M.2 interface - have I got the wrong one?

chrismox · 5 Nov 2019 at 17:06

I have run out of free SATA ports in my server, so my plan was to add an M.2 drive and clone the OS onto it, thereby freeing up one of the SATA ports that's currently got a small drive just for Windows.

My motherboard (MSI Z170A SLI PLUS) says it supports the following:
1 x M.2 slot
- Supports PCIe 3.0 x4 standard, 4.2cm/ 6cm/ 8cm length M.2 SSD cards
- Supports PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe Mini-SAS SSD with Turbo U.2 Host Card

I bought a 120GB Kingston A400 M.2 SSD, link here - https://www.kingston.com/en/ssd/a400-solid-state-drive?partnum=SA400M8/120G

I assumed that it'd be suitable, yet it refuses to show up when installed.

Now, I think my blunder is that my motherboard supports PCIe M.2 drives and the Kingston I've bought says, "Interface: SATA Rev. 3.0 with backwards compatibility to SATA Rev. 2.0".

Is that why I'm not seeing the drive?

Excuse my ignorance, I've not used M.2 drives before and hadn't appreciated that there were different types.

b00merang69 · 5 Nov 2019 at 17:10

Check the slots here:

chrismox · 5 Nov 2019 at 17:17

So if the drive I bought looks like the picture on the left, is that to suggest it isn’t compatible with my mobo?

Space Monkey · 5 Nov 2019 at 17:37

chrismox said:
So if the drive I bought looks like the picture on the left, is that to suggest it isn’t compatible with my mobo?

So the drive physically fits into your board?

If so you'll need to open Disk Management Tool and initialize/format the drive before it shows up

chrismox · 5 Nov 2019 at 17:39

It doesn’t appear in disk management or BIOS.

Space Monkey · 5 Nov 2019 at 17:40

chrismox said:
It doesn’t appear in disk management or BIOS.

Got the latest bios?

chrismox · 5 Nov 2019 at 17:40

b00merang69 · 5 Nov 2019 at 17:57

If the one on the left it will be no faster than a 2.5" SATA HDD.

chrismox · 5 Nov 2019 at 17:57

I’ve uploaded pics here - https://imgur.com/a/NsRvrUj

Oddly, whilst you can see that the 2 connections are different, the drive fits into the slot fine.

chrismox · 5 Nov 2019 at 17:58

b00merang69 said:
If the one on the left it will be no faster than a 2.5" SATA HD.

Thanks. I’m not worried about speed, more that the bloody thing won’t show it’s face.

b00merang69 · 5 Nov 2019 at 18:00

There is also a "E" key on WIFI cards so may be what you see on your Mobo Socket

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/201...e-interface-that-will-speed-up-your-next-ssd/

b00merang69 · 5 Nov 2019 at 18:03

chrismox said:
Thanks. I’m not worried about speed, more that the bloody thing won’t show it’s face.

It is probably the reason it is not showing up by default because it need to be set to SATA or AHCI mode, if you bought a proper NVME M2 SSD it probably would work and would be far faster also.

chrismox · 5 Nov 2019 at 18:05

b00merang69 said:
It is probably the reason it is not showing up by default because it need to be set to SATA or AHCI mode, if you bought a proper NVME M2 SSD it probably would work and would be far faster also.

The mobo doesn’t appear to support M.2 cards in SATA mode, hence why I’m not seeing it (I think!)

b00merang69 · 5 Nov 2019 at 18:08

You would be better of doing it properly (I see no point in going M2 SATA or older Mini SATA) and getting the NVME they are cheaper and faster than msot 2.5" SSD for the higher capacities, there is one somewhere in a thread here that is a USA brand and highly recommended.

EDIT : Sabrent 1TB ROCKET NVMe PCIe M.2 2280

chrismox · 5 Nov 2019 at 18:10

Thanks. I hadn’t realised that there was an improper way to do it, which is why I bought the wrong one!

b00merang69 · 5 Nov 2019 at 18:14

M2 is very confusing and TBH I do not like it and like a thread here in this very forum I wish it had never took off as it was originally for Laptop type devices but as you know when a market stagnates (SATA no real products with SATA-E 12-16Gb/s) they add more marketing BS to sell things.

Look at current state of LCD tech with Gaming Monitors which and all the add on features that we did not need on CRT/Plasma to get goods picture and motion.

freddie64 · 8 Nov 2019 at 23:27

SATA5 and SATA6 ports will be unavailable when installing the M.2 module in M.2 slot.

Taken from your mobo manual.

Maybe best to stick with a normal SSD.

chrismox · 8 Nov 2019 at 23:31

Thanks. I hadn’t noticed that, but I had decided it was simpler to buy a larger (cheaper) SATA SSD and just partition it, so I’ve ended up avoiding M.2 and, from what you quote, it sounds like I’ve dodged a bullet!