Question PCI-E to M2 SATA adapter RAID lanes question

frimano

Commendable
Feb 21, 2021
10
1
1,510
Hello, i'm thinking of ways add more storage to my PC and was checking PCI-E to M2 SATA adapters like this one
x2xGSXF.png


My question is how many PCI-E lanes these adapters use, i read that SATA does not use pci-e lanes, read that it uses 1 lane, i got very confused.
Do i need to bifurcate my pci-e slot in order to use both M2 slots in the adapter?
And if possible do a RAID with both drives connected to the adapter.
Mobo is a B550M Steel legend with a Ryzen 5 5600X
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
1. That adapter should take care of using 2 drives at once. If bifurcation is needed (highly unlikely) the user manual would tell you
2. Please please please don't do any RAID thing.

How many regular SATA ports are available on the motherboard? Any specific reason you want to use M.2 SATA drives?
 

frimano

Commendable
Feb 21, 2021
10
1
1,510
1. That adapter should take care of using 2 drives at once. If bifurcation is needed (highly unlikely) the user manual would tell you
2. Please please please don't do any RAID thing.

How many regular SATA ports are available on the motherboard? Any specific reason you want to use M.2 SATA drives?
1. Perfect!
2. Why?
My mobo has 6 sata ports, all are used already, reason to use M2 SATA is due to NVME using more PCI-E lanes than i have, also uses way less space.
In my mind i could use two adapters of these with cheaper M2 SATA drives and put them all on a RAID 0 to get a bit more speed.
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
1. Perfect!
2. Why?
My mobo has 6 sata ports, all are used already, reason to use M2 SATA is due to NVME using more PCI-E lanes than i have, also uses way less space.
In my mind i could use two adapters of these with cheaper M2 SATA drives and put them all on a RAID 0 to get a bit more speed.
"Why"...

RAID 0 (striped) with solid state drives give no real benefit apart from artificial benchmark numbers.
In some use cases, it is even slower, due to the RAID overhead.
 

frimano

Commendable
Feb 21, 2021
10
1
1,510
"Why"...

RAID 0 (striped) with solid state drives give no real benefit apart from artificial benchmark numbers.
In some use cases, it is even slower, due to the RAID overhead.
Gotcha, well, gotta test this setup now, no RAID then
 
D

Deleted member 2838871

Guest
Hello, i'm thinking of ways add more storage to my PC and was checking PCI-E to M2 SATA adapters like this one
2. Please please please don't do any RAID thing.

Agreed.

I use this.

Sabrent m.2 NVMe enclosure

I use it with a riser cable so I can use the slot blocked by the GPU and it works great. No conflicts… no issues.

I have 4x 2TB m.2s on board… 4x in this enclosure… and 3x SATA drives… (2x 8TB SSDs and a 12TB 7200 rpm HDD for additional backup)

I originally decided to dump HDDs altogether but ended up changing my mind and getting rid of a 10TB 5400 rpm external and keeping the internal for more backup of my sacred media files.
 

frimano

Commendable
Feb 21, 2021
10
1
1,510
Agreed.

I use this.

Sabrent m.2 NVMe enclosure

I use it with a riser cable so I can use the slot blocked by the GPU and it works great. No conflicts… no issues.

I have 4x 2TB m.2s on board… 4x in this enclosure… and 3x SATA drives… (2x 8TB SSDs and a 12TB 7200 rpm HDD for additional backup)

I originally decided to dump HDDs altogether but ended up changing my mind and getting rid of a 10TB 5400 rpm external and keeping the internal for more backup of my sacred media files.
I tought about using NVMe but it i would be able to use only one due to PCI-E lanes. If m2 SATA works it's good enough for me, SATA speeds are ok, and being able to potentialy have more 4 2TB m2 SATA drives will be sufficient. My pc case doesn't have much space for drives so this adapter thing would not only save space but also be easier to organize and install
 
D

Deleted member 2838871

Guest
I tought about using NVMe but it i would be able to use only one due to PCI-E lanes. If m2 SATA works it's good enough for me, SATA speeds are ok, and being able to potentialy have more 4 2TB m2 SATA drives will be sufficient. My pc case doesn't have much space for drives so this adapter thing would not only save space but also be easier to organize and install

Since I’m using a riser cable I couldn’t mount it to the case… so I just removed the mounting bracket from the card and secured it to case with Velcro below the GPU.

DCrL3O6.jpg

Works like a charm.