M.2 SATA SSD in PCIe slot with adapter card on x58

cloud84 · 10 Apr 2017 at 15:33

Perhaps it is a stupid question but I'd rather be safe than sorry before buying anything. I have an EVGA XLI3 x58 board and I recently got a PCIe to M.2 adapter card. I know my platform will not boot NVMe and it is basically impossible to find AHCI PCIe SSDs at this point (or perhaps someone can point me to the right place), so the only choice I have is an M.2 SATA SSD so I can get rid of the drive cages completely in my case and let the front fans push air directly on the mobo.

The question is, would a SATA M.2 SSD work in a PCIe slot with the M.2 adapter? From what I understand, the answer is most likely no which means I am either force to find an AHCI drive somewhere or stick to the old school SATA SSDs.

Any thoughts?

HoneyBadger · 10 Apr 2017 at 21:38

What card did you buy?

cloud84 · 10 Apr 2017 at 22:29

HoneyBadger said:
What card did you buy?

it's just a brandless m.2 to pcie card i picked up from amazon. I know it works because i tested an SM951 nvme on my X79 system and it was recognised in windows but not in the bios.
The question is, can i use a standard sata m.2 ssd with it and get my pc to boot from it, or do i need to find an ahci drive?
There are no ahci drives to be found anymore so either there is a big gap in the market or sata drives will work just fine in a pcie slot with the adapter.

HoneyBadger · 11 Apr 2017 at 08:06

I'd be very surprised if it did work to be honest.

cloud84 · 11 Apr 2017 at 20:55

HoneyBadger said:
I'd be very surprised if it did work to be honest.

Yea me too, I just wanted to have a definitive answer from someone who has tried or knows better because AHCI SSDs don't seem to exist anymore after the EOL of SM951 and 950 Pro.