# NVMe Drive config recommendations



## GeoMax (Dec 4, 2021)

Hi all. I just ordered two 4TB nvme drives to add to my new DAW.
I have a 500gb NVMe also.

My motherboard has two M.2 slots, and I bought a PCIe card to put one of the NVMe drives on.

So, my question is this: How should I utilize the drives?

I was thinking I would put 500gb on motherboard and run OS on it. 
2nd MB slot I would install 4TB and run all sample libraries here. I have about 3TB of samples from all libraries I own.
3rd 4TB I would put on the PCIe card and use that as recording/project drive.

I am running Windows 11 and Nuendo. 
Motherboard in Asus Z490-Creator
The NVMe drives I ordered are: TEAMGROUP MP34 4TB with DRAM SLC Cache 3D NAND TLC NVMe 1.3 PCIe Gen3x4 M.2 2280 Internal SSD (Read/Write Speed up to 3,500/2,900 MB/s)
*The PCie card I bought is: **M.2 NVME to PCIe 3.0 x4 Adapter with Aluminum Heatsink Solution*​Suggestions?​​


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## strojo (Dec 4, 2021)

Your plan sounds pretty good as you outlined it.


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## PaulieDC (Dec 4, 2021)

Absolutely perfect plan. I run a 500GB on my mobo as my C drive as well, and put no user files on it. MORE than ample space. I never suggest drive bigger because we get lazy and sample library‘s will end up on it. And when you have to wipe windows and reload, now you have to start moving sample libraries around. So it’s only OS and apps, so 500GB is more than enough. I have 4 other 1TB NVMe‘s, one on mobo and 3 on PCIe cards. A couple years back, 1TB was the biggest that had a reachable price… today I would have done what you did. I do run Kontakt libraries on a regular SSD because I hardly use them, and I need all of my 4TB NVMe space For Berlin/Spitfire/Garritan CFX.

I tried coolers on the NVMe sticks but what works best is the 140 mm fan that I sit on top of the power supply in the back corner of the case, tilted back and aimed at the PCI cards and mobo where the drives are mounted, with the top of the fan zip-tied in place. I plug the fan straight into the power supply so it runs full speed and using crystal disK info, the drives rarely get over 40°C. My GTX 1080 even runs cooler now, lol.

Getting back to all my 1 TB drives, prices now are amazing. Three years ago I bought a Samsung 960 Pro, 1 TB, on eBay used for $495 and I was so psyched to get that price! It’s one of those things you just eat at the time and move on, lol.


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## GeoMax (Dec 4, 2021)

PaulieDC said:


> Absolutely perfect plan. I run a 500GB on my mobo as my C drive as well, and put no user files on it. MORE than ample space. I never suggest drive bigger because we get lazy and sample library‘s will end up on it. And when you have to wipe windows and reload, now you have to start moving sample libraries around. So it’s only OS and apps, so 500GB is more than enough. I have 4 other 1TB NVMe‘s, one on mobo and 3 on PCIe cards. A couple years back, 1TB was the biggest that had a reachable price… today I would have done what you did. I do run Kontakt libraries on a regular SSD because I hardly use them, and I need all of my 4TB NVMe space For Berlin/Spitfire/Garritan CFX.
> 
> I tried coolers on the NVMe sticks but what works best is the 140 mm fan that I sit on top of the power supply in the back corner of the case, tilted back and aimed at the PCI cards and mobo where the drives are mounted, with the top of the fan zip-tied in place. I plug the fan straight into the power supply so it runs full speed and using crystal disK info, the drives rarely get over 40°C. My GTX 1080 even runs cooler now, lol.
> 
> Getting back to all my 1 TB drives, prices now are amazing. Three years ago I bought a Samsung 960 Pro, 1 TB, on eBay used for $495 and I was so psyched to get that price! It’s one of those things you just eat at the time and move on, lol.


Thanks for the ideas!

I do have another 1TB i could use instead of 500, but 500 has always been enough for apps and OS.
I haven't tried to cool my NVMe drives, other than having high airflow cases. I can keep an eye on that and see if they throttle down from heat.

I too have a ton of 1TB SSD drives that I have all my samples on. I am actually trying to move to one machine and retire my 7980XE machine. I might keep it around as a VSL child machine, but then I am back to VEPro. I am trying to work more on a disabled tracks, or track import kind of model, and limit big project templates. I like having all my instruments at my finger tips, but then the template get in the way of my creativity.

I built this 10700k machine when I couldn't get a 10900k cpu. Now, I dont think it would really matter. From my testing, the clock speed difference of the 10700k vs my 7980XE machine makes a huge difference in performance in Nuendo, but i would actually lose clock speed and pickup 2 cores to replace cpu with 10900k. Thats partly why I decided to go NVMe and get all my samples on my DAW, and pickup the 6x speed difference for loading samples on the fly.

TBD if I can resist the 12900k before the next CPU release.


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## GeoMax (Dec 4, 2021)

liquidlino said:


> Hmm, if it's this card you bought for the PCIe:  then personally, I'd not be trust a $12 no-name card with a major storage component.
> 
> I think you'd be better off retiring the 500gb NVME (sell it on ebay or gift it to a friend) and just having the 2x4TB drives on the mobo, using the ultra-high quality parts that have gone into a very expensive motherboard that's all engineered to work perfectly together. Drive copy the 500Gb across to a 500Gb partiaion on the new 4TB, setup another 3.5TB partition, then take out the 500GB and put int he 4TB and create a single 4TB partiiaon on that. Job done.



I had thought about that idea o fjust using the 4TB drives and partition. Some of the newer MB are coming with more slots. I think my next machine will be one with 4 slots and loaded with NVMe only on MB.
Yes, I thought it was cheap too, but I didnt really see any "expensive" name branded PCIe cards for adding NVMe drives via card slot. I thought it looked okay since it is highly rated by nearly 1400 buyers, so I pulled the trigger. TBD if that turns out to be true. I will still try it, even if not in this DAW machine.


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## PaulieDC (Dec 4, 2021)

Been using two of these since 2017, have been flawless. Each card holds two M.2's, one NVMe and one SATA. I use the two SATA drives for project files and Kontakt libraries that are available but rarely used.


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## PaulieDC (Dec 4, 2021)

But if you can find a 3-slot mobo, the 500GB/4TB/4TB model will be nicely self-contained, no PCI cards needed. Upper-end mobos usually have aluminum heatsink mounting covers, but lately, less PCIe slots.


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## GeoMax (Dec 4, 2021)

PaulieDC said:


> But if you can find a 3-slot mobo, the 500GB/4TB/4TB model will be nicely self-contained, no PCI cards needed. Upper-end mobos usually have aluminum heatsink mounting covers, but lately, less PCIe slots.


Yeah, I wish i had a mb with 4 m2 slots. 

If i did want to avoid the pcie card, i could just use an ssd for recording drive. 

Would that be better than partitioning one of the 4tb drives?


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## PaulieDC (Dec 4, 2021)

That's really a preference for your files, but I never suggest installing Windows on a part of a drive. I'm not into partitioning drives to have what looks like separate drives, I prefer dedicated drives to whatever it is. That's entirely up to you, it's like Keyswitches vs separate tracks.

OK, technically you could use one of the 4TB for OS, apps, user files and all your project files and just use the other for libraries. Make sure you buy an external to back up the file drive regularly, so if you have to wipe to reload Windows for any reason, you can restore. Then you can avoid the PCIe card, although IMO they work just fine for NVMe drives for sample libraries.


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## strojo (Dec 5, 2021)

I'd agree that installing Windows on a partitioned drive is not ideal. It just gets messier if you ever have to reinstall.

As for PCIe cards for your NVMe drive, I'd recommend this  instead of what you listed.


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## GeoMax (Dec 5, 2021)

PaulieDC said:


> That's really a preference for your files, but I never suggest installing Windows on a part of a drive. I'm not into partitioning drives to have what looks like separate drives, I prefer dedicated drives to whatever it is. That's entirely up to you, it's like Keyswitches vs separate tracks.
> 
> OK, technically you could use one of the 4TB for OS, apps, user files and all your project files and just use the other for libraries. Make sure you buy an external to back up the file drive regularly, so if you have to wipe to reload Windows for any reason, you can restore. Then you can avoid the PCIe card, although IMO they work just fine for NVMe drives for sample libraries.


All parts just arrived, so it's time to experiment. I am basically going to go with my original plan.
500gb OS, 4TB on MB for Samples, and 4TB on PCie card for projects. If I dont like the performance of pcie card setup, then I will just use an SSD for my project drive. That is more than powerful enough for recording audio & midi.

I will report back how it all works out.


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## GeoMax (Dec 5, 2021)

strojo said:


> I'd agree that installing Windows on a partitioned drive is not ideal. It just gets messier if you ever have to reinstall.
> 
> As for PCIe cards for your NVMe drive, I'd recommend this  instead of what you listed.



Thanks for the suggestion. I am gonna try what I bought. If it doesn't work well, then I will look at other card options.


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## GeoMax (Dec 5, 2021)

Drives are in and working perfectly. 

I did ignore the PCIe card instructions to use the included rubber band solution for holding the heatsink on the NVMe drive. I used a small zip tie instead. 

I dont really know how to test drive performance metrics, but they seem pretty snappy compared to my SSD's . 

Now the long task of moving all my libraries.


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## CSS_SCC (Dec 5, 2021)

I don't know which motherboard you are using but just one thing to consider: I have an ASRock X570 Taichi with three NVMe slots. Using all three NVMe slots disables the third PCIe slot.

As with regards to the reliability of add-in NVMe PCIe cards, I have been using a Startech PCIe adapter that has one NVMe slot and two SATA SSD ports for almost four years without any issue. I had it initially on my old desktop (only two NVMe slots) and now I have four NVMe drives and all perform as per spec.


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## GeoMax (Dec 5, 2021)

CSS_SCC said:


> I don't know which motherboard you are using but just one thing to consider: I have an ASRock X570 Taichi with three NVMe slots. Using all three NVMe slots disables the third PCIe slot.
> 
> As with regards to the reliability of add-in NVMe PCIe cards, I have been using a Startech PCIe adapter that has one NVMe slot and two SATA SSD ports for almost four years without any issue. I had it initially on my old desktop (only two NVMe slots) and now I have four NVMe drives and all perform as per spec.


I am using Asus ProArt Z490 Creator. It only has 2 NVMe slots. I think it disables the Thunderbolt port, but I dont use that.


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## KEM (Dec 5, 2021)

I’m about to buy a 2tb nvme drive myself and I’m very excited to see how much of a difference it makes


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## PaulieDC (Dec 5, 2021)

GeoMax said:


> All parts just arrived, so it's time to experiment. I am basically going to go with my original plan.
> 500gb OS, 4TB on MB for Samples, and 4TB on PCie card for projects. If I dont like the performance of pcie card setup, then I will just use an SSD for my project drive. That is more than powerful enough for recording audio & midi.
> 
> I will report back how it all works out.


I use a SATA SSD for projects, that should be more than ample since your libraries live elsewhere. Let us know how it goes!


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## GeoMax (Dec 6, 2021)

KEM said:


> I’m about to buy a 2tb nvme drive myself and I’m very excited to see how much of a difference it makes


I think you will be happy with the upgrade.

I am trying to move completely to NVMe drives. I like how snappy things are and how fast I can move data around.

My biggest interest is to be able to import tracks in Nuendo and VSTs from track presets, etc. I basically want to go to single machine, have all my libraries in a quick-load state, rather than a giant template that just massively clutters my project and hinders my creative workflow.

VEPro is pretty great, but I just want a simpler way to work on my projects, and make full use of Nuendo features.

Anyway, I bought the 4tb drives listed here for $459 each on Amazon. I think that is totally acceptable price.


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## GeoMax (Dec 6, 2021)

Interesting...the 4TB drive on the PCie card actually performed better than the onboard drives.
I guess teh cheap card is okay after all. Granted, the read speeds are pretty similar, so it will be fine as is.


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