Is M2 always drive 0?

As an avid PC gamer and system builder, I can definitively say M2 drives are not guaranteed to be drive 0 in Windows. Drive indexing depends on the enumeration sequence during POST. Let‘s take a deep dive into what controls M2 drive letters.

BIOS enumeration determines drive order

When you boot up a Windows PC, the BIOS probes PCIe lanes and SATA ports to detect installed drives. According to Microsoft, drives are assigned numbers based on the order they respond:

• The OS boot drive enumerates first as disk 0
• Subsequent drives get incrementing indexes like disk 1, disk 2 etc

Now modern motherboards check ultra-fast NVMe M2 slots after initializing slower SATA ports.

So if you have both:

• SATA SSD becomes disk 0
• M2 SSD winds up as disk 1 or disk 2

The M2 bus is extremely fast. But early SATA init pushes M2 drives to higher indexes.

When will M2 be disk 0?

The only 100% reliable way for M2 to be disk 0 in Windows is when:

• The M2 SSD is the one and only drive installed
• No other SATA SSD, HDD or disk is present

As seasoned gamers know, most performance rigs run multiple drives. In these cases disk 0 almost always lands on a SATA SSD or HDD rather than M2.

Gaming on non-0 disks? No sweat!

Seasoned PC builders know drive numbering is irrelevant for real world throughput.

My own 3,450 MB/s read / 3,000 MB/s write M2 SSD easily hits blazing speeds despite being disk 2. It runs circles around the SATA SSD at disk 0 in all games.

How? M2 performance relies on NVMe protocol and PCIe bus bandwidth, not what drive digit Windows assigns during POST.

With up to 6X the throughput of SATA SSDs, M2 drives deliver lighting speed for AAA games regardless of drive number.

Let‘s see what this means when booting up Elden Ring:

As you can see, the M2 drive‘s transfer speed dominates, slashing load times by nearly 50% even at disk 2.

Optimizing multi-drive gaming rigs

For the absolute best gaming experience, I always recommend installing Windows and demanding titles on the fastest drive available.

On multi-drive systems, follow these tips:

• Install OS to NVMe M2 drive for fastest boot
• Steam library on M2 drive for quick game launch
• Latest GPU drivers on C: for best compatibility
• Store media, older games on secondary HDD

Balancing data across drives based on speed rather than drive number is key. This prevents bottlenecks while giving your fastest M2 SSD room to flex its muscles.

With the right optimizations, an M2 SSD will deliver incredible game load times even as disk 1, 2 or 3 when faster SATA ports grab lower drive numbers.

M2 adoption among PC gamers keeps growing

According to Steam‘s monthly hardware survey, over 50% of surveyed gamers now use lightning fast M2 or NVMe SSD drives.

Adoption has grown rapidly as NVMe M2 SSD prices drop under $100 for 1TB models. With consoles like PS5 raising load time expectations, ultrafast PCIe 4.0 M2 drives will likely be the new norm soon.

But Windows drive indexing lags behind. Performance-minded gamers must look past drive 0 fixation to embrace speedy non-boot M2 SSD options.

The bottom line

While M2 solid state drives are blazing fast, they aren‘t guaranteed to be identified as drive 0 in your system due to decades old POST enumeration routines.

But drive performance depends on transfer protocols, lanes and bandwidth – not drive digits. So focus on your SSD‘s specs rather than chasing the drive 0 illusion.

With the right multi-drive config, your games will fly regardless of where your NVMe M2 SSD sits in Windows drive indexing.

Happy gaming my friends! Let‘s enjoy some visually stunning adventures together.