USB adapter for PCIe SSD?

itm

itm

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I've been given a PCI Express SSD to recover some data from, but my motherboard doesn't have a slot for it. Are USB adapters available which will allow one of these to be connected via a USB 3/3 socket?
 
I haven't seen a USB adapter for M.2 NVMe SSDs but there are plenty of PCI-Express adapters you can mount the NVMe SSDs too . . . Do you have a spare PCI-E x1 slot in your machine?
 
I haven't seen a USB adapter for M.2 NVMe SSDs but there are plenty of PCI-Express adapters you can mount the NVMe SSDs too . . . Do you have a spare PCI-E x1 slot in your machine?

I have a spare slot labelled "PCIEX16_1". Is that what you mean?
 
You can’t get USB adapters for PCIE based m.2 drives, only SATA3 based m.2 drives.

As mentioned above you can buy a PCIE m.2 card, but these will need a x2 or x4 slot on the motherboard to work. It may work on a x1 slot but you’d have to try it and see. And if it did it would be very slow, at least in comparison to x4.
 
Speed wouldn't be an issue as I just want to recover photos from the drive before disconnecting it again. The drive model number is M2-FLV5120, which I believe is a PCIe drive (?). The motherboard is an Asus P8Z68-VLX. Any ideas for a simple way of hooking this up temporarily?
 
A quick google search seems to suggest it is a PCIE drive.

You have two options:

1) buy something like a Asus Hyper m.2 card and try it, it may or may not work.
2) See if you’ve a friend with board that has an m.2 slot or buy a board that does...
 
itm,

pick up an M.2 PCI-E Adapter and install your NVMe SSD to that and then install the PCI-e card in a spare PCI-E slot in your machine. If you using Windows10 then it should be plug and play but if your using an different O/S like Win7 you will need to install a driver. If you search there are plenty of M.2 PCI-E Adapter for several quids.
 
itm,

pick up an M.2 PCI-E Adapter and install your NVMe SSD to that and then install the PCI-e card in a spare PCI-E slot in your machine. If you using Windows10 then it should be plug and play but if your using an different O/S like Win7 you will need to install a driver. If you search there are plenty of M.2 PCI-E Adapter for several quids.

Most of the M.2 PCI-E adapters that I've found so far have a different connector to the one on my motherboard (presumably they're X4, whereas the slot on my motherboard is X1?). I also haven't found one which has the correct PCI-E fitting and explicitly supports NVME - the descriptions mention NGFF but not NVME. I have no idea whether that would be a dealbreaker.

For example, this one looks like it might do the job, but it doesn't mention NVME. It also says that a PCIe 3.0 motherboard is required (I'm not sure whether my Asus P8Z68-VLX is a "PCIe 3.0 motherboard"):
** No Competitors **
 
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Yeah a M.2 PCI-E NVMe Adapter will fit in most PCI-E slots, the PCI-E standard allows any previous generation to fit into the current generation slot. I picked up my card at auction for cheap.
 
Yeah a M.2 PCI-E NVMe Adapter will fit in most PCI-E slots, the PCI-E standard allows any previous generation to fit into the current generation slot. I picked up my card at auction for cheap.
Most of the M.2 PCI-E NVMe Adapters that I've found have a different physical connector to the one on my motherboard - the longer of the two lugs on the connector is closest to the backplate in my slot, whereas most of the adapters that I've found so far have the shorter lug closest to the backplate. The Sintech adapter in the link above looks like it has the right PCI-E connector for my board, but doesn't mention anywhere that it's for NVME drives.
???
 
Look at this adapter and pick up a cheaper version that looks the same.
The connector on that isn't the same as the one on my motherboard - the longer of the two lugs on the connector is closest to the backplate in my slot, whereas on this one the shorter lug is closest to the backplate.
 
Yeah, because it’s a x1 slot and not a x4 slot as you correctly identified earlier.

FYI: NGFF means Next Generation Form Factor.

If your board and CPU has built in graphics, you could temporarily remove your graphics card, enable on board and buy a x4 slot card and plug that in. Bit of a faff though.

Edit: https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/P8Z68V_LX/specifications/

Your board has no PCIE 3.0 slots, it should work on PCIE 2.0 but your getting into unknown territory.
 
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itm,

You have a spare black slot labelled PCIEX16_1 on your board, if you install the M.2 PCI-E NVMe Adapter into that you can get on with your data recovery. Even though it may not be obvious a PCI-e x4 card will fit just fine in a physical PCI-e x16 slot. For what you are doing it doesn't matter that this slot is only PCI-E 2.0 standard instead of PCI-e 3.0 standard as all that will do is reduce the maximum speeds down from approx 3000MB/s to about 800MB/s which is still faster than a regular 2.5" SATA III SSD.
 
I think I was mistaken - the spare slot on the board is blue, and only 2-3cm long. I have a suspicion that the "PCIEX16_1" text on the board may refer to the slot below it, which is much longer and is currently occupied by the video card. I guess I could, as HoneyBadger suggests, enable the onboard graphics and temporarily remove the graphics card for this purpose. Not ideal, but it could be the only option that I have.
 
Well, according to the official ASUS specs that board has two PCI-e x16 slots, two PCI-e x1 slots and three regular PCI slots. I assume your graphics card is in the first PCI-e x16 slot so you should have a second PCI-e x16 slot below this . . . is there currently another PCI-e device plugged into your second PCI-e x16 slot or are you saying your Asus P8Z68-VLX doesn't have a second PCI-E x16 slot?
 
Well, according to the official ASUS specs that board has two PCI-e x16 slots, two PCI-e x1 slots and three regular PCI slots. I assume your graphics card is in the first PCI-e x16 slot so you should have a second PCI-e x16 slot below this . . . is there currently another PCI-e device plugged into your second PCI-e x16 slot or are you saying your Asus P8Z68-VLX doesn't have a second PCI-E x16 slot?

You're right - there's another (unused) and unmarked slot lower down which must be it. I guess something like this work work in that slot:
https://www.**********/products/lyc...ie-30-x4-22x80-22x60-22x42mm-for-pc-mac-linux
??

(it's a reference to the scan site)
 
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