Out of touch with SSDs and HDDs in general

Guest2

Guest2

Guest2

Soldato
Joined
6 May 2009
Posts
20,159
At the moment I have the following

C - Samsung EVO 850 SSD 120GB. OS
D - Samsung EVO 850 SSD 500GB. Games
E - Crucial M4 SSD 128GB. OS Clone backup
F - WD Mybook External 3TB.
G - Samsung EVO 850 SSD 250GB. Software & Docs
J - WD Black HDD 3TB. Media
Z - WD Black HDD 1TB. Media / Backup

Ideally I want to get rid of the HDDs and maybe upgrade the OS & Games SSD as it's been in a few years now. There are no problems with any of the drive

I noticed some new PCI-e drives like this.

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/sams...-3.0-x4-nvme-solid-state-drive-hd-23z-sa.html
970 EVO Plus 2TB M.2 2280 PCI-e 3.0 x4 NVMe Solid State Drive

How do they connect as i'm used to connecting with SATA and not even sure my motherboard will support them. It's a Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming 7 which says it has 'M.2 for SSDs drives with up to 10 Gb/s data transfer'
I've had a look and on the board I can see free PCIe 8, PCIe 3 and a SATA Express slot below the PCI where my soundcard is (Xonar Essense ST)
Next to the SATA ports there is an 'ATX4P' port. Is this the M2 connector?
There is also a PCIe 1x slot above the 16x slot where the GPU is, but this is blocked but the CPU heatsink and fan
Update, i've fouud where it shows 10 Gb/s M2 on the board but it doesnt look like the connector, just the chip - pics below

Is it even worth my getting one of these M2 drives?

I do like keeping my drives which tidy and seperate for different uses, OS, close, games, media etc.

PC
AmT0bjO.jpg

M2
MXAJPyD.jpg
 
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if u can replace all your drives for 1 m.2, you can remove the HDD caddy, get more airflow in there, gets rid of all cables as well

i got an M.2 drive from a SATA, much better :)



EDIT ..

Normally located between PCIe and CPU
 
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ShiWarrior said:
if u can replace all your drives for 1 m.2, you can remove the HDD caddy, get more airflow in there, gets rid of all cables as well

i got an M.2 drive from a SATA, much better :)



EDIT ..

Normally located between PCIe and CPU
Click to expand...
Great idea removing the hdd caddy.
Can you remove the top part, that’s still got a dvd drive in but its not connected and not used it for probably 8 years!
I’ve watched the video. Guess there’s no point installing multiple m2 drives, even if i can as the speed will be reduced.
This therefore means the hdd caddy is needed, unless the ssd’s can go somewhere else, like sit at the too where the dvd drive is
 
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The top Noctua fan is not connected and the two front intake fans are not either. I must have disconnected them years ago due to rattling or something. Been fine without
It looks like there is only one M2 slot, which is right under the heatsink and fan. I would need to remove the lot to seat a stick under it.
Worth getting a Samsung evo 970 2tb? - will it support the full speed. I reckon so as motherboard says it supports up to 10gb/s. Then i can do away with the hdds after moving some stuff to external drives
 
10gbs is only x2 pcie~3.0
Full speed far as I can remember needs 32gbs M2 support
So no you won't get full speed
Not to mention if you want to boot from M2 on older board you need to check
If it can
 
Joxeon said:
Have a look for the sabrent rocket, it's virtually the same speed as the Samsung drive for half the price and unless your doing heavy data transfers all you wouldn't notice a difference and you probably wouldn't even with a Sata drive.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QGdI2rNsWiE
Click to expand...
Thanks, will do.

Mcnumpty2323 said:
10gbs is only x2 pcie~3.0
Full speed far as I can remember needs 32gbs M2 support
So no you won't get full speed
Not to mention if you want to boot from M2 on older board you need to check
If it can
Click to expand...

Reading a lot of conflicting things about NVMe and SATA M.2. I’ve had a look in my bios and can’t see items relating to either.
The motherboard page refers to M2 but not ‘NVMe’

Does this mean NVMe is supported or not?

“GIGABYTE G1™ Gaming motherboards come equipped with an onboard M.2 slot, providing users PCI-Express connectivity for SSD devices. Delivering up to 10 Gb/s data transfer speeds, M.2 offers users considerably faster storage performance than current mSATA and even SATA Revision 3 (6Gb/s) storage devices.”

Edit
In bios, there is Boot mode selection UEFI and Legacy
XHCI mode is set on Smart Auto
SATA Express SRIS capabilities
Intel Smartconnect technology - ISCT support disabled/enabled
Marvell SATA controll configuration - GSATA controller in AHCI mode. This can be changed to disabed, IDE, RAID and AHCI

This forum post nailed it. https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/gigabyte-z97x-gaming-7-and-m-2-ssd.3058786/

Note the specifications for the drive recommended.
Interface: PCI-Express 3.0 x4

PCI-E 3.0 x4 32 Gb/s (4 GB/s)

Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming 7 is a 2014 model with PCI-E 2.0 x2 M.2 slot which can deliver up to 10 Gb/s data transfer speeds. This is a not a 32 Gb/s PCI-E 3.0 x4 M.2 slot which is found on newer model Intel motherboards (Z170/Z270).
Click to expand...

So now I know it supports on PCI-E 2.0 x2 M2, I need to find out if it supports booting from the M2 slot. Then if it's even worth finding an M2 PCI-E 2.0 x2 drive of many 2TB to run OS, Games and programs from
 
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Guest2 said:
So now I know it supports on PCI-E 2.0 x2 M2, I need to find out if it supports booting from the M2 slot. Then if it's even worth finding an M2 PCI-E 2.0 x2 drive of many 2TB to run OS, Games and programs from
Click to expand...

It can be set as a boot drive as my brother did this about a year ago on his z97 but it took him a while to figure out how though and was a bit of faff if I remember.
 
pugheaven said:
Over a week running my M2 (see sig) and it's amazing. Bear in mind I'm running an old X79 board, configured for a boot drive and it's astonishingly quick. If you check my thread out, it'll show you the speeds I'm not getting on the first page. Can't reccomend them enough, the days of RAID0 and normal SATA 6 are gone IMHO.

https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/asus-sabertooth-x79-and-nvme-pcie-gen4-m-2.18883919/
Click to expand...
Thanks, i read your thread. Wasn’t that using an ASRock Ultra Quad M.2 Card too?
The m2 on my board is PCIe 2.0 instead of 3.0 or 4.0
Edit, i don’t mind getting one of these expansion cards if its supported on my Z97X motherboard and if it fits. Especially if it offers 4 slots for m2 SSDs
 
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Guest2 said:
Thanks, i read your thread. Wasn’t that using an ASRock Ultra Quad M.2 Card too?
The m2 on my board is PCIe 2.0 instead of 3.0 or 4.0
Edit, i don’t mind getting one of these expansion cards if its supported on my Z97X motherboard and if it fits. Especially if it offers 4 slots for m2 SSDs
Click to expand...
Yeah mate, I bought the ASRock one, as a few people reported problems with getting 4 drives working with the ASUS quad box which is half the price, butI personally think they haven't set things up properly. I've got a 2nd Sabrent Rocket coming tomorrow which will be put into this ASUS as a second drive, so I'll report back to confirm that two will work which i fully expect. Yeah, if your PCIE is showing as Gen3 in your BIOS i.e. 3.0, then you'll get the full fat 3500/3500MB/S like I do...

The only thing I'd say is, that you need to split the x16 lanes (bifurcation) in the BIOS into the following depending how many drives you put into the holder i.e. if you want all 4 drives running you select 4x4x4x4. even though I've only got one in today, I still set to 4x4x4x4 ready for more cards. If you leave it as x16 and try and use more than one card, you won't see the other cards. Also, if you run one card and leave as 16x, you won't get any more speed, I've checked on mine hahaha.
 
As posted on someone elses thread, the M2 for my use case is pointless as don't look at benchmark and transfer files all day

Thanks all, I'll stick with standard SSDs for now, maybe replace a couple of them for a single larger sized SSD EVO 850

Edit. Guess it would at least be a good space saver and I could look for an M2 PCIe 2x (if they are cheaper) to stick a 2TB drive on for games and programs. Then keep my OS SSD as it is :)

 
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