Hi everyone, I am building a mini-ITX based pc and the motherboard I bought is Asrock B650I, which has one m.2 PCIe slot in the front and one in the back. The issue is that the back one is obviously a weird spot, that ssd will have to be the ssd that just stays there forever if I don’t want to remove the whole motherboard for it. Just needed your suggestion on which ssd you would put in the back, The 1TB WD_Black or The 2tb MSI. The back would likely not fit a heat sink.

  • @[email protected]
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    84 days ago

    Whichever one you think you’re going to remove less often. Probably the 2 TB if you think you might upgrade the other.

    If one of them needs a heat sink, you’d probably put that one on the front. You could also put a thermal pad on the other and use the case itself as a heatsink.

    I assume your case doesn’t have a removable back panel.

    • @[email protected]OP
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      14 days ago

      That’s a relief, I wasn’t sure how worried I should be about heat sink. 2TB does make more sense in the back. Thank you!

  • @RightHandOfIkaros
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    54 days ago

    If they don’t come with a heatsink, they’re usually fine to run without a heatsink. Just check reviews for the ssd to see if they have overheating issues.

    I haven’t found m2 ssds to get very hot, personally. Only when copying extremely large files or big amounts of files that take longer than 10 or so minutes I have seen temperatures in the 60s ©, but usually its down near 50 or less.

  • monoboy
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    44 days ago

    If I recall correctly, the m.2 port on the front has a faster bus speed than the one on the back for that mobo. Don’t know if that might influence your decision.

    • @[email protected]
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      14 days ago

      If there’s a difference, that’s probably true. There might not be a difference. You’d have to check the manual.