Replacing 2.5 SSD with m.2 nvme

[Toekneee!]

Hey guys I just ordered a 960 EVO 500gb m.2 drive to take advantage of the speed. I currently have a 2.5 samsung 850 pro as boot and everything. I would like to use the m.2 as boot/primary so in other words clone the 2.5 drive. Could I do this without having to reinstall OS and hassle free? Am I better off using the m.2 as secondary? Thank you !

Current build is:

Maximus hero viii
6600k
strix 1070
850 Pro 256gb

[Menthol]

Toekneel;
Welcome to the forums. I would definitely use the 960 as the primary drive with OS
You can clone your current OS to the 960 EVO very easy with the Samsung Data Migration software which is provided with the drive, or can be downloaded from Samsung site. I have done this numerous times without any issues whatsoever. This does depend on you currently having your OS installed in UEFI mode as nvme drives require the OS to be installed in UEFI mode.
If your OS is installed in legacy mode there a couple APPS that can convert a drive from legacy to UEFI without loosing any data, I am not sure how effective they are myself

[Toekneee!]

Thank you Menthol, I will look into the software. The drive came in the mail this afternoon so I will be installing it tonight. Hopefully it won't give me any problems. I'm not sure which mode I installed my OS in. I will have a look! Thank you so much again for the tip about the software.

[Toekneee!]

So I just ran diskmarkbench and I got 3099 read/1737 write seq. This drive is rated for 3500 correct? Could my settings be incorrect in bios? The guides I've seen set the x4 part in bios to m.2 but mine doesn't have that option. Only auto/3x/4x. I've installed nvme drivers from samsung website as well. 2202 is my current bios version.

[Menthol]

It's close to correct, when you run benchmarks on a drive with the OS they will be a little slower, there are several other tweaks commonly used to speed up your drive
1. set Windows power plan to performance while running benchmarks, this holds true for any benchmark, drive, CPU, GPU
2. disable Windows, Super fetch and Pre fetch, google this to find out how
3. disable indexing on the drive
4. turn off Windows write cache buffering

I use 2. and 3. for daily use, a quick google search will explain how and why or why not to use 1 and 4, there may be other tweaks

You will never feal the difference between 3000 and 3500, only see the numbers in a benchmark

[Toekneee!]

It's close to correct, when you run benchmarks on a drive with the OS they will be a little slower, there are several other tweaks commonly used to speed up your drive
1. set Windows power plan to performance while running benchmarks, this holds true for any benchmark, drive, CPU, GPU
2. disable Windows, Super fetch and Pre fetch, google this to find out how
3. disable indexing on the drive
4. turn off Windows write cache buffering

I use 2. and 3. for daily use, a quick google search will explain how and why or why not to use 1 and 4, there may be other tweaks

You will never feal the difference between 3000 and 3500, only see the numbers in a benchmark

You're the man. Thanks for all your help Menthol!