Question Asus Sabertooth Z97 (M.2 Compatibility)

[luzhun]

Hello. I have an Asus Sabertooth Z97 Mark 1/USB 3.1 Motherboard and was wondering the compatibility of a M.2 drive or one of those that are even faster than SSD's. Also, if certain generations of the technology may only go so high for this motherboard such as Generation 3 and not Generation 4? If need be, I'll buy an adapter to make this work for any that are out there. Thank you for more information!

https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/SABERTOOTH_Z97_MARK_1USB_31/

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

It won't work as a bootable drive.

 

[luzhun]

Oh! So you cannot load Windows onto it? Only as a secondary type drive?

 

[USAFRet]

Oh! So you cannot load Windows onto it? Only as a secondary type drive?

Only as a secondary, and only in a PCIe adapter in one of the PCIe slots.

Depending on your use, that magical "faster than SSD's" may not be evident.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

Oh! So you cannot load Windows onto it? Only as a secondary type drive?

Correct.

 

[luzhun]

Is this normal for this type of drive or is it because of the motherboard features?

 

[USAFRet]

Is this normal for this type of drive or is it because of the motherboard features?

It is normal for a board of that vintage. That was released just as NVMe drives started appearing in the consumer space.
Not all board had M.2 ports, and those that did had them at PCIe x2 (like my ASRock board).

 

[Calvin7]

SABERTOOTH Z97 MARK 1/USB 3.1

The M.2 NVMe drive is bootable on this motherboard model.

You can see on the Overview page of the motherboard that the M.2 speed is up to 10Gb/s. The connector is PCIe 2.0 x 2.
You can double that by going to a adapter in PCIe slot which is PCIe 2.0 x4 or up to 20 Gb/sec.

 

[USAFRet]

SABERTOOTH Z97 MARK 1/USB 3.1

The M.2 NVMe drive is bootable on this motherboard model.

You can see on the Overview page of the motherboard that the M.2 speed is up to 10Gb/s. The connector is PCIe 2.0 x 2.
You can double that by going to a adapter in PCIe slot which is PCIe 2.0 x4 or up to 20 Gb/sec.

hmmm....

I'm not seeing it.

SABERTOOTH Z97 MARK 1/USB 3.1 | Motherboards | ASUS USA

www.asus.com

That overview page is talking about the USB 3.1 capabilities. Not an M.2 port that does not seem to exist.
(I could be wrong, though)