I have an ASRock B550M Pro4 Micro-ATX which can take two M.2, but I also have one of the Asus Hyper M.2 x16 v2 expansion cards which can take up to x4 drives. I'm unclear how many drives I can actually utilise on this motherboard, and at what speeds? I know I'm limited, but I'm not sure to what extent? I don't have a CPU for this board yet, so I don't know if that makes any difference. I will be using an RX 580 8GB, but gaming isn't of much concern, as it's just a work system 90% of the time.
How many M.2 can I use on ASRock B550M
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Soldato
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According to the OCUK page, M2_1 is fully hyper speed (PCIE3/4, Gen3) so 32GB/ps = 32%8 = upto 4000mb read/write if the NVMe supports it. Gen4, 64GB/ps so upto 8000mb read/write if the drive supports it so upto 4000mbps if using a gen 3.0 drive, double if gen 4.0.
M2_2 is half that, so 16GB/ps = upto 2000mb read/write if the NVMe supports it, gen 3.0 only.
The Asus card can only be plugged in the primary or secondary x16 slot, so the smaller slot would not be used.
2 x PCI Express x16 Slots
1) Primary, is Gen4x16 mode so would utilise full speed NVMe PCIE 4.0 speeds, so 64GB/ps so upto 8000mb read/write, however the Asus RAID card supports up to PCIE3.0, not 4.0 so would only support upto 4x4 Gen3, so 16000mp/ps but the slot, despite gen 4 would only support half that, so the 8000mb/ps read/write, RAIDED.
2) Secondary, is PCIE3: Gen3 x4 so max would be 4000mb/ps, so the raid would work but be bottlenecked.
This all assumes the CPU/Chipset supported all the lanes required.
M2_2 is half that, so 16GB/ps = upto 2000mb read/write if the NVMe supports it, gen 3.0 only.
The Asus card can only be plugged in the primary or secondary x16 slot, so the smaller slot would not be used.
2 x PCI Express x16 Slots
1) Primary, is Gen4x16 mode so would utilise full speed NVMe PCIE 4.0 speeds, so 64GB/ps so upto 8000mb read/write, however the Asus RAID card supports up to PCIE3.0, not 4.0 so would only support upto 4x4 Gen3, so 16000mp/ps but the slot, despite gen 4 would only support half that, so the 8000mb/ps read/write, RAIDED.
2) Secondary, is PCIE3: Gen3 x4 so max would be 4000mb/ps, so the raid would work but be bottlenecked.
This all assumes the CPU/Chipset supported all the lanes required.
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