SSD boot drive for my system

[dermdoc21]

I've been trying to research the best SSD drive to use as a boot drive for my new HP desktop and I've seen many different discussions about not being able to boot from the M.2, etc. I have the Pavilion 570 P094 (AMD A12, Willow motherboard).

The specs show it has two M.2 expansion slots, one key A and one key M.

Can someone recommend a specific SDD drive that I can use as a boot drive for this system? I'm a little new to all of this since I've been out of the tech field since the early 2000s. All the choices and new terminology is a bit overwhelming: PCIe, M.2, NVMe, etc.

I do understand the process of cloning the drive, etc. so don't get me wrong, I feel capable of doing this but I don't want to reinvent the wheel if someone has researched and knows the best solution for what I'm trying to accomplish with my particular system.

Thanks in advance!

[erico]

Yes. The research has already been done. HP Expert Big_Dave provided the expertise.

In the following thread link the member has a Pavilion 570 series PC that is the same codename as yours (SHAVE3).  That means that his results apply to yours.  You need an NVMe M.2 SSD. My own preference is Samsung.

The thread is at the link below. 

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Desktop-Hardware-and-Upgrade-Questions/Boot-from-M-2-SSD/td-p/6283247 ...

At Newegg.com in the search I did, there are some incredibly fast Samsung M.2 NVMe SSD units. See the following link.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&IsNodeId=1&N=100011693%20600488413%206004...

The document at the link below for the motherboard shows where all of the components are. The SSD socket is an M key.

https://support.hp.com/hr-en/document/c05408562

[dermdoc21]

The first link you provided to where this issue was discussed in the past does not work.

Also the second link seems to have results that show more than one key type, but you noted it was an "M" key, maybe this is discussed in the first link.

Last, I know there are often dimension restrictions on the SSD units (what will fit on the board), but again maybe this is discussed in the first link.

Thank you again for your expertise,

-david

[erico]

You're welcome. 🙂

II have no idea as to why the other link failed. Try the one below.

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Desktop-Hardware-and-Upgrade-Questions/Boot-from-M-2-SSD/m-p/6283247#M...

M.2 2280 will fit.

That is 22 mm width and 80mm length.

[dermdoc21]

Thank you for all your help. I've been continuing to educate myself on all of this over the past two days. The last question I have is what type of logical interface this motherboard is using (SATA or PCI-e) as this will impact which drive I choose. I looked on the spec sheet for the willow2 motherboard and I cannot find an answer to this question.

Thanks! 

[erico · Accepted solution]

It isn't SATA. 

It is PCI Express (PCIe) using NVMe.

At the current date, NVMe is the fastest SSD type interface on the planet.