PCIe V.S. SATA m.2 adapter for 950 PRO SSD

[smala]

Hi,

I have Asus Sabertooth R1.0 mobo (https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/SABERTOOTH_990FX/specifications/) with FX-8350 CPU, and I'm going to get SSD (samsung 950 PRO).

However, I don't have m.2 in my motherboard so I'm going to get adapter for it. I see two options:
1) m.2 to SATA (for example http://www.ebay.com/itm/7MM-thickne...308252?hash=item21047e525c:g:0MoAAOSw5ZBWJ2Ct)
2) m.2 to PCIe (for example http://www.ebay.com/itm/2Port-NGFF-...410366?hash=item58c9f52d3e:g:VjsAAOSwDNdVuFIu)

I read other forums about 950 PRO with PCIe adapter, and if I correctly understood I need PCIe 3.0 x4 in my motherboard.

But I see I only have PCIe 2.0 x16 (x4 mode, black) (https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/SABERTOOTH_990FX/specifications/)
Is it enough for 950 PRO with PCIe adapter?

Or maybe I should go with m.2 to SATA adapter? I have 6 x SATA 6Gb/s ports, so 6Gb/s is enough for 950PRO. Also I don't find any threads about 950 PRO with SATA adapter (maybe PCIe is better?)

So in short: Should I get m.2 to PCIe adapter or m2. to SATA? Can I expect full speed of 950 PRO?

Thanks!

 

[Woomack]

SATA = ~550MB/s max. No point to buy it for 950 Pro.
PCIe will be probably also limited on your board ( or by this adapter ). PCIe 2.0 x4 in theory can handle 950 Pro but I'm not sure if you make it work at declared by samsung speed on this adapter. For ~$8 it's still worth to try.

On the other hand I don't know if better option wouldn't be standard SATA SSD at double capacity in similar price. I don't think you will see performance difference in general use ... or you are working on databases or you move many large files really often.

 

[smala]

SATA = ~550MB/s max. No point to buy it for 950 Pro.
PCIe will be probably also limited on your board ( or by this adapter ). PCIe 2.0 x4 in theory can handle 950 Pro but I'm not sure if you make it work at declared by samsung speed on this adapter. For ~$8 it's still worth to try.

Thank you! Just interesting why SATA III is declared 6Gb/s if it can handle ~550MB/s..

So I think I will try PCIe 2.0 x4 adapter. I think I will buy new PC in a few years so I'll better buy 950 Pro with PCI adapter than 850 PRO. I hope it will be faster than 850.

Thank you

 

[Woomack]

Bit isn't the same as byte. Maximum bandwidth is 6Gb(its)/s what is about as much as ~750MB(ytes)/s but because of bus/controller limits it's usually not much more than 550MB/s per port and in docs you will see it's about 600MB/s max. Theoretical bandwidth is never the same as max real bandwidth.

This is the reason why all faster M.2 drives are directly connected to PCIe bus ( which has higher bandwidth ) or with drive you have PCIe adapter.

 

[HankB]

SATA uses 10 bits/byte to encode data (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA) There is likely additional overhead. The theoretical maximum bandwidth is 600 MB/s (megabytes/second) That accommodates the encoding overhead but not the other overhead likely used to transport packets back and forth between PC and drive.

I too lust after SSDs faster than what SATA can support. I still recoil at the price premium.