Question ASUS ROG Maximus Z690 Hero M.2 Question

[sassums]

Building a new system and I purchased the ASUS ROG Maximus Z690 Hero M.2 Question (not one that bursts into flames - returned that and got a replacement).

The board has a M.2 slot on the motherboard. ASUS also sent a ROG Hyper M.2 Card.

So the question is.....whats the difference?

The M.2 card I'll be using is a WD_Black SN850 NVMe 2TB Gen 4 card.

(Also just realized the WD card I have has a heatsink preinstalled which naturally does not fit on the motherboard.....had to just order another one without the heatsink)......Anyone need a new M.2???

System info:
Intel 12th Gen i9-12900k CPU
Corsair 32GB DDR5-5600Mhz Ram
ASUS Nvidia RTX 3090

Just trying to figure out which way is best to install the M.2 and what performance if any is gained by the Hyper M.2 card.

 

[Lutfij]

The add-on card will allow you to have RAID on your M.2 SSD's. I don't think it's a feature most would need to run at the moment unless they have a massive file server whereby they need the data NOW!!! You should be more than fine using the M.2 slots that are soldered onto the PCB of the motherboard, not the add-on card.

 

[sassums]

Thanks appreciate it! Now I have to figure out how to offload this WD M.2 card due to the return policy expiring.

im only playing games on it so no file servers or anything like that.