Question Gigabyte GA-P55-UD4 / bootable NVMe SSD

[Puppy38]

Another newb here. I found this post and forum by way of desperately searching the depths of the internet, and it seemed quite close to what I am dealing with.

I have a Gigabyte GA-P55-UD4 and no idea about all this new stuff like NVMe SSDs, PCI/PCIEX8/etc. I will try and explain as fully as I know/understand.

My System specs:
MOBO: GA-P55-UD4 (1.0)
BIOS Ver: F9
Graphics: SAPPHIRE Radeon R9 280X 3GB
CPU: INTEL Core i7 860 4x 2,8GHz
OS: Win 10 Pro 64-bit
RAM: Kingston 8GB KVR13R9D4/16 (x2)

I only have cage space currently for two drives, one 500GB eSATA SSD occupies one of the slots. I am trying to find a bigger cage that is expandable to four drives, one of which will not be the 500GB SSD. Space and configuration is my primary concern because I am running a primary audio/design studio system (don't laugh at my older "new" gear described below. My old handbuilt system running Win Vista-7 Pro lasted almost 20 years). I want the main HDD to pretty much have only Windows 10 Pro on it and as little else as possible. The next drive will have programs (still not sure about plugins here yet). In theory the third drive would have plugins and their content. The fourth drive would be my scratch disk. If my idea pans out, I would have room for a fifth drive...

PCI/PCIe layout (pardon the crude diagram):
-- 1 x PCI Express x1 slot (Graphics Cardcovering this)
-------- 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x16 (PCIEX16) (Graphics Card)
-- 1 x PCI Express x1 slot (Graphics Cardcovering this)
-- 1 x PCI Express x1 slot (Graphics Cardcovering this)
-------- 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x8 (PCIEX8) (Note 3) (no actual "Note 3") (FREE)
---- 1 x PCI slot (FREE)
---- 1 x PCI slot (FREE)

(The PCIEX16 and PCIEX8 slots conforms to PCI Express 2.0 standard.)

I want to install some of this spiffy NVMe SSD tech as my main HDD (4TB). I even considered a 4-slot adapter to run RAID (4x4TB NVMe SSD), but while I might get away with installing one that conforms to 3.0/4.0 on a 2.0 board, I don't think my board supports bifurification (whatever the heck that is) and there is no information about it anywhere I can find.

So then I think, well, maybe a single 4TB NVMe on a 3.0/4.0 adapter going into the remaining PCIEX8 slot...and run that as my main drive. I am still not even sure if the BIOS allows boot from PCI/PCIe SSD drive cos the manual says:
First/Second/Third Boot Device
Specifies the boot order from the available devices. Use the up or down arrow key to select a device and press <Enter> to accept. Options are: Floppy, LS120, Hard Disk, CDROM, ZIP, USB-FDD, USB-ZIP, USB-CDROM, USB-HDD, Legacy LAN, Disabled.

And I just discovered that the drive may not show up in the BIOS firmware since the BIOS has no idea how to handle the NVME protocol. It might still work perfectly fine if I can boot an OS which does NVME support. (Note that this means that I might not be able to use the NVME disk to boot from with this motherboard, and would need a motherboard with up to date firmware. And probaly with UEFI instead of BIOS)...but I am still finding conflicting information as to whether or not Window 10 Pro supports booting to NVMe, and if it is configurable in the BIOS under Advanced Settings. Something about UEFI and/or AHCI I will have to look into.

I also have no idea (a current trend apparently) what speed or maximum size of NVMe might even accepted onto the board, cos it is rather old after all, and I don't think this board was designed with NVMe SSDs in mind.

That's about all I can think of...if anyone could give me a hand, that would be great. Thx!

 

[USAFRet]

1. If the motherboard does not have a native M.2 port, don't bother with an NVMe drive. Your system almost certainly could not boot from it.

2. Windows and applications/programs should go on the same drive. Plugins and everything else can go elsewhere.

3. Put RAID out of your mindset. With any drive type, but especially with solid state drives.



Are you considering a whole new system? Your i7-860 is pretty old.

 

[Puppy38]

Haha...this IS my new system. I am on a very limited budget, and had to find something locally that hit all the specs (mainly for a very expensive audio FW interface). If I were still in the US, I'd have already been to Fry's and bought everything to build a new one (or at least start).

I will probably just upgrade the existing SSD to a 4-6TB and leave it alone. My previous system ran Windows 7 Pro on a 2TB HDD forever, so I think it will accommodate Win 10 Pro, programs and plugs.

Thanks for the help...I may be back...lol

 

[USAFRet]

Haha...this IS my new system. I am on a very limited budget, and had to find something locally that hit all the specs (mainly for a very expensive audio FW interface). If I were still in the US, I'd have already been to Fry's and bought everything to build a new one (or at least start).

I will probably just upgrade the existing SSD to a 4-6TB and leave it alone. My previous system ran Windows 7 Pro on a 2TB HDD forever, so I think it will accommodate Win 10 Pro, programs and plugs.

Thanks for the help...I may be back...lol

Yes, it will take Win 10.
Any good quality SATA III SSD will work.

But that CPU platform is almost 15 years old now... 😱

 

[thestryker]

You can use NVMe just fine, but will not be able to boot off of it. If you think you'll want to carry on storage to a future build it may be worth investing in NVMe, but otherwise SATA is the smart choice.