Confused on the M.2 drives

[Bok]

I can't say I've really been keeping up with technology much.

In looking at the board that Z has in his post (C) it's this one - here (https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/Z10PED8_WS)

I was also looking at getting some M.2 drives as I'd be using this as a database server long term.

Honestly I thought the M.2 PCI drives just went into a PCI 3.0 slot (shows how far behind I am!!), but it appears they have dedicated slots.

I was looking at these - here (https://www.newegg.com/intel-660p-series-512gb/p/0D9-002V-003Y7) as I've had great experience with Intel SSD drives. But it appears there may even be faster ones I'm just not quite sure of compatibility
So, questions

1. This has two of those slots ?
2. Can I put 2 in the two slots at full speed ?
3. Can more be put in the PCI slots at a reduced speed ?
4. Or is there adaptor cards to run them off PCI slots.

I'm very confused :-??

[purplecfh]

I'm pretty sure those drives will work but looks like they will only go at pcie 2.0 speeds as that's the speeds of the m2 slot on that motherboard, also the board only has one m.2 slot.

You can always add more with one of these
https://www.newegg.com/syba-model-si-pex40110-m-2-pci-e-to-pci-e-3-0/p/N82E16815124167

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

[zombie67]

M.2 is the form factor. The important thing to look for is NVMe, which is PCIe. If it's not NVMe, then the M.2 drive is probably some slower technology like SATA. And yes, you want PCI 3.0. But I think 2.0 is still better than SATA. You can use a riser adapter card like the one purplecfh pointed to. There are also riser cards that will hold up to 4 of the NVMe sticks. If you go down that path, be sure to check the specs if you want to put them in RAID.

[scole of TSBT]

Will the system boot from M.2 PCIe? Any system or only ones with current chipsets?

[zombie67]

Depends on the OS. The install image of Win7 does not support it. You have to add a patch to the installer to make it work. Linux sees it just fine. So does win10.

[John P. Myers]

Intel SSDs are not very good. Your money is best spent elsewhere.

m.2 is a form factor that is wired to use up to 4 PCIe lanes. Yes, you can get adapter cards to put m.2 drives in a PCIe slot.

I have Z's motherboard as well but it only has 1 m.2 slot

[Bok]

Based on my experience of SSD drives - I've gone through a bunch of Samsung Evo's, WD and a few others and the Intel's have been flawless so far. In fact they've lasted 5x longer than any other. I did get them from a a friend at Intel.

Anyway, on that mobo, the spec sheet that I linked seems to indicate m.2 x 4 - why does it only support one ?

With a PCI 3.0 riser what would be the speed of the m.2 drives there ?

Basically I'm looking to see what is the fastest drives I could put in that. I need 3 or 4 SSD drives at the fastest speed possible, Right now, I don't absolutely need RAID as I flip between two and would just replace as needed if one failed, the 3rd one is for 'static' tables where RAID would be beneficial but speed is not essential.

Of course with 128Gb Ram I would also put most of the stats DB in memory anyway.

Hope this makes sense

[John P. Myers]

Anyway, on that mobo, the spec sheet that I linked seems to indicate m.2 x 4 - why does it only support one ?



Because there just aren't enough PCIe lanes available to support more. The fastest m.2 using PCIe 3.0 lanes would be around 3500MB/s, so if you find one that fast, that's as good as it gets.

[Bryan]

Based on my experience of SSD drives - I've gone through a bunch of Samsung Evo's, WD and a few others and the Intel's have been flawless so far. In fact they've lasted 5x longer than any other. I did get them from a a friend at Intel.

Hope this makes sense

My son-in-law is an engineer at a large company that makes chips. One of their product lines are controllers for LARGE storage arrays (racks of many SSDs). In order to stress test their chips they hammer the hell out of the SSDs. He has said that the Intel's longevity/reliability far exceeds any other brand. Intel is the only brand that his company will allow to be purchased for installation into internal computers. On their test racks they use all vendors.

[zombie67]

I think that board has only one physical slot. It should support more via PCIe adapter cards, in the PCIe slots.

[John P. Myers]

Based on my experience of SSD drives - I've gone through a bunch of Samsung Evo's, WD and a few others and the Intel's have been flawless so far.

If you're looking for endurance, EVOs, WD, etc. are not the way to go. They use TLC NAND which is cheaper, but the endurance tanks. You want Samsung PRO or any other m.2 drive that uses MLC NAND. Any drive that is considered enterprise class should also be MLC be default. SLC is the best you can get as far as endurance goes, but i'm not sure that is even made anymore because it was just too slow and took up quite a bit of physical space. If you come across a QLC drive in your searches, you'll want to avoid that as well. They have worse endurance than TLC, but will have an even more attractive price.