Thanks for reply. I'll give it some thought, as the system is getting a bit long in the tooth after six years of hammering.Well, the motherboard supports a type 2280 M2 drive...the Samsung 970 Evo is a Type 2280 so I see no reason why it wouldn't. The M2 drive would be a lot faster than what you have now (3500/3300 read/write speeds versus the 540/520 you have now)...in practice how much you will notice is is a different matter....Windows will load a few seconds quicker, games will load a little quicker...it would be more noticeable if doing large file transfers between drives or working with large data sets
Apologies, yes, it was an 8+ year old (maybe more) SATA HDD so was well out of date. I misread the original post, I would agree a SSD to M2 on that system probably wouldn't be the best use of the money.@Frypot Did you upgrade to the M2 from a SATA drive or an SSD? The jump from a SATA to M2 is more extreme than SSD to M2. Also, I don't deny that an M2 can breathe new life into an aging and slowing system....my point was that the price of the Samsung is rather expensive and not sure it would make enough of a difference to warrant the very high cost. If the OP was going for a cheaper M2 drive, then I would've recommended it
The slowdown of Windows over time is an effect of HDD fragmentation, SSDs don't suffer in the same way. They do still collect a lot of garbage so a reinstall every so often is still a good idea.I would also add that sometimes it is the new Windows install that makes the most difference to a slowing system rather than the drive itself as all Windows installations slow as time goes on...it is why people recommend regularly re-installing Windows (every 6 months to a year) to keep it at optimal speed