Question Can I use a Gen 4 NVMe SSd in a Gen 2 M.2 slot?

[Luigi180]

Hey guys. Im new to NVMe drives with a question. I have an old Asus Z97-A mobo which has an M.2 slot. The slot in the mobo specs is : 1 x 2280 Key M(PCIe Gen2 x2/SATA). Can I use a WD Black SN 770 [Pcie gen4 X4]? I understand that I will only get X2 speeds out of my M.2 slot but will this slot even run a modern NVMe drive at all?
NOTE: Im using this as a secondary drive exclusively for gaming. I have my boot drive on a samsung SATA SSD.

 

[Viking2121]

It'll work just fine, though at a lower speed of course, still many times faster than a sata based SSD, Could be worse, I got a gen 4 1TB m.2 SSD I use atm and I have it on a m.2 card that I modified to fit a pcie 1x lane on my motherboard, I only get about 700mb/s reads and writes, way slower than gen 4 speeds, works perfect still, just slow.

It'll work just fine.

Good Luck!

 

[Luigi180]

It'll work just fine, though at a lower speed of course, still many times faster than a sata based SSD, Could be worse, I got a gen 4 1TB m.2 SSD I use atm and I have it on a m.2 card that I modified to fit a pcie 1x lane on my motherboard, I only get about 700mb/s reads and writes, way slower than gen 4 speeds, works perfect still, just slow.

It'll work just fine.

Good Luck!

Hey your still getting better speeds than a SATA SSD so its worth it. Thanks for the info mate.

 

[thestryker]

Transferring to a new system would be the predominant benefit, but check the Tom's review (https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/wd-black-sn770-ssd-review) as it has both and perhaps something you do could benefit. Anything sequential will be limited by your existing interface (which will max out around 1GB/s).

 

[velocityg4]

You might want to consider a PCIe slot to M.2 adapter. So, you can get PCIe 2.0 x4.

You could also do the second 3.0 slot for PCIe 3.0 x4. Although this choice would steal half the 3.0 lanes from the GPU.

 

[Luigi180]

You might want to consider a PCIe slot to M.2 adapter. So, you can get PCIe 2.0 x4.

You could also do the second 3.0 slot for PCIe 3.0 x4. Although this choice would steal half the 3.0 lanes from the GPU.

I'll take a look for an adapter but due to my circumstances, I cant buy stuff online right now. I'll just have to take whatever my local store offers.

 

[USAFRet]

For a Z97 board, I would not bother, unless you plan on transplanting this into a much newer system in the very near future.

Performance will be no different than a SATA III drive.
And use of that M.2 port is likely to disable one or more SATA ports on the motherboard.