I just purchased a PCI-e 3.0 4x to M.2 Adapter Card, the problem is I just realized my motherboard only has the following PCI slots available and I need more SATA3 slots to install more mechanical storage drives. I need to know which slot to install the adapter card into, and where to install the PCI to SATA3 ports card (feel free to recommend a card you have used that has a fair price and positive reviews on Newegg or Amazon).
My thoughts are that since the PCI-e 3.0 4x to M.2 Adapter Card is Gen 3 X4 then, the X8 slot (slot 1) should be more than sufficient and therefore leave the (slot 4) open for the SATA3 ports card. I get the feeling that if I do this the Silicon Power 256GB M.2 will not perform at max 8GB/s>16GB/s.
PCI:
SLOT1 PCI Express 3.0 x8, 8 GB/s PCI-e 3.0 4x to M.2 Adapter Card here?
SLOT2 PCI Express 3.0 x16, 16 GB/s used for GPU at the moment
SLOT3 PCI Express 2.0 x1, 0.5 GB/s
SLOT4 PCI Express 3.0 x16, 16 GB/s PCI-e 3.0 to SATA3 Ports Card here?
SLOT5 PCI Express 2.0 x4, 2 GB/s
SLOT6 PCI 2.3 (32 bit, 33 MHz), 133 MB/s
Storage (HDD/SSD):
SATA3-HDD0 Intel AHCI SATA 3.0, 6 Gbps used for mechanical data drive
SATA3-HDD1 Intel AHCI SATA 3.0, 6 Gbps used for mechanical data drive
SATA2-HDD2 Intel ACHI SATA 2.0, 3 Gbps
SATA2-HDD3 Intel ACHI SATA 2.0, 3 Gbps
Storage (ODD):
SATA2-ODD0 Intel AHCI SATA 2.0, 3 Gbps
SATA2-ODD1 Intel AHCI SATA 2.0, 3 Gbps
My thoughts are that since the PCI-e 3.0 4x to M.2 Adapter Card is Gen 3 X4 then, the X8 slot (slot 1) should be more than sufficient and therefore leave the (slot 4) open for the SATA3 ports card. I get the feeling that if I do this the Silicon Power 256GB M.2 will not perform at max 8GB/s>16GB/s.
PCI:
SLOT1 PCI Express 3.0 x8, 8 GB/s PCI-e 3.0 4x to M.2 Adapter Card here?
SLOT2 PCI Express 3.0 x16, 16 GB/s used for GPU at the moment
SLOT3 PCI Express 2.0 x1, 0.5 GB/s
SLOT4 PCI Express 3.0 x16, 16 GB/s PCI-e 3.0 to SATA3 Ports Card here?
SLOT5 PCI Express 2.0 x4, 2 GB/s
SLOT6 PCI 2.3 (32 bit, 33 MHz), 133 MB/s
Storage (HDD/SSD):
SATA3-HDD0 Intel AHCI SATA 3.0, 6 Gbps used for mechanical data drive
SATA3-HDD1 Intel AHCI SATA 3.0, 6 Gbps used for mechanical data drive
SATA2-HDD2 Intel ACHI SATA 2.0, 3 Gbps
SATA2-HDD3 Intel ACHI SATA 2.0, 3 Gbps
Storage (ODD):
SATA2-ODD0 Intel AHCI SATA 2.0, 3 Gbps
SATA2-ODD1 Intel AHCI SATA 2.0, 3 Gbps