Question MSI Z170-A PRO M.2 PCIe or SATA

[Rich_Mars1]

Ok a little long winded but I'll try to keep it short.

Built new rig, handed down old rig to son.

When I built the rig (old) I used a Samsung 850 Evo SSD. This board has an M.2 slot but they were crazy expensive back then (for my budget). The wording is confusing, can someone make it out?

SATA1-2 ports will be unavailable when installing the M.2 SATA interface module in M.2 slot.

SATA3-4 ports will be unavailable when installing the M.2 PCIe interface module in M.2 slot.

I have an extra WD_Black SN770 1tb drive doing nothing right now and although it's overkill, I'd like to use it if possible. Can I use this drive in place of the SATA3-4 port to speed up the system? If not I'm just going to put it in an enclosure and use it as an external drive.

Well aware that I'll have to clone my system drive, just wanted to see if I could get the nvme speeds ( I know it's gen 4 and the board is gen3 so it will be reduced to 3500 max if possible) using the SATA3-4 ports. If it's just going to be the same speed without a sata and power cable I'll just leave it be,

SPECS ( UserBenchmarks)
UserBenchmarks: Game 86%, Desk 93%, Work 71%
CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K - 88.1%
GPU: Nvidia GTX 1070 - 92.7%
SSD: Samsung 850 Evo 250GB - 69.3%
SSD: FCCT960M500SSD1 960GB - 79%
SSD: Samsung 830 128GB - 61.6%
HDD: Toshiba DT01ACA300 3TB - 112.1%
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 3TB - 105.9%
RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 3200 C16 2x8GB - 105.9%
MBD: MSI Z170-A PRO (MS-7971)

Thank you to anyone that responds.

 

[Lafong]

Not sure I'm following you entirely, but.............

I take the port descriptions to mean:

1; your SN 770 is usable.

2; if you use the SN 770, 2 of your standard SATA ports will be disabled entirely...specifically SATA 3 and SATA 4.

3; you certainly should be able to clone to the SN 770.

4; SATA ports 1 and 2 should remain usable because the SN 770 is a PCIe drive, not SATA.

 

[USAFRet]

Specification Z170-A PRO

As a world leading gaming brand, MSI is the most trusted name in gaming and eSports. We stand by our principles of breakthroughs in design, and roll out the amazing gaming gear like motherboards, graphics cards, laptops and desktops.

www.msi.com

"1 x M.2 Key M Socket supports type 2280/2260/2242 storage devices in both PCIE Gen3 x4 & SATA mode"

Your board has a PCIe 3.0 M.2 port, so your WD will work, at PCIe 3.0 performance.

"SATA3~4 ports will be unavailable when installing the M.2 PCIe interface module in M.2 slot."

SATA ports 3 and 4 will be disabled when using that WD in the M.2 port.

For cloning, see below.

 

[USAFRet]

-----------------------------
Specific steps for a successful clone operation:
-----------------------------
Verify the actual used space on the current drive is significantly below the size of the new SSD
Both drives must be the same partitioning scheme, either MBR or GPT
Download and install Macrium Reflect (or Samsung Data Migration, if a Samsung target SSD)
If you are cloning from a SATA drive to PCIe/NVMe, you may need to install the relevant driver for this new NVMe/PCIe drive.
Power off
Disconnect ALL drives except the current C and the new SSD
Power up

Verify the system boots with ONLY the current "C drive" connected.
If not, we have to fix that first.

Run the Macrium Reflect (or Samsung Data Migration)
Select ALL the partitions on the existing C drive

[Ignore this section if using the SDM. It does this automatically]
If you are going from a smaller drive to a larger, by default, the target partition size will be the same as the Source. You probably don't want that
You can manipulate the size of the partitions on the target (larger)drive
Click on "Cloned Partition Properties", and you can specify the resulting partition size, to even include the whole thing
[/end ignore]

Click the 'Clone' button
Wait until it is done
When it finishes, power off
Disconnect ALL drives except for the new SSD. This is not optional.
This is to allow the system to try to boot from ONLY the SSD

(swapping cables is irrelevant with NVMe drives, but DO disconnect the old drive for this next part)
Swap the SATA cables around so that the new drive is connected to the same SATA port as the old drive
Power up, and verify the BIOS boot order
If good, continue the power up

It should boot from the new drive, just like the old drive.
Maybe reboot a time or two, just to make sure.

If it works, and it should, all is good.

Later, reconnect the old drive and wipe all partitions on it.
This will probably require the commandline diskpart function, and the clean command.

Ask questions if anything is unclear.
-----------------------------

 

[Rich_Mars1]

Specification Z170-A PRO

As a world leading gaming brand, MSI is the most trusted name in gaming and eSports. We stand by our principles of breakthroughs in design, and roll out the amazing gaming gear like motherboards, graphics cards, laptops and desktops.

www.msi.com

"1 x M.2 Key M Socket supports type 2280/2260/2242 storage devices in both PCIE Gen3 x4 & SATA mode"

Your board has a PCIe 3.0 M.2 port, so your WD will work, at PCIe 3.0 performance.

"SATA3~4 ports will be unavailable when installing the M.2 PCIe interface module in M.2 slot."

SATA ports 3 and 4 will be disabled when using that WD in the M.2 port.

For cloning, see below.

To be clear it will only work if I get rid of SATA3-4 ports?
Will it detect that it's a nvme drive automatically and make the proper adjustments?
Pardon my questions, I'm kind of new to M.2 SATA/NVME drives.
If thats the case then that's good because my system drive is on port 1 and port 4 is just a storage drive. port 3 is open so no biggie losing it.
If that's the case I can clone the system drive internally and then assign the proper boot order to the NVME drive?

 

[USAFRet]

To be clear it will only work if I get rid of SATA3-4 ports?
Will it detect that it's a nvme drive automatically and make the proper adjustments?
Pardon my questions, I'm kind of new to M.2 SATA/NVME drives.
If thats the case then that's good because my system drive is on port 1 and port 4 is just a storage drive. port 3 is open so no biggie losing it.
If that's the case I can clone the system drive internally and then assign the proper boot order to the NVME drive?

Use of that WD in the M.2 port WILL disable SATA ports 3 and 4.
It simply turns them off. You don't have to 'get rid of' anything, except to not use those 2 ports.

If that's the case I can clone the system drive internally and then assign the proper boot order to the NVME drive?

See my clone steps above....the very first thing you do when the clone process completes is to power OFF, physically disconnect what used to hte old old OS drive.
Power UP with only the new WD.

This is not optional.

Adjust the boot order if needed.

 

[Lafong]

To be clear it will only work if I get rid of SATA3-4 ports?
Will it detect that it's a nvme drive automatically and make the proper adjustments?
Pardon my questions, I'm kind of new to M.2 SATA/NVME drives.
If thats the case then that's good because my system drive is on port 1 and port 4 is just a storage drive. port 3 is open so no biggie losing it.
If that's the case I can clone the system drive internally and then assign the proper boot order to the NVME drive?

If.............I say IF....................you use the SN770, SATA 3 and 4 will be automatically disabled.

Period.

You wouldn't have to "get rid of" anything. Anything attached to SATA 3 or 4 will no longer work.

 

[Rich_Mars1]

Use of that WD in the M.2 port WILL disable SATA ports 3 and 4.
It simply turns them off. You don't have to 'get rid of' anything, except to not use those 2 ports.


See my clone steps above....the very first thing you do when the clone process completes is to power OFF, physically disconnect what used to hte old old OS drive.
Power UP with only the new WD.

This is not optional.

Adjust the boot order if needed.

Bad choice of words on my part. I meant that the drive on SATA4 would be unusable (On the rig, I'll find use for it somewhere). I'll just pull it out before installing the SN770. Thank you for the speedy reply, I'll work on this tomorrow.

 

[Rich_Mars1]

If.............I say IF....................you use the SN770, SATA 3 and 4 will be automatically disabled.

Period.

You wouldn't have to "get rid of" anything. Anything attached to SATA 3 or 4 will no longer work.

Bad choice of words. Thanks for the clarification.

 

[USAFRet]

Bad choice of words on my part. I meant that the drive on SATA4 would be unusable (On the rig, I'll find use for it somewhere). I'll just pull it out before installing the SN770. Thank you for the speedy reply, I'll work on this tomorrow.

Just plug it into a different SATA port.
SATA 1 or 2.

 

[Rich_Mars1]

Just plug it into a different SATA port.
SATA 1 or 2.

SATA1 is my system drive and SATA2 is my 3TB game drive. I'm fine with losing a 128gb drive ( smallest on the system) that has Cyberpunk 2077 on it. I'll just reinstall it on another drive and use my cloud saves. Sometimes you get lucky!

 

[Rich_Mars1]

Just plug it into a different SATA port.
SATA 1 or 2.

Cloned and all up and running.

Thank you so much for the help, much appreciated.

UserBenchmarks: Game 86%, Desk 97%, Work 71%
CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K - 88.2%
GPU: Nvidia GTX 1070 - 91.4%
SSD: WD Black SN770 NVMe PCIe M.2 1TB - 246.6%
SSD: Samsung 850 Evo 250GB - 81.5%
SSD: FCCT960M500SSD1 960GB - 78.5%
HDD: Toshiba DT01ACA300 3TB - 58.4%
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 3TB - 99.1%
RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 3200 C16 2x8GB - 105.7%
MBD: MSI Z170-A PRO (MS-7971)

 

[bbqmahn]

Thanks for the great info you guys(and gals?) Just building a new rig, the mobo has 3 m.2 slots and 4 ddr slots, was toying with the idea of switching to (or adding) m.2 but after reading here, I wont waste my money, as I already have 128 gb of ddr ram.