purchasing an external drive

[yl956]

Originally Posted by EGS

As I read this:
https://www.dell.com/support/home/us...esktop/manuals
it looks like you could add one internal M.2 NVMe boot/samples/sessions drive.
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...82E16820147691
Use the existing internal HDD for other/misc data. Make/save boot drive image backups. Backup everything to TWO externals.

sorry if im asking idiot questions but im not very savy on the hardware part of all this...so your saying my desktop only has room for one internal m.2 nvme... can i go with a "samsung 850 evo" or a "Samsung 512GB 970 PRO NVMe M.2 Internal SSD"?

[Darryl Ramm]

There seems to be conflicting information about what expansion options that Dell XPS model has. Instead of asking us... open yours up and have a look and you tell us what slots it has.

If it has a dedicated M.2 slot then that's a great option. Even if it does not and you have unused PCIe slots (ideally each with at least 4 spare PCIe 3.0 lanes) you can add a M.2/NVMe adapter card into that slot and use an M.2/NVMe drive like the Samsung 960 or 970. (Not all M.2 drives are NVMe... you want an NVMe drive... and a fairly recent model).

Even with a dedicated M.2/NVMe slot you will need to check the documentation to make sure you are not using those PCIe lanes with any PCIe cards you have, like additional GPUs if you added them.

M.2/NVMe will get you a lot more performance than any SATA SSD. If its incremental about doing that or adding two extra SATA SSDs... you'll actually get more performance and out of using the one NVMe drive for both boot and Pro Tools audio.

But.. the reason I did not go there to start with is you seem a little challenged already. And this is all making stuff more complex. If you have access to somebody who knows about PCs you may want to see if they can help you. That may be a local PC builder/repair shop.