Question Which m.2 slot should i use?

[sodium.in.toilet]

I5 7640x
Evga x299 ftw k

This motherboard has 3 m.2 slots. In the book it says

Key-m 110mm x4 cpu lanes
Key-m 80mm x4 PCH lanes
Key-e 32mm x1 PCH lane

I'm using a WD black 3400mbs nvme m.2 drive.

The book also says m.2 key-m 80mm slots on this board support PCI-E, NVMe, Intel optane and data m.2 standards.

This motherboard does NOT have any lane replication via PLX; all lanes are native and delivered from CPU or PCH. This also allows for improvemed backwards compatibility for Gen 2 devices.

Does this mean I need to put the m.2 drive into the 80mm one since it's an NVMe drive? Since the 7640x only has 16 pci lanes, does that mean my gpu will run on 8 if I have the m.2 drive in the 110mm slot? What are the advantages of using the cpu lanes instead of PCH lanes? How do I know how many PCH lanes I have? What would the 32mm m.2 slot be used for? It's in the io cover next to the usb ports and all that and the io shield has holes for wifi antennas, the board also came with a wifi chip bracket, is that what its used for? I have a pci 1 wifi card that I took out because it made my gpu run at x8 instead of 16, could i take the wifi card apart and put the wifi chip in the m.2 slot so that I can have 16 lanes and still use wifi? It's not a big deal since I have an ethernet cable now it would just be good to know.

Also, I plan to use 3 hard drives in raid 0 along with my m.2 as my boot drive, is this limiting the cpu? I think maybe the sata ports are limited since I'm using the 7640x but I'm not sure how that works.

Sorry for all the questions, this is a new motherboard that has a bunch of different features than my last one.

 

[USAFRet]

Either of the first 2. Your 2280 size SSD will fit either.
The "key-e" is for a different type device.


3x HDD in RAID 0?
Why?

 

[sodium.in.toilet]

Either of the first 2. Your 2280 size SSD will fit either.
The "key-e" is for a different type device.


3x HDD in RAID 0?
Why?

My ssd is only 500gb so that doesn't get me anywhere with games. I set these drives up in raid with my old board just to see if there was a noticable difference in speed, and decided to keep it. I dont think my raid is lost because supposedly the raid stuff is stored on the hard drives and doesnt have much to do with the motherboard. I will be smart this time and back mostly everything up to my old laptop since it's not being used and has 1tb of free space.

If my raid volume is lost then I'm not sure I will use it again. High capacity SSDs would be good but I'm trying to upgrade my cpu and gpu before anything else.

 

[USAFRet]

My ssd is only 500gb so that doesn't get me anywhere with games. I set these drives up in raid with my old board just to see if there was a noticable difference in speed, and decided to keep it. I dont think my raid is lost because supposedly the raid stuff is stored on the hard drives and doesnt have much to do with the motherboard. I will be smart this time and back mostly everything up to my old laptop since it's not being used and has 1tb of free space.

If my raid volume is lost then I'm not sure I will use it again. High capacity SSDs would be good but I'm trying to upgrade my cpu and gpu before anything else.

No....the "raid stuff" is not contained in the drives.
It requires a controller. Software, motherboard, dedicated RAID card. You can't just slap 3 drives into a whole new system and still be the same RAID 0.

 

[sodium.in.toilet]

No....the "raid stuff" is not contained in the drives.
It requires a controller. Software, motherboard, dedicated RAID card. You can't just slap 3 drives into a whole new system and still be the same RAID 0.

Well I dont know about that I'm just going off what I was told. Usually people call it "fake raid" and I'm not sure how that works compared to normal raid or if x299 has the "fake raid". I dont have any sort of raid controller, just intel rapid storage which came with the board.

Either way I have everything downloaded so even if it's gone I just have to transfer the files.

How come clearing bios doesnt reset the raid?

 

[USAFRet]

The 3x drives and their RAID is not a self contained unit.
They also need a controller of some sort.

Unlikely your new motherboard will talk to them the same way the old one did.
But go ahead...try it.

 

[sodium.in.toilet]

The 3x drives and their RAID is not a self contained unit.
They also need a controller of some sort.

Unlikely your new motherboard will talk to them the same way the old one did.
But go ahead...try it.

I went ahead...and tried it.

My raid volume is fine and recognized, I didnt even have to change any settings in bios. Lol.

 

[USAFRet]

I went ahead...and tried it.

My raid volume is fine and recognized, I didnt even have to change any settings in bios. Lol.

And you've since instituted a full, automated backup routine?

 

[sodium.in.toilet]

And you've since instituted a full, automated backup routine?

Not yet but I'm going to as soon as I get everything set up