HP Z420 Workstation - Suitable SSD advice needed please.

[Mancunian_Nick]

I have been contemplating getting a new game called Buldur's Gate 3 and the specs say it needs an SSD card/drive. I currently have my top 3 bays taken up with my DVD drive and 2 hard drives but I understand, and please correct me if I'm wrong, it can also have more 2.5" sata drives in it, so I'm assuming it could go in one of those? If I'm right, how hard are they to install? My PC currently boots from my C drive (HHD) so presumably if I add an SDD, it would work ok or would my Windows 10 64 bit pro need to be installed on it? The last thing I want to do is screw up my PC and create a lot of extra work for myself. I'm not particularly techie-minded. Oh one last thing - it needs to be a minimum of 250 Gb just for the game but 500 or even 1TB would be better if my Workstation would allow it. Any help/advice greatly appreciated.

Thank you. Nick

[DGroves]

the z420 (unlike the z440) does not support booting from a nvme type ssd, you need to use either a SATA based SSD that connects to one of your motherboards two sata 6gbps ports

sata 2.5in SSD

https://www.amazon.com/SAMSUNG-870-QVO-SATA-MZ-77Q1T0B/dp/B089C73T72/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=1tb%2Bssd%2...

or you can use the faster "AHCI"  based M.2 SSD using a M.2 pci-e card 

the AHCI based ssd is made by samsung model SM951

and the AHCI variant begins with the part number mz-hpv2560xxxx, or mz-hpv512xxxxx

M.2 ssd's

https://www.ebay.com/itm/175791826784

https://www.memory4less.com/samsung-ssd-mz-hpv2560

https://www.amazon.com/EZDIY-FAB-Express-Adapter-Support-22110/dp/B01GCXCR7W

DO NOT BUY THE NVME VARIANT OF THE sm951 Model#  MZ-VPV512xxxx !!!!!!

[Mancunian_Nick · Accepted solution]

Thank you kindly. I already bought it but hopefully I can send it back for a refund. I'm also sorry I've not replied sooner but I only just found this answer when I came on to try to solve another different problem.

The one I bought was a Samsung portable SSD T7 but I assume the same principle(s) applies which would explain, perhaps, why I wasn't able to download on to it with another game.