Question adding nvme to a multiple hhd's system

daggs1

Senior member
Mar 9, 2018
215
8
81
Greetings,

I have a ASUS B550 plus wifi board with 6 hdds connected via sata and one nvidia gpu connected to the main pcie slot.
I need to add another hdd, NVMe m2 one, the board has two of them.
I'm wondering if I add one, will it affect the sata ports or the gpu? at the end, I want to have the gpu working well and 7 hdds (6 sata + pne NVMe) working without an issue,
should I expect any issues?

Thanks
 

Seba

Golden Member
Sep 17, 2000
1,564
223
106
If you use a M.2 to PCIe adapter in the second PCIe 3.0 x16 slot (which is running in x4 mode), that should work (without disabling any SATA ports). This can be a cheaper NVME M.2 to PCIe x4 adapter (the one from your link is relatively expensive and unnecessarily long).

But if you also use any of the PCIe 3.0 x1 slots, then the second PCIe 3.0 x16 slot will run in x1 mode.


Since you are fine with SATA III speeds (for storage, I presume), there is another option for a massive increase of storage capacity : you can use NVME M.2 to PCIe x1 adapters in all PCIe 3.0 slots (the second x16 and all x1). All those 4 slots will run in x1 mode. The M.2 NVME drives transfer speed will be limited, but still above SATA III level.
 
Last edited:

daggs1

Senior member
Mar 9, 2018
215
8
81
If you use a M.2 to PCIe adapter in the second PCIe 3.0 x16 slot (which is running in x4 mode), that should work (without disabling any SATA ports). This can be a cheaper NVME M.2 to PCIe x4 adapter (the one from your link is relatively expensive and unnecessarily long).
can you point me to one please?
But if you also use any of the PCIe 3.0 x1 slots, then the second PCIe 3.0 x16 slot will run in x1 mode.
I have only one slot in use of the gpu
Since you are fine with SATA III speeds (for storage, I presume), there is another option for a massive increase of storage capacity : you can use NVME M.2 to PCIe x1 adapters in all PCIe 3.0 slots (the second x16 and all x1). All those 4 slots will run in x1 mode. The M.2 NVME drives transfer speed will be limited, but still above SATA III level.
I have 5 sata 3 hdds in a sw raid 5, the main os runs there.
getting 4-5 m2 to pcie requires buying 4-5 MVMes, I'm looking to add one for the windows vm.
another possibility is to buy pci to sata of 2 ports and attach two hdds there while using the O/B M2.
but I'm not sure it is cheaper/better
 

daggs1

Senior member
Mar 9, 2018
215
8
81
the fast SSD can reduce loading times and improve system responsiveness, while a slow HDD can add minutes of wait time to every gaming session, A little extra latency, and if you got a PCIe 5.0 drive would be lower bandwidth too, but generally not enough to care . If you're trying to do large transfers on more than two chip-set attached SSD simultaneously you could be bottlenecked by the CPU-chipset link too, which on that board is effectively PCIe 4 x8.
just to be clear, I'm satisfied with the performance I get from my sw raid5.
I need the NVMe for the windows vm because for some reason, qemu's sata passthrough is horrendous.

I got some x4 and x1 adapters from Aliexpress.
I see, thanks for the tip
 

Steltek

Diamond Member
Mar 29, 2001
3,275
1,025
136
You can also get a direct m.2 slot to SATA adapter as well. It is basically a m.2 card with SATA6 ports mounted on it.

 

Steltek

Diamond Member
Mar 29, 2001
3,275
1,025
136
Does it need special drivers or is it just detected as another AHCI controller?

I installed one for someone a couple weeks ago, and it was just detected natively detected by Windows as additional SATA ports. I think I said SATA6 above by error, but meant SATA3 (sorry about that).

The packaging that came with it said it supported Windows, Windows server, and a few flavors of Linux (Red Hat Linux/Ubuntu/Suse/CentOS), though I didn't have the opportunity to try it on the latter two. I also had someone tell me that the same device I installed was also detected straight up by Proxmox as well.

One thing about them is, as you would expect, they are delicate - you wouldn't want to be plugging and unplugging drives from them without totally removing the adapter. And, though it has 6 ports, due to the x4 bandwidth limitations you probably aren't going to see full bandwidth if you use more than 4 of the 6 ports.

These type adapters are going to be a coming thing now given that motherboard manufacturers are going absolutely overboard with adding m.2 slots at the expense of PCIe slots due to limited CPU/chipset PCIe lanes preventing use of both. Most m.2 slots are simply using the equivalent of the lanes of an x4 PCIe slot without the electrical power delivery of a PCIe slot. I've seen others you can use to add 10gbe networking, as well as PCIe risers to m.2 adapters (up to x16 cards in x4 mode). The last you have to be careful of, obviously, due to the lack of normal PCIe slot power which will definitely limit the cards you can install in it without additional power support.

If you haven't seen it, there is a very informative channel on Youtube called Nascompares and associated website at www.nascompares.com. A couple months or so ago they did a video titled "5 great uses for your M.2 slot" which was very interesting. I've linked it below if you are interested.


(He hates seagulls, by the way. It is an ongoing issue he has in his videos...)
 
Last edited:

daggs1

Senior member
Mar 9, 2018
215
8
81
looks like getting a pcie to sata of 4 ports is the same like getting a m2 to pcie cost wise.
so what is better performance wise, pcie to sata with 2 sata hdds connected to it and the NVMe in the mb's m2 socket or
all 6 sata devs in the mb's sata ports and the NVMe is inside the m2 to pcie adapter?
make NVMe on one m2 mb socket and one m2 to sata on the second m2 socket on the mb and sata ports 5 and 6 connected to it?
 
sale-70-410-exam    | Exam-200-125-pdf    | we-sale-70-410-exam    | hot-sale-70-410-exam    | Latest-exam-700-603-Dumps    | Dumps-98-363-exams-date    | Certs-200-125-date    | Dumps-300-075-exams-date    | hot-sale-book-C8010-726-book    | Hot-Sale-200-310-Exam    | Exam-Description-200-310-dumps?    | hot-sale-book-200-125-book    | Latest-Updated-300-209-Exam    | Dumps-210-260-exams-date    | Download-200-125-Exam-PDF    | Exam-Description-300-101-dumps    | Certs-300-101-date    | Hot-Sale-300-075-Exam    | Latest-exam-200-125-Dumps    | Exam-Description-200-125-dumps    | Latest-Updated-300-075-Exam    | hot-sale-book-210-260-book    | Dumps-200-901-exams-date    | Certs-200-901-date    | Latest-exam-1Z0-062-Dumps    | Hot-Sale-1Z0-062-Exam    | Certs-CSSLP-date    | 100%-Pass-70-383-Exams    | Latest-JN0-360-real-exam-questions    | 100%-Pass-4A0-100-Real-Exam-Questions    | Dumps-300-135-exams-date    | Passed-200-105-Tech-Exams    | Latest-Updated-200-310-Exam    | Download-300-070-Exam-PDF    | Hot-Sale-JN0-360-Exam    | 100%-Pass-JN0-360-Exams    | 100%-Pass-JN0-360-Real-Exam-Questions    | Dumps-JN0-360-exams-date    | Exam-Description-1Z0-876-dumps    | Latest-exam-1Z0-876-Dumps    | Dumps-HPE0-Y53-exams-date    | 2017-Latest-HPE0-Y53-Exam    | 100%-Pass-HPE0-Y53-Real-Exam-Questions    | Pass-4A0-100-Exam    | Latest-4A0-100-Questions    | Dumps-98-365-exams-date    | 2017-Latest-98-365-Exam    | 100%-Pass-VCS-254-Exams    | 2017-Latest-VCS-273-Exam    | Dumps-200-355-exams-date    | 2017-Latest-300-320-Exam    | Pass-300-101-Exam    | 100%-Pass-300-115-Exams    |
http://www.portvapes.co.uk/    | http://www.portvapes.co.uk/    |