Asus Z370 TUF Pro Gaming Compatibility question

[Momar6887]

Hello! I had a question concerning the ASUS TUF Z370 Pro gaming mobo. From what I understand it has 6 SATA 6gb/s slots and an M.2 storage device would use one of them.
Expansion slots per asus website:
1 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 (x16, x8/x4+x4) *
1 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 (max at x4 mode)
4 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x1

My situation:
I have an M.2 960evo from my previous build that I'm planning on bringing to my new MOBO but due to some freebies and deals, I will also have a WD Green 240gb sata3 SSD and Toshiba 2TB 7200rpm HDD.

Will I be able to have all 3 drives running at the same time, in addition to a GTX 1080 (I know, i bought like a week before new cards were announced), i7 8700k that i plan to overclock (i understand the MOBO isn't exactly optimized for the cpu but I already have the parts here), RAM etc?

Thanks.

 

[raisonjohn]

Yes (though you did not mention if your WD Green 240GB SATA3 SSD is an M.2 form factor SSD or a 2.5" form factor SSD), you can have the 3 drives running at the same time, and can even plug in 5 or 6 more.

Assuming the WD Green 240GB is an M.2 SATA SSD, then the only place you can plug that in the TUF Z370 Pro is at the M2_1 socket (the bottom M.2 socket) as the M2_1 can support PCIe/NVMe or SATA-based M.2 SSDs. Do note that using a SATA-based M.2 SSD in the M2_1 socket will disable one (1x) SATAIII port (the SATA_1 port). So, you'll be left with 5x remaining available SATAIII ports and you can just pick one where you want to plug in your Toshiba HDD. Lastly, the M2_2 socket (the top M.2 socket) can only support PCIe/NVMe-based M.2 SSD, so, that's where your Samsung 960 EVO M.2 SSD is going to be. The rest of your other slots (GPU, RAM) have no issues whatsoever in bandwidth.

Now, assuming your WD Green is a 2.5" SATA3 SSD, then, both the WD Green and the Toshiba can be plugged in any of the six (6x) SATAIII ports on the mobo. You now have the option to choose between the M2_1 (bottom) or M2_2 (top) for your Samsung PCIe/NVMe-based M.2 SSD. No ports are going to be disabled/shared bandwidth in this scenario.

 

[Momar6887]

Yes (though you did not mention if your WD Green 240GB SATA3 SSD is an M.2 form factor SSD or a 2.5" form factor SSD), you can have the 3 drives running at the same time, and can even plug in 5 or 6 more.

Assuming the WD Green 240GB is an M.2 SATA SSD, then the only place you can plug that in the TUF Z370 Pro is at the M2_1 socket (the bottom M.2 socket) as the M2_1 can support PCIe/NVMe or SATA-based M.2 SSDs. Do note that using a SATA-based M.2 SSD in the M2_1 socket will disable one (1x) SATAIII port (the SATA_1 port). So, you'll be left with 5x remaining available SATAIII ports and you can just pick one where you want to plug in your Toshiba HDD. Lastly, the M2_2 socket (the top M.2 socket) can only support PCIe/NVMe-based M.2 SSD, so, that's where your Samsung 960 EVO M.2 SSD is going to be. The rest of your other slots (GPU, RAM) have no issues whatsoever in bandwidth.

Now, assuming your WD Green is a 2.5" SATA3 SSD, then, both the WD Green and the Toshiba can be plugged in any of the six (6x) SATAIII ports on the mobo. You now have the option to choose between the M2_1 (bottom) or M2_2 (top) for your Samsung PCIe/NVMe-based M.2 SSD. No ports are going to be disabled/shared bandwidth in this scenario.

Awesome thank you for the detailed response! I was just about to edit about the M.2 socket locations but you already beat me to it.