MB only seeing one of my 2 m.2 drives

fastboy · 26 Jun 2018 at 21:06

ok I'm having a bit of a problem

I have been running 3 normal ssd's but decided today to swap them out for a couple of m.2 sata drives so I got a crucial mx500 500gb and a western digital 250gb

the problem is my mb has 2 m.2 slots but it only shows 1 of the drives up,its like only the top slot ( the m.2-1 slot) is picking any of the drives up,if I put my mx500 in that slot it lights up blue and works fine,if I put it in the lower m.2-2 slot it lights up red and doesn't get picked up.

any ideas?

MB is asrock matx pro 4

ANDARIAL · 27 Jun 2018 at 07:51

Sometimes you have to sacrifice use of a sata port to get m.2 working
Have you checked the manual?

M2_2 and SATA3_
3
share lanes. If either one of them is in use,
the other one will be disabled.

Taken from their site (Not 100% sure it is your model though)

fastboy · 27 Jun 2018 at 08:07

yes the m.2 sata drive only works in one of the m.2 slots,the top one even if I have no other drives attached.
having checked on the asrock website from what I can gather you can only run 1 m.2 sata drive,the other has to be pci-e

a big fat DOH !!

* * If M2_1 is occupied by a SATA-type M.2 device, SATA3_0 will be disabled.
• 1 x Ultra M.2 Socket (M2_1), supports M Key type 2230/2242/2260/2280 M.2 SATA3 6.0 Gb/s module and M.2 PCI Express module up to Gen3 x4 (32 Gb/s)**
• 1 x Ultra M.2 Socket (M2_2), supports M Key type 2230/2242/2260/2280 M.2 PCI Express module up to Gen3 x4 (32 Gb/s)**

ANDARIAL · 27 Jun 2018 at 08:10

Maybe you can use a pci-x adapter card?
Although you might reduce speed of other slots/gfx cards if you do
EDIT
Having a re read o the manual seems to indicate that it will only run M.2 if no sata drive is in sata port 3.3
you got any sata drives in that port? or perhaps you need to disable that port in Bios or enable the M.2 port?

fastboy · 27 Jun 2018 at 08:28

hi
I have nothing plugged into any sata ports on the mb

yes it auto disables the 3-0 sata port if the m.2 sata-1 slot is used.

quoted from the asrock website:

6 SATA3, 2 Ultra M.2 (One supports PCIe Gen3 x4 & SATA3, the other one supports PCIe Gen3 x4 only)

so looks like I will have to get rid of one of my m.2 sata drives and get a pcie m.2 instead