Lightning Gen M.2

[Mr Dan Dan]

I bought a M.2 when I purchased my MSI MPG X570 GAMING EDGE WI-FI motherboard but put it in the Lightning Gen M.2 slot instead of the normal one and it didn't work. I swapped it to the other slot and it works fine but my question is, where do I find a specific M.2 Lightning Gen drive as I'm ready to buy one for this slot as well.

 

[lord filbuster]

I bought a M.2 when I purchased my MSI MPG X570 GAMING EDGE WI-FI motherboard but put it in the Lightning Gen M.2 slot instead of the normal one and it didn't work. I swapped it to the other slot and it works fine but my question is, where do I find a specific M.2 Lightning Gen drive as I'm ready to buy one for this slot as well.

I have the same board, I'm fairly certain the only differences between the slots is that the "lightning" one under the heatsink supports pcie 4.0, if you have a 3rd gen ryzen cpu installed, and I think it also supports 22110 form factor drives, which are a bit longer, and won't fit in the other slot. Not that relevant really, as 22110 are relatively rare, I think pretty much all the ones OCUK sell are 2280 and will fit in either slot.

What drive did you buy that doesn't work in the lightning slot?

 

[Mr Dan Dan]

I have the same board, I'm fairly certain the only differences between the slots is that the "lightning" one under the heatsink supports pcie 4.0, if you have a 3rd gen ryzen cpu installed, and I think it also supports 22110 form factor drives, which are a bit longer, and won't fit in the other slot. Not that relevant really, as 22110 are relatively rare, I think pretty much all the ones OCUK sell are 2280 and will fit in either slot.

What drive did you buy that doesn't work in the lightning slot?

WD Blue 3D NAND 1TB M.2 SATA 2280 SSD is the one I bought which is working fine

 

[lord filbuster]

WD Blue 3D NAND 1TB M.2 SATA 2280 SSD is the one I bought which is working fine

Ah ok, I think that's because it's a SATA m2 drive. NVME is the newer and faster PCIE interface, it still uses the m2 connector, but the pins are slightly different. I think the connectors are sort of compatible, and sata m2 drives will usually fit into nvme m2 slots on the board, but the board also has to support sata drives in that slot, if that makes sense?

I've just googled it, and it turns out this motherboard only supports SATA drives in the second slot, you have to use nvme drives in the slot under the heatsink.

This is the drive I'm using, and it works fine in the lightning slot. I think you can get up to 2tb ones of this.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/wd-b...-solid-state-drive-wds500g2b0c-hd-56k-wd.html

Lightning is just MSI's marketing name, you want an NVMe drive, any of the ones OCUK sell i nthis section should work.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/pc-components/storage/ssd-solid-state/pci-express

The one I have is one of the cheaper ones, but it's already so fast I'm not sure I'd notice the difference compared to the more expensive ones, the nvme ones really are a massive leap in speeds compared even to a sata ssd.

 

[Dannyblueeyes]

Thanks man, that's really helpful