[SOLVED] Options for upgrading on a g1.sniper-z170?

[Heart_Collector]

Okay so I know some basics and my knowledge is dated by about a decade (Fair warning).

I bought this computer a few years ago and the motherboard is a g1.sniper-z170 and I am not sure if I understand correctly so just wanted to clarify a few things and then ask my questions.

According to manual: https://download.gigabyte.com/FileList/Manual/mb_manual_g1.sniper-z170_e.pdf

It looks like I have one m2 slot, in which there is a 500gb ssd installed in (Windows / gaming drive: SanDisk 512GB 2.5" and M.2 SSD),
I also have a 7200rpm one terabyte back up data dump hard drive I keep old music and pictures on (I do not want more of these types of drives).

Maybe I am missing something but many of the hard drives I see advertised at decent prices and high speed (Samsung Evo 970) look like they need to go in that little m2 slot.

I keep reading about pci-x hard drives that use 2/4/8, but when I look them up, they are 1000$ and more for less than a terabyte of space (These look to be the size of a video card that will go in the slots near the pci-x 16x slot (The video card is in). Why are these so expensive?

Am I missing something, is there some way to have more of these M2 hard drives beyond that one slot hook up I seem to have, is there a way to utilize my pci x slots for them without buying these ridiculous sized and priced video card sized hard drives? I really wanted to get some more + faster storage in this thing and was wondering if I am just confused and not realizing my options. I've been out of the game awhile the whole m2 / nvme / pci-x slots are confusing me. Any help appreciated.

 

[white.a.drew]

Okay so I know some basics and my knowledge is dated by about a decade (Fair warning).

I bought this computer a few years ago and the motherboard is a g1.sniper-z170 and I am not sure if I understand correctly so just wanted to clarify a few things and then ask my questions.

According to manual: https://download.gigabyte.com/FileList/Manual/mb_manual_g1.sniper-z170_e.pdf

It looks like I have one m2 slot, in which there is a 500gb ssd installed in (Windows / gaming drive: SanDisk 512GB 2.5" and M.2 SSD),
I also have a 7200rpm one terabyte back up data dump hard drive I keep old music and pictures on (I do not want more of these types of drives).

Maybe I am missing something but many of the hard drives I see advertised at decent prices and high speed (Samsung Evo 970) look like they need to go in that little m2 slot.

I keep reading about pci-x hard drives that use 2/4/8, but when I look them up, they are 1000$ and more for less than a terabyte of space (These look to be the size of a video card that will go in the slots near the pci-x 16x slot (The video card is in). Why are these so expensive?

Am I missing something, is there some way to have more of these M2 hard drives beyond that one slot hook up I seem to have, is there a way to utilize my pci x slots for them without buying these ridiculous sized and priced video card sized hard drives? I really wanted to get some more + faster storage in this thing and was wondering if I am just confused and not realizing my options. I've been out of the game awhile the whole m2 / nvme / pci-x slots are confusing me. Any help appreciated.

So imstead of buying a "hdd" that is slow buy it's newer brother the ssd "solid state drive" looks similar to a hdd but faster and a little more compact still uses cable though

 

[Heart_Collector]

So imstead of buying a "hdd" that is slow buy it's newer brother the ssd "solid state drive" looks similar to a hdd but faster and a little more compact still uses cable though

Ah okay, I didn't realize ssd came in normal size hard drives, I thought they had to be this m2 / nvme slot. I will research more on this.

 

[Heart_Collector]

So reading this motherboard has sata express slots (3 I believe), does that mean I could buy three pci x 2.5 drives and hook them up to the sata express slots? Do these just plug and play or do they need seperate power runs in addition to the sata express cord? Will these just plug in and work with the m2 ssd and the 7200 drive that already exist?

 

[white.a.drew]

They need they're own power from the psu and yes they are just plug and play with the existing drives. Yes three of them will work at high speeds off the express sata if there's three pirts

So reading this motherboard has sata express slots (3 I believe), does that mean I could buy three pci x 2.5 drives and hook them up to the sata express slots? Do these just plug and play or do they need seperate power runs in addition to the sata express cord? Will these just plug in and work with the m2 ssd and the 7200 drive that already exist?

 

[Heart_Collector]

So I've been researching all these things and I am learning (Until all this I had no idea what SATA III, SATA Express and M.2 and NVME were). I still have some confusion about how a 2.5 drive that is pci-x hooks up, but I can see that Sata Express seems to never have taken off but I can still use the hookups on it for SATA III drives, of which I can get ssd's for but are capped at 6gb/s.

I have also learned that nvme m.2 drives are much faster than regular ssd, so it would make sense to utilize my one slot to its fullest. I am thinking about maybe putting windows and apps on a 500 gigabyte SATA III SSD (Taking them off the m.2 Sandisk SSD that is 500 gigabytes) and putting a one terabyte nvme m.2 in to keep my games and audio work on. I will then still retain the 7,200 terabyte WD1003FZEX as a long term storage data dump.

I actually opened up the computer and familiarized myself with what was going on and realized that there is just enough hookups on the power supply to supply everything it came with, and the rest of the portions are empty. So I will have to get some kind of power supply cables to run to the new SATA III drives.

 

[Heart_Collector]

So if anyone's still reading and would be able to double check me before I actually buy anything this is what im thinking.

Samsung 860 Pro Series 2.5" 512GB SATA III - OS and Apps.
Samsung 970 EVO Plus M.2 2280 1TB PCIe Gen 3.0 x4, NVMe 1.3 - Gaming, audio and photo work
Keeping my WD 7200rpm 1 TB data dumper

As far as I could tell from going over my motherboard, even though its long in the tooth I think it will support these upgrades assuming I can find a way to get more power supply cables to hook up the additional SATA III. I am just wondering if all these different types of hard drives will all hook up and play nice together?

 

[white.a.drew]

So if anyone's still reading and would be able to double check me before I actually buy anything this is what im thinking.

Samsung 860 Pro Series 2.5" 512GB SATA III - OS and Apps.
Samsung 970 EVO Plus M.2 2280 1TB PCIe Gen 3.0 x4, NVMe 1.3 - Gaming, audio and photo work
Keeping my WD 7200rpm 1 TB data dumper

As far as I could tell from going over my motherboard, even though its long in the tooth I think it will support these upgrades assuming I can find a way to get more power supply cables to hook up the additional SATA III. I am just wondering if all these different types of hard drives will all hook up and play nice together?

Sorry i feel asleep late-night

 

[Heart_Collector]

Sorry i feel asleep late-night

Hey no worries, I appreciate your help and it pushed me to learn.

 

[white.a.drew]

So if anyone's still reading and would be able to double check me before I actually buy anything this is what im thinking.

Samsung 860 Pro Series 2.5" 512GB SATA III - OS and Apps.
Samsung 970 EVO Plus M.2 2280 1TB PCIe Gen 3.0 x4, NVMe 1.3 - Gaming, audio and photo work
Keeping my WD 7200rpm 1 TB data dumper

As far as I could tell from going over my motherboard, even though its long in the tooth I think it will support these upgrades assuming I can find a way to get more power supply cables to hook up the additional SATA III. I am just wondering if all these different types of hard drives will all hook up and play nice together?

Deepeneding on your psu you should already have the power cables you need for the ssd's has for playing nicely with your other drives yhere should be no problems at all it's just more memory for storage it shouldn't cause any issues