Jump to content

Storage Raid0 Question Asus z270m Plus Mobo

Alternative301
By Alternative301
in Storage Devices
 Share
Posted

I am new to doing m.2 installs in general and have a question regarding the speed of doing a Motherboard Raid0 setup vs a Asus Hyper M.2 PCIE expansion card Raid Setup.
I am using the Asus PRIME 270m Plus Motherboard. I am currently running my Win10 Pro -x64 Bit on one single Non NVME m.2 SSD.

 

Note - Both Pioneer M.2 NVME i am purchasing are version 3 not version 4.


Amazon NVME m.2 Drive Link
https://www.amazon.com/Pioneer-Internal-Solid-State-Drive/dp/B07P5QFRGJ?th=1

I also i checked and my Bios and my Bios revision does have the Enable Asus Hyper Expansion card checkbox so i assume its compatible.


Amazon Link for my Motherboard Model
https://www.amazon.com/ASUS-PRIME-Z270M-Plus-LGA1151-Motherboard/dp/B01N1Q2P77

 

Asus Hyper Card Amazon Link
https://www.amazon.com/ASUS-M-2-X16-V2-Threadripper/dp/B07NQBQB6Z/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=hyper+m.2&qid=1588130084&sr=8-1

According to my motherboard manual and the Hyper specs on amazon, all my Individual Plug or Slot standards are PCIE 3.0 (not PCIE 4.0) at a x4 modifier. The difference being 2 motherboard dedicated direct plug slots or up to 4 on the Asus Hyper Expansion Card.


Question 1 ...
I am wondering are there benefits to running 2 NVME in Raid0 on the Asus hyper card out of a x16 secondary PCIE slot VS ---> on this z270m board directly(x2)?

PCIE slot 1 being used by A Video Card already. 

 

Question 2 ...
Are Asus Hyper m.2 Expansion cards a Operating System boot compatible technology?

 

I am new to this install and the first time i have done a NVME M.2 Mod. I have been out of the building game and the last installs i did were still Cable based SSD HD and RPM HD Installs.
Worst cast scenario is i only drop 50 dollars on the Asus Expansion card and it doesnt load correctly and am forced to use the other config.

 

Question 3 ...
Is it faster with my motherboard to run a single NVME from a single PCIEx16 to NVME card adapter for one single NVME drive out of the secondary PCIEx16 Slot or Run a single off the Primary off the Main m.2 Slot of the MOBO?

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07JKR5C3Z/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

(Post Edited for Accuracy)


Any information much appreciated.

George.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

1. You can't use the hyper m.2 for more than one m.2 drive, as it needs pcie bifurcation support. The bottom pcie slot on that board only runs at x4 from the chipset.

 

Running off the chipset limits you to about 3.5(ish) gB/s as thats the speed of the dmi. There is no way to have a ssd setup have over 3.5gB/s on that board without moving the gpu to the bottom slot

 

2. Yup you can boot from it.

 

But why 2 drives? Id get a single drive, its faster or about the same in almost all uses, and easier to setup and worth with.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

honestly, m.2 is SO FAST i wouldn't bother doing a RAID0 on it. i'd also rather buy a faster m.2 like the samsung 970s (evo or non)  instead. 

that being said i've seen spotty motherboard support on m.2 RAID. some people report that it's not even possible on my STRIX MoBo. i haven't tried. 

 

overall i'd just say raid0 isn't worth it on M.2 in MOST cases. what kind of work are you doing that needs crazy r/w speed?

We can't Benchmark like we used to, but we have our ways. One trick is to shove more GPUs in your computer. Like the time I needed to NV-Link, because I needed a higher HeavenBench score, so I did an SLI, which is what they called NV-Link back in the day. So, I decided to put two GPUs in my computer, which was the style at the time. Now, to add another GPU to your computer, costs a new PSU. Now in those days PSUs said OCZ on them, "Gimme 750W OCZs for an SLI" you'd say. Now where were we? Oh yeah, the important thing was that I had two GPUs in my rig, which was the style at the time! They didn't have RGB PSUs at the time, because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big green ones. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
  • Author

Thanks for the responses. I bought 2 because the prices on two drives was cheaper in my case instead of buying a gigantic one. I am a power user who does some light editing but mostly i use my PC for Media and Gaming. Overall on average i use around 3 to 4 TB of total storage. 

 

I will take this into account when i decide what to do. If it doesn't work as raid, i am sure i will enjoy single use as well. 

As well i haven't decided to do a drive clone or fresh install. last time i tried a drive clone of Win10 1903, it caused config problems with my Windows. 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

The Hyper absolutely won't work on that board, among other things wrong with the idea. You won't get any benefit from RAID on that board either.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
  • Author

I got these parts today and did some speed benchmarks. They matched the advertised speeds very close being, slightly under. I found that running in Raid does not seem to benefit me in terms of speed. This could be due to maxing out the slot capabilities. (my best guess) The thing i do like is seeing all my storage under one drive though.  These drives are very noticeably faster than the last SATA drives. 

 

I got 90 to 110 Mbps from a standard hybrid SATA SSD drive to a SATA M.2 or NVME M.2. slow no matter what.

 

I then tried SATAM.2 to NVME PCIE, I got 350-450 Steady mbps on a manual transfer. 

 

Last i installed the 2 NVME and booted them via Hardware Raid0 in Asus Bios. 

 

The windows install time was around exactly 5 to 6 minutes from a flash USB.

 

Once i installed and updated the  drivers of this  NVME Raid0 config, I didn't have any other NVME to manually transfer to so I ran a CrystalDisk Benchmark.

 

                       Read                      Write

Pass 1        3.157Gbps       2.917Gbps

Pass 2        2.160Gbps       2.490Gbps

Pass 3        1.097Gbps       1.151Gbps

Pass 4        0.048Gbps       0.140Gbps

 

My pass  test settings were set to

 

Pass 1   -   Sequential 1 Mib / Ques = 8 / Threads = 1

Pass 2   -   Sequential 1 Mib /Ques = 1 / Threads = 1

Pass 3   -   Random 4 Kib       /Ques = 32/ Threads = 16

Pass 4   -   Random 4 Kib       /Ques = 1  / Threads = 1  

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share
Go to topic listing Storage Devices

×