Want SSD in (hopefully) near future...questions

[Chum]

My board has an Ultra M.2 slot and was hoping to use the Samsung 1TB drive. I know it will fit on the board. It is not listed on the support list, though. I also have questions about PCI-e "lanes" for my Asrock board shown in my sig.

link to support list below
http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z97%20Extreme6/?cat=Storage

Of course any help greatly appreciated!

 

[Mjolnir]

My understanding is that there's something in the Z97 chipset that doesn't allow for m.2 pcie based drives as boot drives? Are you using it for a storage drive? (What drive exactly sorry?)

 

[Chum]

My understanding is that there's something in the Z97 chipset that doesn't allow for m.2 pcie based drives as boot drives? Are you using it for a storage drive? (What drive exactly sorry?)

I was hoping to use it as "boot" to replace my 1 TB WD drive...no need to be sorry I should have stated this

 

[Chum]

was looking at this SSD

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA2W04PJ5809&cm_re=M.2_ssd-_-20-147-567-_-Product

 

[Mjolnir]

You should be able to use that one. It's a Sata based M.2 drive, not NVME, so it should be fine as a boot drive. As it's sata based, you won't see any issues in performance that you may have seen with the NVME based drives as (as far as I know) Z97 runs them at a slower speed than Z170/X99.

 

[Chum]

Great...Thanks...still have a lot of more research to do. Like how to clone my HDD to it and PCI- e lane thing...I have video card in the top slot and a Creative sound card which occupies the bottom slot...but there is plenty of time for it, as it may be several months before I can purchase.

 

[LutaWicasa]

Let's clear up a couple things.
This board does indeed support bootable NVME.
It will run degraded if seated in the m2_2 slot due to that being PCIE 2...if in the m2_1 slot (Ultra M.2) it will run full speed as this is a PCIE 3 slot.
I would suggest however that the board's bios be updated to the most recent as this adds some additional NVME support

 

[Mjolnir]

Let's clear up a couple things.
This board does indeed support bootable NVME.
It will run degraded if seated in the m2_2 slot due to that being PCIE 2...if in the m2_1 slot (Ultra M.2) it will run full speed as this is a PCIE 3 slot.
I would suggest however that the board's bios be updated to the most recent as this adds some additional NVME support

Hmm, perhaps my understanding is wrong, but I remember we had issues at our old workshop running NVME as a boot drive on Z97 boards? Maybe that was early days.. It would never recognise it as a boot drive, only a storage drive .

 

[LutaWicasa]

Yep...numerous folks at the Asrock fora runnin' Sammie 950 Pro and others as OS drives.

 

[Mjolnir]

Yep...numerous folks at the Asrock fora runnin' Sammie 950 Pro and others as OS drives.

Good to know! My bad! Thanks for the correction .

 

[Chum]

Let's clear up a couple things.
This board does indeed support bootable NVME.
It will run degraded if seated in the m2_2 slot due to that being PCIE 2...if in the m2_1 slot (Ultra M.2) it will run full speed as this is a PCIE 3 slot.
I would suggest however that the board's bios be updated to the most recent as this adds some additional NVME support

Thank you for the update...

- - - Updated - - -

Good to know! My bad! Thanks for the correction .

Your responses still greatly appreciated...nothing wrong with erring on the side of caution!

 

[LutaWicasa]

nothing wrong with erring on the side of caution!

If ya gotta err (and we all do)...that's the way to do it

 

[Chum]

(if i read this right, I CAN use the Ultra M2 slot with negligable performance loss of my GTX 980 GPU)

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8045/asrock-z97-extreme6-review-ultra-m2-x4-tested-with-xp941/11

 

[EarthDog]

The M.2 PCIe lanes do NOT come from the PCIe lanes of your GPU, they come from the PCH on Z97 still.

https://regmedia.co.uk/2014/05/21/intel_9_series_chipset_z97_overview.jpg

 

[LutaWicasa]

But...since it's not an NVME drive, why not use the m2_2 slot?

If M2_1 slot is occupied, PCIE2 slot will run at x8 mode, and PCIE4 slot will run at x4 mode.

 

[Chum]

The M.2 PCIe lanes do NOT come from the PCIe lanes of your GPU, they come from the PCH on Z97 still.

https://regmedia.co.uk/2014/05/21/intel_9_series_chipset_z97_overview.jpg

please...what is PCH?...don't know all of the abbreviations lol

- - - Updated - - -

But...since it's not an NVME drive, why not use the m2_2 slot?


[/FONT]

Remember...this may be months away before I purchase...so may consider NVME drive...prices keep dropping hopefully

 

[LutaWicasa]

Platform Controller Hub

 

[Chum]

To sum it all up, apparently I can use either slot and still be able put the OS on the SSD with the latest BIOS for my board...right?

 

[LutaWicasa]

Yes.
And, as an added bonus....whether ED is right or the manufacturer (Asrock) is right, you can run an NVME as OS drive with negligible to nil vid impact

 

[Chum]

WOOT! LutaWicasa...thanks for being "nice" to an obvious Cardinal Fan...