ASRock Z170 Gaming ITX + 2280 M2

[DokuroMitsukai]

I'm planning on purchasing ASRock's new Z170 mini-ITX Gaming motherboard and I have a question concerning it's M2 port. This is the only Z170 ITX board that can host a 2280 M2 drive but it seems to have certain restrictions:

"If M2_1 is occupied by a SATA-type M.2 device, SATA3_0, SATA3_1 and the SATA function of SATA_EXP0 will be disabled.
Support to be announced

**Supports NVMe SSD as boot disks**"

I was planning to pair this board with a Samsung SM951 M.2 drive (the NVMe version) I've read that this drive also "populates up to 4 PCI lanes".

I'm still kinda new when it comes to these things, I'm not exactly computer illiterate... but I've never had to deal with such restrictive limitations or these types of drives before.

Here are my worries:

- That I wont be able to use my ALL SATA ports (if SATA3_2 and SATA3_3 are still available I'm ok with that)
- How this drive will affect a pcie 3.0 x16 video card

Any info or pointers you guys could give me would be greatly appreciated... I just don't want buy something I can't use D:

 

[WyomingKnott]

It's a fairly common restriction for m.2 ports. Since the m.2 port eats up four lanes, and very few people use the m.2 slot, they dual-purpose these lanes. So these lanes can either provision the m.2 slot or provision those SATA ports. You can't use both at the same time because they would try to use the same lanes - there's a switch somewhere controlling which ports those lanes are actually connected to.

Does that make any sense? If so, I'll try again.

 

[DokuroMitsukai]

It definitely makes sense... but will it eat up ALL the SATA ports on this board? or just the ones that ASRock stated (SATA3_0 and SATA3_1)? Not being able to use a PCIe 3.0 x16 video card also worries me x.x

Basically, I'm confused between the drive using PCIe lanes AND SATA lanes at the same time...

 

[WyomingKnott]

Just the ones that ASRock documented.

It's not PCIe lanes AND SATA lanes. Simplest way to think of it: Each SATA port is provisioned by a single PCIe lane. The SATA port is an interface to the other world. The PCIe lane is a communications channel.

 

[Laapsaap]

There is a problem that not many people are aware of, overheating of the m2 drives. Here's a good link talking about the Samsung 951 and overheating issues how it throttle downs from 1500mb/sec to 70mb/sec after 130 seconds. Heat went from 35c to 92c.

http://www.legitreviews.com/samsung-sm951-512gb-m-2-pcie-ssd-review_161689/3

So putting a m2 drive under the board is perhaps not the smartest thing to do unless your case has a cutout in the motherboard plate for more airflow.

 

[Mike_93]

There is a problem that not many people are aware of, overheating of the m2 drives. Here's a good link talking about the Samsung 951 and overheating issues how it throttle downs from 1500mb/sec to 70mb/sec after 130 seconds. Heat went from 35c to 92c.

http://www.legitreviews.com/samsung-sm951-512gb-m-2-pcie-ssd-review_161689/3

So putting a m2 drive under the board is perhaps not the smartest thing to do unless your case has a cutout in the motherboard plate for more airflow.

130sec at max speed... I think I'm ok with throttling after transferring 190GB.