Fatal1ty Z87 Killer m.2 SSD Support

[bogdan.isar1]

Hi there! Currently I own a Fatal1ty Z87 Killer Motherboard, an Intel Core i5 4590, 16gb RAM and a GTX 970. For my storage I have a pretty slow ADATA SSD and a 1TB WD HDD. My question is: Can I upgrade the storage on this motherboard using a PCI to m.2 adapter so that I can have significantly faster storage? I updated the Motherboard to the latest Beta BIOS, which also says: "Enhance M.2 compatibility when using a PCIe to M.2 adapter.". I know that the Z87 chipset is not praticulary good for PCI to m.2 adapters, some manufacturers do not support booting from it, but the bios update says otherwise. Here is the official BIOS page for the Motherboard: https://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Fatal1ty%20Z87%20Killer... What do you guys think? Can I do this upgrade?

 

[Barty1884]

Native M.2 NVMe support didn't come until Z97, but you could always use them as secondary storage with adapters.

So, given the BIOS actually references improved support, I would highly suspect it will support booting - unfortunately, the only way to find out, is to try (or find someone reporting the result online).

 

[mdd1963]

Would not bother with NVME drives on the pre-Z170 boards, as NVME transfer rates, although faster than SAYAIII, are about ~30% of what is available on newer boards. (10 Gb/sec instead of 32 Gb/sec)

 

[Barty1884]

Would not bother with NVME drives on the pre-Z170 boards, as NVME transfer rates, although faster than SAYAIII, are about ~30% of what is available on newer boards. (10 Gb/sec instead of 32 Gb/sec)

While I don't disagree that they're not the best idea..... When using an older board with a PCIe adapter, provided you have Gen3 x4 lanes available to it, you should still be able to achieve comparable speeds (in benchmarks, at least - real world, not so much).

The issue with older boards is the ones with native M.2 NVMe support (Z97, etc). They were PCIe Gen2 x4, so the same effective bandwidth as PCIe Gen3 x2. Half the lanes/bandwidth available.

 

[bogdan.isar1]

What do you think about getting 2 SATA SSDs and use them in RAID 0? Will that be safer and reliable than the method posted in the question?

 

[Barty1884]

Honestly, a complete waste of time.

RAID 0 offers no redundancy, so it's not safer or more reliable.

Add the RAID overhead, and you'd likely find performance to be a small margin slower than a comparable SSD drive alone.