there any way around that to delete them so its just one physical partition?. now that I have finally installed windows on my M.2 will I notice any speed performance?

hi,
thank you for all the information, but before I begin is It better first to unplug my Samsung SSD drive and then first of all reboot my pc to see if earthdog is correct and that there is files written on my Samsung SSD which are Hidden " hence" showing zero objects?
I will do that and post a screenshot minus the Samsung SSD

ok I have to problem solved ..however I was confused to find that windows indeed did install on the Samsung SSD and was apparently showing up as being used by the Kingston M.2, now one more thing I now since installing windows in UEFI have now 3 partitions on my Kingston, is there any way around that to delete them so its just one physical partition?. now that I have finally installed windows on my M.2 will I notice any speed performance?

and just to add, to achieve this I unplugged both my Samsung SSD and my Samsung 1tb hdd before installing

 

[EarthDog]

I did the mistake myself the first time I got an NVMe drive for starters, got nowhere near the full speeds of the drives until I changed to GPT.
Others here in the forum has had the same problem too.
I can't find any actual benchmark comparisons either.
It's apparently possible to convert an MBR drive to GPT without losing data.

I'm really struggling to figure out why that would be. It has nothing to do with alignment so I am at a loss as to how that works....

 

[dj2018]

me too anyway now I have that figured out how fast should it be at installing windows from usb to the M.2 drive?

 

[newtekie1]

I'm really struggling to figure out why that would be. It has nothing to do with alignment so I am at a loss as to how that works....

The only thing I can think of is that GPT is more efficient at random requests, so it gives higher IOPs. But I doubt the difference would actually be noticeable.

 

[EarthDog]

me too anyway now I have that figured out how fast should it be at installing windows from usb to the M.2 drive?

Dont worry about the minutia. Just get windows installed on the proper drive and get them labeled properly moving forward.

As far as install time from usb 3.0 to nvme drive... takes me around 20 mins...but that is also using pcie 3.0 x4 slot and your system neuters that drive... so 20 mins+...

 

[dj2018]

me too anyway now I have that figured out how fast should it be at installing windows from usb to the M.2 drive?

here is a screen shot as you see now that my C: drive is now the Kingston as I unplugged my other two hdd's before installing, now as you see I have now 3 partitions? is there a way of deleting these so I can have the M.2 SSD as a whole windows C: drive

 

[EarthDog]

here is a screen shot as you see now that my C: drive is now the Kingston as I unplugged my other two hdd's before installing, now as you see I have now 3 partitions? is there a way of deleting these so I can have the M.2 SSD as a whole windows C: drive

Leave them. Windows does this for a reason.

 

[newtekie1]

is there a way of deleting these so I can have the M.2 SSD as a whole windows C: drive

No. Those partitions are required to boot Windows in UEFI mode.

 

[dj2018]

ok thank you both, so now officially I am actually using my M.2 SSD as my boot drive?

 

[EarthDog]

ok thank you both, so now officially I am actually using my M.2 SSD as my boot drive?

You're asking us? Lol, you should know, friend! Do you know how to figure it out? If so, post screenshots, if not, look back at what we asked of you previously and how it should perform...(to spell it out, run atto on c:\ and see if it performs as it should on your system).

We obviously cannot tell from you last image....

 

[dj2018]

here are my results . thank you all for the help.. appreciated

 

[newtekie1]

ok thank you both, so now officially I am actually using my M.2 SSD as my boot drive?

The best way to make sure Windows is getting installed on the right drive is to take every other drive out of the computer or disconnect them when you install Windows. This can be hard for M.2 drives, but some BIOS let you disable them, so that helps.

 

[dj2018]

that's exactly what I did, dis-connected my other HDD's and let windows install on my M.2 in UEFI

 

[EarthDog]

here are my results . thank you all for the help.. appreciated

Thinking about what we found previously, what do those results tell you?

(Sorry, I'm a teach a man to fish person, lol)