Is M.2 PCIe on Asus z270-K possible? & recommended 512GB or 1TB M.2 for it?

[KentaZX]

I've been looking into getting myself 2 M.2 sticks to make them into RAID 0 on my Asus z270-K motherboard and put windows in it as well.

However I've read the motherboard's website specs and it said if I use M.2 sticks, then the M.2_1 slot in SATA mode will disable SATA port 1, and "M.2_2" will disable SATA port 5 & 6.

Now what I'm trying to understand is, is there no way I can add 2 M.2 sticks to my motherboard without sacrificing SATA port 1 or 5&6? Or will adding in PCie M.2 sticks be the solution?

also if I need PCIe M.2s, what brand would be recommended for 512GB or 1TB?

 

[Eximo]

You shouldn't bother with a RAID setup unless you need to move extremely large files to another drive with similar capabilities. At this point most people's bottleneck is their home network between two SSDs.

You can use either SATA or NVMe M.2 drives. They consume PCIe lanes, and so do SATA ports, the disabling is a way to manage all the available PCIe lanes.

As for brands, the ever popular Samsung 960 Evo is a high end choice. Also options from a few other vendors.

 

[KentaZX]

You shouldn't bother with a RAID setup unless you need to move extremely large files to another drive with similar capabilities. At this point most people's bottleneck is their home network between two SSDs.

You can use either SATA or NVMe M.2 drives. They consume PCIe lanes, and so do SATA ports, the disabling is a way to manage all the available PCIe lanes.

As for brands, the ever popular Samsung 960 Evo is a high end choice. Also options from a few other vendors.

Now when you say it "consumes PCIe" lanes, do you mean the other unused PCIe lanes? because right now I only have the graphics card there, and 6 of my SATAs ports are being used right now. Wouldn't it be better to sacrifice some of that PCIE lane instead of disabling SATA 1, 5 or 6 in my situation? or am I still msunderstanding something here?

Or to go with what your saying, would i be just better off getting a single 512GB / 1TB M.2 ssd, put it in M.2_1 slot and just get windows installed there? I've asked this since only the 120GB SSD (my C: drive) is plugged in SATA 1 right now.

 

[Eximo]

I would certainly consider retiring the 120GB drive.

Z270 boards have 16x PCIe lanes dedicated to the two, or one, x16 graphics slots. These come directly from the CPU. The rest of the 28? lanes come from the Z270 PCH itself, they communicate through DMA to the CPU.

I don't believe you have a choice in the matter. If you plug in M.2 drives, some of the SATA ports will be disabled.

Everything in a contemporary computer basically runs on PCIe. That includes the onboard sound, driver controllers, USB ports, etc. So there is a limit on what you can put on a board. It is very flexible but does have limits. (Kind of like the IRQ limits of yesteryear)

 

[KentaZX]

I would certainly consider retiring the 120GB drive.

Z270 boards have 16x PCIe lanes dedicated to the two, or one, x16 graphics slots. These come directly from the CPU. The rest of the 28? lanes come from the Z270 PCH itself, they communicate through DMA to the CPU.

I don't believe you have a choice in the matter. If you plug in M.2 drives, some of the SATA ports will be disabled.

Everything in a contemporary computer basically runs on PCIe. That includes the onboard sound, driver controllers, USB ports, etc. So there is a limit on what you can put on a board. It is very flexible but does have limits. (Kind of like the IRQ limits of yesteryear)

I see now. So it all means either way I have to get rid of the 120GB SSD, and I be better off with just a single M.2 card to put in the M.2_1 slot (and disable SATA port 1) if I wanted to,

Now heres the last question, Now I wanted to get an M.2 SSD to put my OS there since the C: drive is currently 120GB only. But since I have Microsoft Visual Studio Enterprise and Adobe Creative Cloud subscription, meaning I have a bunch of giant apps from them. Would I survive easily with a 512GB size, or am I better off getting a 1TB for that matter? Again the purpose of the new drive will be for windows and apps only.

 

[Eximo]

I couldn't say for your use case. If you want all apps on the SSD, go big. But if you think 512GB is enough for now, then you could save a little money. Software isn't exactly getting smaller though.

My computer only has a single 1TB drive, but I only use it for gaming. Given the size of games these days, that probably won't last and I'll be plugging in another 1TB drive at some point. Won't really need to be as fast though. No reason to have an NVMe drive in all honesty, game maps load a little faster. Everything else is like any other SSD.