[SOLVED] X4 PCIE M.2 SSD

[Camelious]

I have an Asus Z270-WS system and have all SATA ports in use. Though I need to add one more SSD. I thought I should use the M.2 Slots for that. Though I have to be careful as to which port and which drive to use because it could disable one of my other SATA ports.
There are two sockets M.2_1 and M2_2. The manual says:

The M.2_1 socket shares bandwidth with the SATA6G_56 ports.
When using M.2 PCIE devices in X2 mode, SATA_56 ports will not be disabled.
When using M.2 PCIE devices in X4 mode, SATA_56 ports will be disabled.

The M.2_2 socket shares bandwidth with the U.2_2 connector and SATA6G_1 port.
When using M.2 socket with PCIE bandwidth, SATA6G_1 port will not be disabled and U.2_2 connector will be disabled.
When using M.2 socket with SATA bandwidth, SATA6G_1 port and U.2_2 connector will disabled.

When using U.2_2 connector, SATA6G_1 port will not be disabled and M.2_2 connector will be disabled.

So, my understanding is that I have mainly two options.

1. Using the first M.2_1 socket with an M.2 PCIEx4 SSD drive in which case I have to be sure the drive is PCIEx4 (how do I find that out? Models I have searched for do not say about X4 or X2)
2. Using the second M.2_2 socket with an M2 PCIE SSD drive without caring about X4.

Since most drives do not mention PCIE X4 or X2 should I presume They are X4?
Any recommendations for 1TB M.2 drives for my MB?

Thank you very much

 

[kerberos_20]

drives are x4
some very old drives run in x2 mode, but u can get those just from used market

 

[Camelious]

Thank you very much!

 

[Maxxify]

x4 drives will work fine, just set the M.2_1 slot to x2 mode in the BIOS. Many x4 drives will be fine with just x2 bandwidth regardless, for example any drive in my "Budget NVMe" category (look up NewMaxx Guide). There are also explicitly x2 drives like the WD SN500. In general though I don't think you have to be concerned with sequential performance so any NVMe drive will be fine, just remember to set the BIOS to x2.

 

[Camelious]

Thank you very much!

 

[popatim]

You don't mention what state your PCIE slots are in so you may have a couple more choices.

Choice 3 - PCIE M2 NVME card.
Choice 4 - PCIE Sata controller add-in card (check for compatibility issues with your chipset sata controller)