Solved Backup SSD

Tasmania Green · 2025-02-03T22:36:36-0500

I'd like to get a 2nd SSD to act as a backup but I'd like to see what my options are.

My motherboard is an MSI B650 Gaming Plus WIFI ATX AM5. The current SSD is a Silicon Power P34A60 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 3.0 X4 NVME. I don't want to spend a lot of money, so at this point I think another 1 TB drive will work.

Dwarfr66 · 2025-02-03T22:45:11-0500

Any will do mate!

Berton · 2025-02-03T22:51:25-0500

Don't write off the possibility of a larger drive such as a 2TB [haven't seen a 1.5TB]. My personal rule-of-thumb is for the second drive to be at least double the size of the main drive, gives more flexibility in saving/storing/backing up.

Tasmania Green · 2025-02-03T23:08:41-0500

Berton said:
Don't write off the possibility of a larger drive such as a 2TB [haven't seen a 1.5TB]. My personal rule-of-thumb is for the second drive to be at least double the size of the main drive, gives more flexibility in saving/storing/backing up.

That makes sense. It will depend on the prices, but I'm opend to options.

Scannerman · 2025-02-03T23:45:08-0500

Tasmania Green said:
That makes sense. It will depend on the prices, but I'm opend to options.

Depending on how pinched for cash you are file transfers from NVMe to SATA SSD aren't so bad. I'm assuming you simply want another SSD for storage. In fact, you're likely better off running your OS on a SATA SSD as there won't be any noticeable difference in speed with standard use. Boot times could be a few of seconds slower. Doing this could free up your NVMe for storage and file transfers to that storage will still be fast. Thanks to NVMe 2TB SATA SSDs have really come down in price.

Tasmania Green · 2025-02-04T00:22:45-0500

Scannerman said:
Depending on how pinched for cash you are file transfers from NVMe to SATA SSD aren't so bad. I'm assuming you simply want another SSD for storage. In fact, you're likely better off running your OS on a SATA SSD as there won't be any noticeable difference in speed with standard use. Boot times could be a few of seconds slower. Doing this could free up your NVMe for storage and file transfers to that storage will still be fast. Thanks to NVMe 2TB SATA SSDs have really come down in price.

Using the SATA drive as backup makes more sense to me. I’ll still need to look at prices. The nice thing is that I don’t have big files to move around.

glasskuter · 2025-02-04T00:31:00-0500

It's a lot cheaper to build your own external drives and take nothing more than the nvme of your choice, 2 screws, and one of these. I have 4 of them. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07MNFH1PX/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1

Tasmania Green · 2025-02-04T00:40:57-0500

glasskuter said:
It's a lot cheaper to build your own external drives and take nothing more than the nvme of your choice, 2 screws, and one of these. I have 4 of them. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07MNFH1PX/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1

If the price between NVMe and SATA SSDs is the same, couldn’t I could just use the 2nd NVMe slot?

Berton · 2025-02-04T00:42:06-0500

glasskuter said:
It's a lot cheaper to build your own external drives and take nothing more than the nvme of your choice, 2 screws, and one of these. I have 4 of them. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07MNFH1PX/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1

I have two Sabrent cases like that, no screws, just a small stud-affair that plugs in to hold the drive in place. They came with a USB-C cable and I added a USB-A adapter for older Notebooks. One has a 1TB drive and the other has a 256GB drive I salvaged from a junked Notebook.

bobkn · 2025-02-04T01:20:52-0500

For an internal backup, I'd use a 3.5" SATA hard drive, 4TB or larger.

HDDs are still cheaper than SSDs, at larger capacities. (Mine is an 18TB Seagate Ironwolf.)

kito991 · 2025-02-04T01:32:17-0500

Your board has two M.2 slots, so adding a second SSD is easy. If you’re just using it for backup, no need to go overboard I mean a PCIe 3.0 is plenty and keeps costs low

glasskuter · 2025-02-04T01:32:46-0500

Tasmania Green said:
couldn’t I could just use the 2nd NVMe slot?

Sure you could. but it is not good practice to keep your backup drive connected to the computer all the time,or at least that's my feeling about it.

Berton said:
drive I salvaged from a junked Notebook.

All my external nvmes are salvaged except one that I bought for cheap on Black Friday. They're all I use now. Other than for creating install media, I don't use thumb drives at all anymore. I have a shoebox of those suckers I'll never use, most bought back when they cost an arm and a leg and half of them still in the package. I need to donate them along with everything else in my storage closet. Too old to mess with it anymore.

antspants · 2025-02-04T01:33:55-0500

Tasmania Green said:
If the price between NVMe and SATA SSDs is the same, couldn’t I could just use the 2nd NVMe slot?

Yes, Mike.

antspants · 2025-02-04T01:35:14-0500

Those external Orico casings I linked you to are good.

Tasmania Green · 2025-02-04T01:55:09-0500

glasskuter said:
Sure you could. but it is not good practice to keep your backup drive connected to the computer all the time,or at least that's my feeling about it.

All my external nvmes are salvaged except one that I bought for cheap on Black Friday. They're all I use now. Other than for creating install media, I don't use thumb drives at all anymore. I have a shoebox of those suckers I'll never use, most bought back when they cost an arm and a leg and half of them still in the package. I need to donate them along with everything else in my storage closet. Too old to mess with it anymore.

You wrote that “it is not good practice to keep your backup drive connected to the computer all the time.” Why is that?
Clever

antspants said:
Yes, Mike.

Your tone seems to sugg

antspants · 2025-02-04T01:56:37-0500

Tasmania Green said:
Your tone seems to sugg

Did you not finish your comment?

Tasmania Green · 2025-02-04T02:07:27-0500

antspants said:
Did you not finish your comment?

Sorry. I misread a comment. I thought I had deleted the rough draft when I realised my mistake.

Tasmania Green · 2025-02-04T02:45:24-0500

Why is it not good practice to keep your backup drive connected to the computer all the time?

antspants · 2025-02-04T03:07:14-0500

Tasmania Green said:
Why is it not good practice to keep your backup drive connected to the computer all the time?

The simplest answer is that if there is an electrical incident that fries your PC, the backups would be safe if not connected to your PC at the time.

Scannerman · 2025-02-04T03:27:24-0500

antspants said:
The simplest answer is that if there is an electrical incident that fries your PC, the backups would be safe if not connected to your PC at the time.

Yes.

Plus by air gapping your back up any buggy data or bad code can't be transferred to your backup drive when you're using your PC. Air gapping simply means the drive is disconnected or isolated from your main system. Shutting it off is one way to do it. Unplugging it is another way. There are also more "sophisticated" approaches involving firewalls and/or cloud bases, but the surest way to keep your backup safe is to disconnect it when it is not required to run.

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