NVMe M.2 SSD on an Z87 Motherboard

[JW1993]

I've bought a bundle on the MM as a stop-gap until I work out exactly what spec PC I need: https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/t...gb-ram-z87-mobo-960-m-2-and-coolers.18799493/.

For those that don't have MM access the board is a Gigabyte Z87 G1 Sniper and the SSD is a Samsung 256GB 960 Evo M.2. The motherboard doesn't have an M.2 slot so is there anyway to get this working as a boot drive on this motherboard, perhaps using something like this: https://www.overclockers.co.uk/asus-hyper-m.2-x4-pci-e-mini-adapter-card-black-pcb-hd-032-as.html or https://www.overclockers.co.uk/aqua...d-m-key-with-passive-heatsink-cc-000-aq.html? I've been out of the game a while so not 100% sure on how these drives work.

 

[HoneyBadger]

Realistically no one will be able to say for sure. You will have to try it and see.

 

[JW1993]

Realistically no one will be able to say for sure. You will have to try it and see.

Alright, thanks!

 

[Big.Wayne]

JW1993,

I was quite curious to know the answer to this question as the Z87 chipset is still pretty damn good considering it's over four years old. I was aware that one could use an add-in PCI-E x4 adapter and access the NVMe drive fine as a data drive but apparently the Z87 BIOS didn't give the option to make the NVMe SSD the boot drive. I did a little digging around and from what I quickly gleaned in 5 minutes it appears all that is required to make the Z87 chipset able to boot from a PCI-E NVMe SSD is a BIOS update? . . . however because the chipset is several years old most of the big players like ASUS and Gigabyte maybe didn't feel it was in their best interests to inject new life into a product they sold in 2013. The tech community have taken matters into their own hands and there are a few custom BIOS's floating around that seem to solve the problem . . . only for the hardcore of course!

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