Question I'm new to M.2 NVMe SSDs - Is it possible to use an NVMe PCIe x4 in an PCIe x2( M2B_SOCKET) slot? What should I be mindful of ?

[Garen D]

My motherboard is the AMD B450 AORUS (Gen 3 PCIe) and it has 2 M.2 slots which I want to install NVMe M.2 SSDs into. My main concern is if the M.2 drive I'm planning on using (Crucial T500 or even the Crucial P3 Plus(Also looking at Samsung SSDs too)) would be able to fit inside of that x2 slot. As far as I am aware using a Gen 4 SSD in a Gen3 slot is okay and will just use Gen3 speeds so there is no need to worry about that unless you notice something I haven't.

A quick look at the motherboard tells me I probably wont be able to it fit one of the SSDs into it but I want to know for sure and what else I could possibly use that slot for in case I'm right. If there is something else you'd like to add or let me know of, feel free to comment.

 

[Lutfij]

Both M.2 SSD's listed above are 2280 form factor(22mm wide, 80mm long), as far as fitment is concerned, they will drop into the slots without any issues and bolt down on the standoff/peg at 80(marked in your manual);
https://download.gigabyte.com/FileL...0618_e.pdf?v=23c47da2a95e3f1eb09b95aee882487e
Page 4

The M2B_Socket will be crippled further due to it running at PCIe 3x2 speeds but if you plan to migrate the drives onto another, more concurrent platform, then you're good to pull the trigger.

Make sure you're on the latest BIOS update for your motherboard prior to dropping in those SSD's.

 

[Garen D]

Both M.2 SSD's listed above are 2280 form factor(22mm wide, 80mm long), as far as fitment is concerned, they will drop into the slots without any issues and bolt down on the standoff/peg at 80(marked in your manual);
https://download.gigabyte.com/FileL...0618_e.pdf?v=23c47da2a95e3f1eb09b95aee882487e
Page 4

The M2B_Socket will be crippled further due to it running at PCIe 3x2 speeds but if you plan to migrate the drives onto another, more concurrent platform, then you're good to pull the trigger.

Make sure you're on the latest BIOS update for your motherboard prior to dropping in those SSD's.

Will there be any issues with the SATA drives I have installed? I've read in some places that installing M.2 drives might disable some SATA drives because of chipset limitations if I recall correctly. I'm not planning on upgrading my entire system yet as AM4 is still great(at least for my uses) but being able to reuse some parts from my would be previous build would be nice.
Do you have any M.2 drive suggestions?

 

[Pimpom]

I looked up the manual for your motherboard. The charts on page 17 say that if you have an M.2 SSD in M2A (upper slot), ASATA ports3 0&1 (near the RAM sockets) will not be available. If you have an SSD in M2B (lower slot), SATA3 ports 2&3 will not be available.

In other words, installing an SSD in the upper M.2 slot will disable the two upper SATA ports.
Installing an SSD in the lower M.2 slot will disable 2 of the 4 SATA ports in the lower group.

ID the location of these ports by looking at page 12 & 16.

EDIT: Corrected potentially misleading typo. "power" in second-last sentence changed to "lower".