Hello out there in PC land.. I've gotten majorly confused about the M.2 SSD thing, as it is brand new to me.
I watched some youtube videos on M.2 SSD, and did some more searching about it on the general forums around the interwebs, but some details still elude me.
I recently got some hardware handed to me by a friend, who upgraded his system and got some older parts to give away, which I was so lucky to get.
From this I got the GA-Z97X-SLI (http://www.gigabyte.us/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4957#ov) motherboard, which has a M.2 slot, supporting both sata and PCIe
For this I was thinking about buying a Intel 600p 256Gb SSD to use as boot for windows 8.1N (http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/solid-state-drives/ssd-600p-brief.html)
But as I dived in the new and unknown world of SSD/M.2/PCIe compatability a good portion of questions seem to emerge, and searching for answers only seemed to bring up more confusion.
1.st Question:
Seeing that my motherboard has the M.2 slot which supports both SATA and PCIe, buying a PCIe based SSD seemed logical, but will the M.2(PCIe1.0 /Gen 1) slot on my motherboard support the use of this Intel 600p SSD at all(with reduced speed to PCIe 1.0), seeing that the SSD features PCIe 3.0?? (here im hoping for a big fat YES, or maybe even a " Yes, M.2 PCIe slots run all PCIe generations cards, as long as the M.2 slot supports PCIe "... even tho the last one seems far fetched ) Or wont the SSD be usefull at all with out a PCIe3.0x4 adaptor card (like this: https://www.asus.com/dk/Motherboard-Accessory/HYPER_M2_X4_MINI_CARD/overview/)
----- In short: Is the newer SSD backwards compatible to the older M.2 slot------ ??
2.nd Question:
Seeing that almost all CPUs state that they will support up to x16 PCIe lanes
(x16 , 2*x8 or x8+2*x4)
Will installing a PCIe M.2 SSD in the M.2 slot use up x4 lanes, effectively cutting remaining lanes to 12, (where only 4, 8 or 16 can be used for a single GPU) effectively cutting high end performance from a PCIe3.0x16 gfx card down to running x8 lanes (which I saw in some yotube video, might not mean too much, but still), or will this only happen if I install the M.2 SSD in to a (non M.2) PCIe3.0x4 slot, with the help of a connector card, like the one linked above.
3.rd Question:
The Intel 600p SSD in mention, states that it runs/supports/has NVMe. Can still I use this SSD if my motherboard doesn't support NVMe... And will I be able to use the SSD as Boot drive? or can't I use an NVMe SSD as boot at all (even with a PCIe3.0x4 connector card) because my Mobo doesn't support NVMe??
To sum up, I think my main question lies with... can I just by this SSD and use as intended ( as primary boot/windows drive) and what features can and can't I use from it, also which speed can I expect form it (1.000mb/s)... Or do I need to buy an older 1.st Gen M.2 PCIe SSD, in order to get any function out of my fancy(but old) M.2 PCIe slot on the motherboard.
I know it's a lot, but any help would be appreciated here, as I have been trying to find heads and tails in all this for 5 days straight now, and only getting more confused every time i think i'm about to find a usable answer to my questions.
Hopefully most of this isn't gibberish
as I am quite a noob when it comes to specifics of the insides of a computer.
Sincerely
MardiOBoy
I watched some youtube videos on M.2 SSD, and did some more searching about it on the general forums around the interwebs, but some details still elude me.
I recently got some hardware handed to me by a friend, who upgraded his system and got some older parts to give away, which I was so lucky to get.
From this I got the GA-Z97X-SLI (http://www.gigabyte.us/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4957#ov) motherboard, which has a M.2 slot, supporting both sata and PCIe
For this I was thinking about buying a Intel 600p 256Gb SSD to use as boot for windows 8.1N (http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/solid-state-drives/ssd-600p-brief.html)
But as I dived in the new and unknown world of SSD/M.2/PCIe compatability a good portion of questions seem to emerge, and searching for answers only seemed to bring up more confusion.
1.st Question:
Seeing that my motherboard has the M.2 slot which supports both SATA and PCIe, buying a PCIe based SSD seemed logical, but will the M.2(PCIe1.0 /Gen 1) slot on my motherboard support the use of this Intel 600p SSD at all(with reduced speed to PCIe 1.0), seeing that the SSD features PCIe 3.0?? (here im hoping for a big fat YES, or maybe even a " Yes, M.2 PCIe slots run all PCIe generations cards, as long as the M.2 slot supports PCIe "... even tho the last one seems far fetched ) Or wont the SSD be usefull at all with out a PCIe3.0x4 adaptor card (like this: https://www.asus.com/dk/Motherboard-Accessory/HYPER_M2_X4_MINI_CARD/overview/)
----- In short: Is the newer SSD backwards compatible to the older M.2 slot------ ??
2.nd Question:
Seeing that almost all CPUs state that they will support up to x16 PCIe lanes
(x16 , 2*x8 or x8+2*x4)
Will installing a PCIe M.2 SSD in the M.2 slot use up x4 lanes, effectively cutting remaining lanes to 12, (where only 4, 8 or 16 can be used for a single GPU) effectively cutting high end performance from a PCIe3.0x16 gfx card down to running x8 lanes (which I saw in some yotube video, might not mean too much, but still), or will this only happen if I install the M.2 SSD in to a (non M.2) PCIe3.0x4 slot, with the help of a connector card, like the one linked above.
3.rd Question:
The Intel 600p SSD in mention, states that it runs/supports/has NVMe. Can still I use this SSD if my motherboard doesn't support NVMe... And will I be able to use the SSD as Boot drive? or can't I use an NVMe SSD as boot at all (even with a PCIe3.0x4 connector card) because my Mobo doesn't support NVMe??
To sum up, I think my main question lies with... can I just by this SSD and use as intended ( as primary boot/windows drive) and what features can and can't I use from it, also which speed can I expect form it (1.000mb/s)... Or do I need to buy an older 1.st Gen M.2 PCIe SSD, in order to get any function out of my fancy(but old) M.2 PCIe slot on the motherboard.
I know it's a lot, but any help would be appreciated here, as I have been trying to find heads and tails in all this for 5 days straight now, and only getting more confused every time i think i'm about to find a usable answer to my questions.
Hopefully most of this isn't gibberish
as I am quite a noob when it comes to specifics of the insides of a computer.Sincerely
MardiOBoy
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram