Booting/Adding PCIe SSD to P55 Based System (Lynnfield)

[ChrisMisc]

Hello! First time poster, VERY long time reader. I'll skip the huge intro, however I will say I am a hardware nut, just been out of the game for a while. Looking for advice on upgrading this older machine.

I would like to add a PCI Express based SSD to my older P55 based Lynnfield system. I'll post specs below. Basically, I'm interested in buying a PCIe M.2 card and placing a M.2 ACHI compliant SSD on it and booting from it (something like a Samsung 850 EVO 500GB SSD). My motherboard doesn't have an Intel based SATA3 controller, hence the reason I am looking to run it off a PCI express slot on the motherboard.

OK, so I am confident this will work, however, I am NOT confident that it will boot. I see no BIOS on this card or on the M.2 SSD. I am simply not sure. I'd like some advice. I'm also not sure if my PCIe slots have enough bandwidth to share along with the video card to support the transfer rates of the PCIe SSD. I want the best bang for my buck and at this time, I do not want to upgrade the MoBo and CPU.

Thoughts? Advice? Thank you.

Asus P7P55D-E MoBo
i5 760 CPU @ 4.0Ghz
AMD Radeon 6950 flashed to 6970, overclocked to 800/1250 (5000)
16GB 8GB x2 Patriot DDR3 1600
Kingston HyperX 120GB SSD
Seagate 500GB 7200.11

Parts I am interested in:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147399&cm_re=Samsung_evo_m.2-_-20-147-399-_-Product

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA8RU3548414&cm_re=pci_express_m.2_card_adapter-_-9SIA8RU3548414-_-Product

 

[JohnnyLucky]

There's a bit of a problem. According to the Asus specifications the motherboard does not support PCI-e 3.0 devices. There are no PCI-e 3.0 slots on the motherboard. The board only supports PCI-e 2.0 devices. However, the board is equipped with a Marvell® SATA 3, 6Gb/s controller that is connected to the two SATA 3 6.0 Gb/s gray colored ports on the motherboard.

The rule of thumb is that modern PCI-e and M.2 solid state drives are only supported by Z87, Z97, and Z100 motherboards and chipsets. The older Z87 boards almost always require a BIOS and chipset update to improve ssd compatibility.

If one of the two gray colored SATA 3 6Gb/s ports on the motherboard are available you could install a SATA 3 6Gb/s solid state drive like the Samsung 850 Pro. However, the 3rd party controllers that were installed on those boards usually didn't perform quite as well as Intel controllers. There will probably be a slight reduction in performance.

I maintain an ssd database listed in a sticky at the very top of this forum section. Here is the link:

http://www.johnnylucky.org/data-storage/ssd-database.html

You can use it to check out any brands and models you might be interested in. The database is broken down by interface. Follow the links to the technical reviews. There are links to reviews in English and many other languages.

 

[ChrisMisc]

Thank you for the reply, Johnny. The integrated Marvell SATA 6.0Gbps controller is horrible. I tried it with my Hyper X drive years ago and it was obvious the Intel controller was snappier.

I dig your database. Very comprehensive.

Looks like my best/most economical option would be the Samsung EVO 500GB. This drive appears to have a real good bang for the buck.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA2W02DV8166&cm_re=samsung_850_evo-_-20-147-373-_-Product