Question How do I run 2 nvme and 6 sata on a GIGABYTE Z490 AORUS PRO AX?

Nov 28, 2022
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The documentation says I can run 2 nvmes and 6 satas, but when I try to use the last two sata slots, my PC fails to boot, as if the nvmes and the satas are conflicting. What can I do?
 

Karadjgne

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It says you can run upto 2 NVMe and/or 6 Sata, not 2 Nvme and 6 Sata. Many motherboards use the chipset for most of the storage transmission, using 2 Sata drives on a single pcie bus. So if you populate a pcie with the NVMe drive, that disables 1 or 2 of the Sata ports. The other NVMe is from the cpu pcie, so bypasses that restriction and allows all 6 Sata ports.
 
Nov 28, 2022
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Your manual should specifically state WHICH SATA ports might be disabled if certain M.2 ports are used. It is common to have 1 disabled. Maybe more? I haven't checked.
Thanks. I posted the image above that lists the conflicts, but I'm new to this part. It looks like that if I take out one of the NVMes, that I can use all 6 satas. Does that look right to you? Also, how can I tell which MVMe slot to use. Can I see from inside windows which hard drive is in which NVMe slot?
 
It looks to me like for

Port M.2A: if you use a SATA drive in this port, your SATA port 1 will be disabled. If you use a PCIe drive in this port, no SATA ports will be disabled.

Port M.2M: if you use ANY drive in this port, SATA ports 4 and 5 will be disabled.

I'd get the boot drive figured out first. Connect and worry about the second one after the boot drive is up and running.
 
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Nov 28, 2022
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It looks to me like for

Port M.2A: if you use a SATA drive in this port, your SATA port 1 will be disabled. If you use a PCIe drive in this port, no SATA ports will be disabled.

Port M.2M: if you use ANY drive in this port, SATA ports 4 and 5 will be disabled.

I'd get the boot drive figured out first. Connect and worry about the second one after the boot drive is up and running.
Thanks. The boot drive is one of the two MVMe drives, so that will be no problem.
 

DSzymborski

Titan
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Thanks. I posted the image above that lists the conflicts, but I'm new to this part. It looks like that if I take out one of the NVMes, that I can use all 6 satas. Does that look right to you? Also, how can I tell which MVMe slot to use. Can I see from inside windows which hard drive is in which NVMe slot?

You'll need to look at the board itself to know which slot is which. They should be labeled. You can also look at the manual which identifies which slot is denoted as which.
 
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Nov 28, 2022
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You'll need to look at the board itself to know which slot is which. They should be labeled. You can also look at the manual which identifies which slot is denoted as which.
Thanks so much. I'm looking on Amazon to see if there is a way to put the removed MVMe into a 2.5 inch sata container and use it as a sata drive. Have you heard of this?
 
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Nov 28, 2022
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No, it won't.

Even if it did, any "difference" would only be seen in artificial benchmarks.

But that is currently the only way to run all your drives internally.
All the adapters I'm seeing say that they are only for M key and not compatible with B key and I don't know if that's okay. Also, does x4 / x8 / x16 slot have anything to do with the speed and which is better. Sorry for all of the questions.

https://www.amazon.com/Bejavr-PCI-E3-0-Expansion-Aluminum-PCI-Express/dp/B09JM5FVC7/ref=sr_1_5?crid=2YKG92I2AJ52A&keywords=nvme+m.2+to+PCIe&qid=1669739760&refinements=p_85:2470955011,p_36:-1500,p_72:1248879011&rnid=1248877011&rps=1&s=electronics&sprefix=nvme+m.2+to+pcie+,aps,85&sr=1-5