Installing SSD on ASUS SABERTOOTH X99?

[CamScottBryce]

It's Black Friday, which means idiots like me come along to ask silly questions (and probably make similar self-deprecating introductions in order to brush off future criticism).

I'm looking into getting either the Asus x99 A II or the Sabertooth. A lot of reviews of the A II suggest that it's had some issues (although those people could just be extremely inept at assembling computers). The Sabertooth looks like a good option, but I've noticed a lot of references to it's m.2 SSD port.

My question is: can you install a non-m.2 SSD on the Sabertooth? I'd like to install a Samsung 850 EVO on it, and I've seen a few builds with that installed but some sites have suggested you need a converter, and I'm not sure I want to mess with that. Can anyone offer any insight into this? If you'd like to look at the mobo, here's a link:

https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/SABERTOOTH_X99/

Alternatively does anyone have any insight into whether or not the A II is a good mobo? I guess that's for a different sub-forum, but if anyone would like to tack that onto their response, that'd be cool. Thanks.

 

[ingtar33]

you're confusing a few things.

M2 SSDs can have issues with WINDOWS installs, only because windows7 at least doesn't usually support it natively. Some older bios also have issues using those M2 drives as boot devices. Typically these are solutions bios updates or drivers used durring the windows install can fix

normal SSDs work just like normal hard drives, they're SATA devices, so a Samsung 850EVO will support a windows install and operate like a boot disk just like some WD 1TB hard drive would.

PCI-E SSDs have many of the same issues M2 devices have, though more motherboard bios are incompatible, so in this case if you plan to use a PCI-E SSD you have to be careful to get a motherboard that has a recently bios revision and is well supported by the manufacturer (ASUS is fantastic due to their continued support even for very old motherboards).

 

[CamScottBryce]

normal SSDs work just like normal hard drives, they're SATA devices, so a Samsung 850EVO will support a windows install and operate like a boot disk just like some WD 1TB hard drive would.

Appreciate the info. Okay, the makes sense. So considering that the Sabertooth has sata express support, it will handle the 850's 6 Gb/s anyhow. Not going to look into any Pcie ssds for right now. Thanks for your help, think I'm going with the Sabertooth.