can I install an m2 SSD with 5x hard drives?

ShiWarrior · 14 Aug 2017 at 21:56

I am currently looking at my manual, but I dont quite understand in storage part

I have a MSI Z170A Gaming Pro and I am considering buying an m2 SSD (assuming its faster than a normal SSD?)

and i want to know if it will work along side 1x SSD and 4x HDDs

(6 drives altogether)

thanks

mistersprinkles · 14 Aug 2017 at 22:34

Why wouldn't it?

andicole0 · 14 Aug 2017 at 22:56

According the manual that mobo will disable sata ports 5-6 if an M.2 drive is installed and it only supports a 'PCIe' M.2 drive. So that will limit you to 5 drives in total.
You might want to check for bios updates.
Andi.

ShiWarrior · 15 Aug 2017 at 08:42

Thank you Andi, much better response

HoneyBadger · 15 Aug 2017 at 08:46

mistersprinkles said:
Why wouldn't it?

Most motherboard share m.2 lanes with SATA lanes, so if you consume 1 it'll disable parts of the other, as Andi has said.

Smffy · 15 Aug 2017 at 10:05

HoneyBadger said:
Most motherboard share m.2 lanes with SATA lanes, so if you consume 1 it'll disable parts of the other, as Andi has said.

I think actually some it depends on the settings chosen, recall something in my old Asus board only disabling when set to Sata Express which is not required so have a check of that. If you really want all of them then consider getting the hyperkit for about £15 and mount the M2 in that to take from the PCI lanes.

HoneyBadger · 15 Aug 2017 at 13:16

Possibly but on my Z270 board, it has 3 PCIEx4/SATA3 slots, if all are in use then certain normal SATA ports are disabled (and vice versa), this has been the case for all my systems for the past 2 years as that's as long as I've M.2 capability!

ShiWarrior · 15 Aug 2017 at 14:32

thanks guys

ill have to read up a bit more, but am i right in saying that the m.2 SSD slot has its own slot, but takes some of the PCIE bandwidth ?

demonix · 15 Aug 2017 at 16:24

ShiWarrior said:
thanks guys

ill have to read up a bit more, but am i right in saying that the m.2 SSD slot has its own slot, but takes some of the PCIE bandwidth ?

It depends on the m.2 SSD as SATA m.2 SSDs will take away one or more (according to the specs on the MSI website SATA ports 5 and 6 will be disabled) standard SATA ports while an NVMe m.2 SSD will either share bandwidth with a specific PCIe slot or have its own dedicated PCIe bandwidth and there's nothing in the specifications that states that there's any PCIe bandwidth sharing with the m.2 slot with a PCIe/NVMe SSD.