Windows 10: Storage capacity upgrade and OS migration with only one NVME x4 pcie slot on MB

Hello, i am running Windows 11 after an upgrade from Win 10 license i purchased and i am trying to upgrade my main boot drive storage capacity to 2tb from the currently installed 1tb NVME SSD. My issue is that my motherboard ASUS prime x370 pro only has 1 M.2 x4 slot. I have purchased a new Kingston 2tb M.2 NVME SSD and an adaptor for the pcie 3.0 x2 slot to begin the cloning process, and my plan was to transfer everything from my current drive using Acronis and once cloning is complete, i wish to physically swap the drives so that my new 2tb drive is my main in the x4 slot and the old 1tb d

:)

 

What does the X4 mean in an M.2 PCIe Gen 3.0 X4 NVME drive?

I need to buy an adapter card to make use of an M.2 PCIe Gen 3.0 X4 NVME drive. The question I have is what does the X4 mean? The adapter card I am looking at can be used in a X4, X8 or X16 PCIe slot and they say I will get up to 32Gbps when it is plugged into a PCIe X16 slot. Is the X4 in the description of the NVME drive a minimum requirement and it will work better plugged into an X8 or X16 slot? *Confused

Ak

 

Clone present nvme pcie ssd to replacement nvme pcie ssd?

I have a 500GB M.2 2280 NVMe PCIe SSD (boot drive) that I want to replace with a higher capacity M.2 card.

Where do I put the new SSD during the NVMe to NVMe cloning process? My mobo only has one M.2 slot for NVMe SSD's so do I want to use an external adapter for one of the M.2 cards? If so, do you have a recommendation?

If you have solved this issue for your desktop or laptop I would like your advice on if and what extra hardware you needed during the cloning.

please remember that I am dealing with PCIe NVMe drives ONLY. NO Sata is involved except possibly for a connecting cable from the desktop to an adapter. I am experienced with cloning SATA III drives but cloning NVMe is a little
new to me.

Computer: Dell XPS 8920, 32GB ram.

Present SSD: KXG50ZNV512G NVMe Toshiba 512GB

New SSD: CT13049074 Crucial P1 NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD 1TB (or 2TB if available soon) or similar storage device.

Windows 10 Pro for Workstations, version 1809.

 

What does the X4 mean in an M.2 PCIe Gen 3.0 X4 NVME drive?

I'm not aware of any NVMe SSDs that are currently above the M.2 PCIe Gen 3.0 X4 standard. I'm not sure about PCIe adapters, but my motherboard is capable of running M.2 PCIe Gen 3.0 X4 drives in one of its two M.2 slots. I lose two of its six SATA slots when I do this though.