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!
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!