[SOLVED] First Time NVMe user

12pak

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My 970 evo is arriving today and I want to jump right into using it. I have a question or two, hoping someone here can relate to.

My board is a Strix Z370 E Gaming, and it has 2 slots to use with a M.2 ssd. One of the 2 slots is right under the cpu, with not heat spreader, the 2nd is on the bottom half of the board and has a heat spreader for use with the M.2 slot.

My first question is, with only using one M.2 ssd, which of these slots would be better to use? My first impulse tells me the slot with the built in heat spreader. There is a film on the inside that I have to remove before screwing it back down to the board. My concern about this is, the 970 evo looks like it already has some sort of cover on it in looking at the pictures of it.

Is there also something on the 970 that I would have to remove in order to use the heat spreader on the motherboard, and if so, is there any potential for damage by removing it?

Thanks,
 

falcon291

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For ROG Strix Z390 or probably for your mobo Z370 use the one with the heatspreader. Because they generate heat and it is good to have it away and with spreader. For Z390-F (my mainboard) I used it, and get the advertised speed. But to get that speed, I had to disable SATA ports 5 and 6. And the one with spreader accepts longer drives- you need to check the sizes.
 

12pak

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For ROG Strix Z390 or probably for your mobo Z370 use the one with the heatspreader. Because they generate heat and it is good to have it away and with spreader. For Z390-F (my mainboard) I used it, and get the advertised speed. But to get that speed, I had to disable SATA ports 5 and 6. And the one with spreader accepts longer drives- you need to check the sizes.

So, when you used the heat spreader, did you remove the label sticker from the M.2 drive? If you did not, how can you tell if the heat spreader is making any temperature difference?
 

m1nty

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For ROG Strix Z390 or probably for your mobo Z370 use the one with the heatspreader. Because they generate heat and it is good to have it away and with spreader. For Z390-F (my mainboard) I used it, and get the advertised speed. But to get that speed, I had to disable SATA ports 5 and 6. And the one with spreader accepts longer drives- you need to check the sizes.

Is the disabling of the SATA ports typically required for all other newer mobos out on the market as well that want to use NVME? I am planning a PC build and saw this feature as a footnote for some mobos I've been looking at.
 

falcon291

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For ROG Strix Z390, for the first person, there isn't any such restriction.
For the second port, to use full speed (x4) you need to disable SATA5 and SATA6. For half speed (x2), you don't need to disable SATA5 and SATA6.

But even then you will have 4 SATA ports and it is becoming harder to find cases for 4 HDDs.
 

atljsf

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you can work without the heat spreader if you don't constanly write or copy files from and to the nvme, mine doesn't have heat spreader and is almost all the day at 40°c. so no need for a heatspreader, you can put the thermal pad and over it the heat spreader over the plastic label on the nvme, it will be less efficient moving the heat, but will still work

some motherboard will use the pci e lanes comming from the cpu to comunicate directly to the nvme, but physically some of the sata ports use the same pci e lanes, so if you use one nvme, the other sata ports using that lane needs to be disabled, many intel motherboards have this limitation, but since usually you are still left with 2 sata ports at least and few people need more than 1 sata hard disk to store games is a problem few face

on some amd motherboards the cpu has abit more pci e lanes so or you don't get any sata port disabled or only perhaps 1 or 2 from 6 or 8 available

at the moment even the cheap motherboards come with 1 nvme and 4 sata ports, the trend is move to nvme and less sata or no sata, all storage should be nvme, ideally, reality is still ssd or hard disks
 
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m1nty

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you can work without the heat spreader if you don't constanly write or copy files from and to the nvme, mine doesn't have heat spreader and is almost all the day at 40°c. so no need for a heatspreader, you can put the thermal pad and over it the heat spreader over the plastic label on the nvme, it will be less efficient moving the heat, but will still work

some motherboard will use the pci e lanes comming from the cpu to comunicate directly to the nvme, but physically some of the sata ports use the same pci e lanes, so if you use one nvme, the other sata ports using that lane needs to be disabled, many intel motherboards have this limitation, but since usually you are still left with 2 sata ports at least and few people need more than 1 sata hard disk to store games is a problem few face

on some amd motherboards the cpu has abit more pci e lanes so or you don't get any sata port disabled or only perhaps 1 or 2 from 6 or 8 available

at the moment even the cheap motherboards come with 1 nvme and 4 sata ports, the trend is move to nvme and less sata or no sata, all storage should be nvme, ideally, reality is still ssd or hard disks

Since this thread has been discussing the heat output of nvme, would that form of storage only be ideal for operating system and loading programs, where now SSDs are taking the form of HDDs and would be ideal for processing content/media?
 

USAFRet

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Since this thread has been discussing the heat output of nvme, would that form of storage only be ideal for operating system and loading programs, where now SSDs are taking the form of HDDs and would be ideal for processing content/media?
Ues it for whatever you wish.

I have multiple SSD, including an Intel 660p NVMe drive. That is my main drive for photo work.
 

atljsf

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Since this thread has been discussing the heat output of nvme, would that form of storage only be ideal for operating system and loading programs, where now SSDs are taking the form of HDDs and would be ideal for processing content/media?

a nvme work normally under normal use without the heatsink

a nvme that gets very hot under load tends to slow down, and is said that after prolonged periods will reduce its life expectancy, but we don't know how much it will reduce its life so, is kinda pointless to discuss this aspect, and we should just discuss how to avoid high temperatures i think

the nvme under normal load will barely reach 45°c, same as a high performance hard disk with poor airflow

under a performance test like crystaldiskmark, a nvme without heatsink can go up to 65°c, or at least mine does that, but on a entire day(as in 24 hours) playing gta, it never goes over 41°c.

this is a entry level cheap unit without a heatsink, a unit with a heatsink reduces around 10 degrees under load, perhaps more, so it should operate well under load until it reaches its end of life

most content creators on youtube when they can, they move to nvme on laptops and desktops, hard disks are being abandoned, because if the project is big and 4k, use a single hard idsk with all the content in it usually means slow performance on the most used tool, adobe premiere when you add or preview the content

the nvme is not the most decisive part on that task, but does help alot

ssds at the moment have bigger storage sizes at cheaper prices than nvme, but the difference might reduce or become nonexistent soon, at the moment a 240gbs cheap nvme costs just a bit more than a 240gb ssd, ssd in form of 2.5" will start to disapear if nvme reaches the same price and can offer the same storage capacity

hard disks will reach 50TBs in a couple years but ssds and nvme might catch up soo

consider this, lots of people edit videos on macbook pros with only internal nvme, and they add extra content via usb3 or usb c from a external nvme, hard disk and ssds are being replaced, fast, well, at least in the middle to high end pcs segment
 

12pak

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I received the 970 evo yesterday but will be waiting till Saturday to install. I couldn't remember which ports I have my SSD's plugged into so I took a look last night and it turns out I am currently using ports 5 and 6, lol. I also see that I'm going to have to take my 1070ti out to get to the M.2 slot. I don't have a lot of time during the week so I will report back on Saturday if I have any trouble.

I've got one last question. When I move the cables on my current 2.5" ssds to different ports, and install the 970 evo in the M.2 slot, will the board automatically disable ports 5 and 6, or do I have to do that manually in the BIOS?
 

falcon291

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I received the 970 evo yesterday but will be waiting till Saturday to install. I couldn't remember which ports I have my SSD's plugged into so I took a look last night and it turns out I am currently using ports 5 and 6, lol. I also see that I'm going to have to take my 1070ti out to get to the M.2 slot. I don't have a lot of time during the week so I will report back on Saturday if I have any trouble.

I've got one last question. When I move the cables on my current 2.5" ssds to different ports, and install the 970 evo in the M.2 slot, will the board automatically disable ports 5 and 6, or do I have to do that manually in the BIOS?

If you are using the first port, you do not need to disable, ports 5 and 6. But it doesn't have spreader, and it is under the graphic cards, as you noticed. My Corsair MP 510 don't have spreader, and I don't want to use the port under the graphic card, so I am using the second port (It is not a recommendation by the way)

You only need to disable ports 5 and 6, to use the second port full speed. If you accept to use second port in half speed, you do not need to disable ports 5 and 6.

If you are using the first port in SATA mode, SATA port 2 would be disabled, but I don't think you would use it in SATA mode, because then its speed would be limited to SATA speed.
 

12pak

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If you are using the first port, you do not need to disable, ports 5 and 6. But it doesn't have spreader, and it is under the graphic cards, as you noticed. My Corsair MP 510 don't have spreader, and I don't want to use the port under the graphic card, so I am using the second port (It is not a recommendation by the way)

You only need to disable ports 5 and 6, to use the second port full speed. If you accept to use second port in half speed, you do not need to disable ports 5 and 6.

If you are using the first port in SATA mode, SATA port 2 would be disabled, but I don't think you would use it in SATA mode, because then its speed would be limited to SATA speed.

I appreciate the insightful response, but the question was, will I have to disable ports 5 and 6 manually, or will it do it automatically. You have the numbering of the M.2 slots backwards. The lower port, under the heat spreader is M.2 Port 1 on my board, and the port just below the CPU is the 2nd slot, according to my manual.
 

falcon291

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I appreciate the insightful response, but the question was, will I have to disable ports 5 and 6 manually, or will it do it automatically. You have the numbering of the M.2 slots backwards. The lower port, under the heat spreader is M.2 Port 1 on my board, and the port just below the CPU is the 2nd slot, according to my manual.
For Strix Z390 the lower port is port 2, and the port near the CPU under the graphic card is port 1. I don't know for sure about Z370, strange let me say if it is so.

And I am again speaking for Z390, when you select x4, these ports should be disabled automatically. However when I checked SATA ports, they were enabled by default and were still enabled, didn't try to plug a drive to check it though.

I am sorry for the confusion. I didn't think Z390 and Z370 can be different.
 

GreenCEO

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I have the ASRock Fatal1ty Z170 Pro Gaming i7 mobo that comes with 3 ultra m.2 slots..
https://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Fatal1ty Z170 Professional Gaming i7/?cat=Specifications#BIOS

Stupid question but will the Samsung 970 Evo in the link below work with my Mobo? I've been looking at M.2 for awhile now but haven't quite made the leap yet.. Looking to change that in the next few days.. Is the 970 evo plus the best option or is there other m.2's around the $200 range that could compete?
https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-970-EVO-Plus-MZ-V7S1T0B/dp/B07MFZY2F2/ref=sxin_1_ac_d_rm?ac_md=4-3-c2Ftc3VuZyA5NzAgZXZvIHBsdXM=-ac_d_rm&keywords=samsung+970+evo&pd_rd_i=B07MFZY2F2&pd_rd_r=06bfd414-e954-4f8a-b1c4-1c4c24b726e7&pd_rd_w=oOqLc&pd_rd_wg=5QwP8&pf_rd_p=e2f20af2-9651-42af-9a45-89425d5bae34&pf_rd_r=A5BMP5P3PQC73VW98AHA&psc=1&qid=1574437551