does my motherboard have the right m.2?

[guidesandmetal]

just got a sumsung evo 970 without researching past realizing my motherboard has m.2, didn't realize they are so specific. motherboard is gigabyte ga x99 sli, spec sheet says this: (1 x M.2 PCIe connector
(Socket 3, M key, type 2260/2280 SATA & PCIe x2/x1 SSD support)

im only getting around 800Mb/s out of it right now, I assume it's running off sata? Total noob to m.2, may even be plugged into wrong m.2 i really don't know, any help appreciated. I have a feeling this is a new motherboard needed job though 🙁

 

[karenjoly]

I assume you mean MB/s. The data rate for PCIe 3 x1 is 984.6 MB/s. This maybe you.

See here :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express#PCI_Express_3.0


So, perhaps the drive works as it should and maybe you want to return it. Thing is, while it is an M.2 drive, ( and there is only one M.2 port there ) the PCIe connection is set out as "PCIe x2/x1".Ouch ! The usual motherboard with that chipset will have x4 lanes so you been shorted !

Boards make decisions where to run the lanes and this brand made its choice in this way. I have the ASUS Prime x 99-A and it provides a glorious x4 support for the single M.2 (PCIe only) drive.

 

[Calvin7]

Motherboard is advertised as delivering up to 10 Gb/s data transfer speeds.

Samsung Evo 970 is a PCIe 3.0 x4 drive, while your motherboard is PCIe 2.0 x 2.
Samsung drive can deliver up to 32 Gb/s on motherboard with PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 connectors.

 

[Eximo]

If it is working at all, that means it is running NVMe.

800MB/s is faster than SATA 3 SSDs, they top out around 550MB/s on a good day.

Take note of the Gb/s, the lowercase b is bits. Uppercase B is Bytes.

10Gb/s - about 1250MB/s but that is in an ideal world with no errors and perfect use of all data throughput. In practice this will never be reached.

He wasn't shorted. That was typical of X99 a lot boards. NVMe storage was quite new at the time and drives weren't built to go as fast as they are now.

It is fine, under normal operating conditions you aren't likely to need that much throughput anyway. And if you get around to upgrading the platform at some point that drive should still be relevant.

 

[guidesandmetal]

I assume you mean MB/s. The data rate for PCIe 3 x1 is 984.6 MB/s. This maybe you.

See here :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express#PCI_Express_3.0


So, perhaps the drive works as it should and maybe you want to return it. Thing is, while it is an M.2 drive, ( and there is only one M.2 port there ) the PCIe connection is set out as "PCIe x2/x1".Ouch ! The usual motherboard with that chipset will have x4 lanes so you been shorted !

Boards make decisions where to run the lanes and this brand made its choice in this way. I have the ASUS Prime x 99-A and it provides a glorious x4 support for the single M.2 (PCIe only) drive.

Friend gave me an m.2 x4 pcie card I had room for on my board plugged in via that instead of motherboard slot and getting 3500/2500 now 😀 happy bunny no new motherboard needed and no noticeable loss over expected performance despite adapter

 

[karenjoly]

nice