There are SATA m.2 drives, but they require slot support which this motherboard does not have.
Companies are REALLY BAD in describing m.2 drives consistently. It’s even worse with prebuilt systems where they will describe the exact same thing with completely different terms (like one listing saying “NVMe SSD” and another saying “PCIe x4 m.2” and yet another saying “Solid State PCIe 3.0”… all of which are technically the same thing).
Just to make it simple: get a m.2 format 2280 (most common) size drive that advertises NVMe, PCIe, or anything mentioning 3.0, 4.0, or x4. Those all indicate support for “PCIe NVMe 3.0/4.0 x4” which is what you want. Anything else will specifically mention SATA which you do not want.
"I think he was just getting confused with PCIe, NVMe & M.2 ...🤯"
Exactly, but I think you have both cleared it up for me. I really appreciate your help. I have been doing video and making my computers for a long time, but I felt I was out of my element on this. Thanks again. I will pick up that drive tomorrow. I don't get my case until Monday, so I have time to plan.
Just wanted to follow up and thank everybody again for their valuable input. New computer is up and running with an NVME boot drive. I will probably replace the spinning drives with SSD as they die. Enjoy!
No, YOU enjoy! You’ll love the speed you get from a NVMe. The first time you copy a 20gb file and the progress bar just goes BING you’ll wonder how you ever lived with hard drives!