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NVMe M.2 Drives on X79

Aivex_Someone
By Aivex_Someone
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Go to solution Solved by Lurick,

NVMe support is not included in the BIOS of x79 boards. There are a couple guides out there which can force it into the BIOS so you can boot from it but I'm not sure how reliable those are and what boards it will and won't work for.

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I wanted to know whether it would be possible to theoretically use an NVMe M.2 SSD such as a 960 evo as a boot drive on an X79 system. I'm using a Rampage IV Black Edition motherboard which has no native M.2 slots, so what issues, if any would I run into when trying to use one of these SSDs as a boot drive over an PCIe card with an M.2 slot?

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Posted

You shouldn't have any issues, it just won't run at full speed

Hello

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NVMe drives are not meant to be used as boot drives - you'll probably save 0.25s over a regular SATA SSD.

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NVMe support is not included in the BIOS of x79 boards. There are a couple guides out there which can force it into the BIOS so you can boot from it but I'm not sure how reliable those are and what boards it will and won't work for.

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8 minutes ago, Aivex_Someone said:

I wanted to know whether it would be possible to theoretically use an NVMe M.2 SSD such as a 960 evo as a boot drive on an X79 system. I'm using a Rampage IV Black Edition motherboard which has no native M.2 slots, so what issues, if any would I run into when trying to use one of these SSDs as a boot drive over an PCIe card with an M.2 slot?

https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/nvme-support-for-x79-motherboards.2428454/ 

try this

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1 minute ago, Lurick said:

NVMe support is not included in the BIOS of x79 boards. There are a couple guides out there which can force it into the BIOS so you can boot from it but I'm not sure how reliable those are and what boards it will and won't work for.

most likely not worth it as a boot drive

CPU: Intel9-9900k 5.0GHz at 1.36v  | Cooling: Custom Loop | MOTHERBOARD: ASUS ROG Z370 Maximus X Hero | RAM: CORSAIR 32GB DDR4-3200 VENGEANCE PRO RGB  | GPU: Nvidia RTX 2080Ti | PSU: CORSAIR RM850X + Cablemod modflex white cables | BOOT DRIVE: 250GB SSD Samsung 850 evo | STORAGE: 7.75TB | CASE: Fractal Design Define R6 BLackout | Display: SAMSUNG OLED 34 UW | Keyboard: HyperX Alloy elite RGB |  Mouse: Corsair M65 PRO RGB | OS: Windows 10 Pro | Phone: iPhone 11 Pro Max 256GB

 

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2 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

Nonsense. They absolutely are.

 

However, X79 boards will not support an NVMe boot drive. Old tech is old.

 

3 minutes ago, KOMTechAndGaming said:

most likely not worth it as a boot drive

 

4 minutes ago, Lurick said:

NVMe support is not included in the BIOS of x79 boards. There are a couple guides out there which can force it into the BIOS so you can boot from it but I'm not sure how reliable those are and what boards it will and won't work for.

 

8 minutes ago, steffeeh said:

NVMe drives are not meant to be used as boot drives - you'll probably save 0.25s over a regular SATA SSD.

Well thank you all for your input, mainly wanted opinions on its viability. I probably will just stick with what i've got then and look into this again whenever I do get around to updating my CPU & Board. 

 

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Just now, Aivex_Someone said:

 

 

 

Well thank you all for your input, mainly wanted opinions on its viability. I probably will just stick with what i've got then and look into this again whenever I do get around to updating my CPU & Board. 

 

good choice, i plan to upgrade end of this year

CPU: Intel9-9900k 5.0GHz at 1.36v  | Cooling: Custom Loop | MOTHERBOARD: ASUS ROG Z370 Maximus X Hero | RAM: CORSAIR 32GB DDR4-3200 VENGEANCE PRO RGB  | GPU: Nvidia RTX 2080Ti | PSU: CORSAIR RM850X + Cablemod modflex white cables | BOOT DRIVE: 250GB SSD Samsung 850 evo | STORAGE: 7.75TB | CASE: Fractal Design Define R6 BLackout | Display: SAMSUNG OLED 34 UW | Keyboard: HyperX Alloy elite RGB |  Mouse: Corsair M65 PRO RGB | OS: Windows 10 Pro | Phone: iPhone 11 Pro Max 256GB

 

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Just now, KOMTechAndGaming said:

good choice, i plan to upgrade end of this year

Im probably holding out until Intel decides to get off their asses and show real improvement or it becomes a requirement to run something I need. Anyway thanks again!

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1 hour ago, Aivex_Someone said:

Im probably holding out until Intel decides to get off their asses and show real improvement or it becomes a requirement to run something I need. Anyway thanks again!

np, i just want something new lmao :P

CPU: Intel9-9900k 5.0GHz at 1.36v  | Cooling: Custom Loop | MOTHERBOARD: ASUS ROG Z370 Maximus X Hero | RAM: CORSAIR 32GB DDR4-3200 VENGEANCE PRO RGB  | GPU: Nvidia RTX 2080Ti | PSU: CORSAIR RM850X + Cablemod modflex white cables | BOOT DRIVE: 250GB SSD Samsung 850 evo | STORAGE: 7.75TB | CASE: Fractal Design Define R6 BLackout | Display: SAMSUNG OLED 34 UW | Keyboard: HyperX Alloy elite RGB |  Mouse: Corsair M65 PRO RGB | OS: Windows 10 Pro | Phone: iPhone 11 Pro Max 256GB

 

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4 hours ago, Aivex_Someone said:

I wanted to know whether it would be possible to theoretically use an NVMe M.2 SSD such as a 960 evo as a boot drive on an X79 system. I'm using a Rampage IV Black Edition motherboard which has no native M.2 slots, so what issues, if any would I run into when trying to use one of these SSDs as a boot drive over an PCIe card with an M.2 slot?

In general as other have said if its not natively supported in the BIOS you can't use them as boot drives, however there are 2 exceptions to this. One that was mentioned is you mod your BIOS to add the NVMe support in, the mod is actually relatively straight forward using MMTool to patch it in and flash a BIOS.

 

However there is a 2nd safer option, though I have yet to test it and find out if its 100% for sure. Samsung has NVMe support built into their SSD's so your supposed to be able to set your MB BIOS to legacy mode and be able to see it and boot off of it.

My 960 EVO comes in the mail tomorrow and I will test it on my ASUS P8Z77-V Pro Z77 motherboard to confirm. Otherwise I'll be using the BIOS mod to get it to work.

 

Edit:

I'm also going to use the ASUS M.2 to PCI-E 4x adapter and place it in the 2nd graphics slot which will enable it to get PCI-E 3.0 to run at full speeds.

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@Aivex_Someone 

 

Took me most of the night testing but finally got my Samsung 960 EVO booting on my ASUS P8Z77-V Pro Z77 motherboard.

 

I first try'd to get it to boot via its own OptionROM, but sadly I couldn't get it to go. I could get it recognized in a Windows installation boot USB (though was being denied as a boot disk that could have Windows installed to it) and from within Windows too but that's as far as I could get it.

 

So then I went for the BIOS mod option, working great fully bootable! However there was one big thing that I had to fix first.

After I did the mod, I had cloned my previous drive over to the 960 EVO but it still wasn't being recognized by the BIOS. I found out that you must have an NVMe drive as a GPT volume so that UEFI support works (my previous drive was set to Legacy mode on a MBR partition table which got copyed over in the cloning process).

Part of the process of the BIOS mod to get NVMe drives to work is that it uses the EFI Windows Boot Manager to discover and boot off M.2 drives. By default our BIOS's are set to look for SATA drives.

So needless to say I had to go about converting my drive without data loss as I didn't want to format and start from scratch (another modding procedure on top of everything else) haha.

 

Then you must have specific settings in your BIOS to get it to boot properly as even though you need to have UEFI support setup and enabled you still also having to boot the PCI-E device in legacy too with the CSM module and can't have fast boot or secure boot enabled otherwise windows will crash and fail to load properly.

 

TL'DR:

YES NVMe can be used on older platforms! but its a long process of modding and you half to know what your doing vs having the support and being able to just plug N play.

 

Heres my Crystal disk Mark results on my Z77 system:

 

CDMResults_960EVO_Z77.jpg

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  • 8 months later...
  • 5 months later...
Posted
On 04/01/2017 at 6:34 PM, dbzgod said:

@Aivex_Someone 

 

Took me most of the night testing but finally got my Samsung 960 EVO booting on my ASUS P8Z77-V Pro Z77 motherboard.

 

I first try'd to get it to boot via its own OptionROM, but sadly I couldn't get it to go. I could get it recognized in a Windows installation boot USB (though was being denied as a boot disk that could have Windows installed to it) and from within Windows too but that's as far as I could get it.

 

So then I went for the BIOS mod option, working great fully bootable! However there was one big thing that I had to fix first.

After I did the mod, I had cloned my previous drive over to the 960 EVO but it still wasn't being recognized by the BIOS. I found out that you must have an NVMe drive as a GPT volume so that UEFI support works (my previous drive was set to Legacy mode on a MBR partition table which got copyed over in the cloning process).

Part of the process of the BIOS mod to get NVMe drives to work is that it uses the EFI Windows Boot Manager to discover and boot off M.2 drives. By default our BIOS's are set to look for SATA drives.

So needless to say I had to go about converting my drive without data loss as I didn't want to format and start from scratch (another modding procedure on top of everything else) haha.

 

Then you must have specific settings in your BIOS to get it to boot properly as even though you need to have UEFI support setup and enabled you still also having to boot the PCI-E device in legacy too with the CSM module and can't have fast boot or secure boot enabled otherwise windows will crash and fail to load properly.

 

TL'DR:

YES NVMe can be used on older platforms! but its a long process of modding and you half to know what your doing vs having the support and being able to just plug N play.

 

Heres my Crystal disk Mark results on my Z77 system:

 

CDMResults_960EVO_Z77.jpg

 

 

Hi dbzgod.
Thanks for your experience.
I have the same motherboard and i'd like to boot from nvme M.2.

Could you up your BIOS mod of P8Z77-V PRO please ?

 

I think i will do a mod of P8Z77-V PRO with Z97-PRO nvme extracts :

Nvme.ffs

NVMEINT13.ffs

NvmeSmm.ffs

 

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  • 1 month later...
Posted

old thread but i'd like to say i've been using a HyperX Predator on my MSI X79A-GD45 PLUS as a boot drive for over 2 years and haven't had any issues.. didn't have to do any BIOS black magic either
speeds are way better than my original sata ssd (Samsung 840 Pro)

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  • 3 months later...
Posted

i know it's an old thread, however thought it be good to notify you all that I've been running a 960 evo for over a year on a Sabertooth X79 motherboard as a boot drive.
No issues and very reliable. Speeds are as advertised on the 960 evo package.

 

Only module i inserted into the bios was the "nvme express". So none of the nvme, nvmeint13, nvmessm or samsung ones, but i imagine it must include parts of one or even all of them.

 

 

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On 08/05/2018 at 3:31 PM, muumi-N1nja said:

old thread but i'd like to say i've been using a HyperX Predator on my MSI X79A-GD45 PLUS as a boot drive for over 2 years and haven't had any issues.. didn't have to do any BIOS black magic either
speeds are way better than my original sata ssd (Samsung 840 Pro)

Sounds awesome.  I have the exact same motherboard, and I'm looking to upgrade my Samsung 830 ssd.  Been reading that for X79 boards we have to use some modded BIOS, but apparently you're saying this is not necessary for the MSI X79A-GD45 (which is really cool!).

 

Can I ask did you simply place the HyperX Predator SSD into your motherboard's PCIe port, or did you have to purchase an additional adapter?  Many thanks!

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On 9/2/2018 at 2:42 PM, blade86sam said:

i know it's an old thread, however thought it be good to notify you all that I've been running a 960 evo for over a year on a Sabertooth X79 motherboard as a boot drive.
No issues and very reliable. Speeds are as advertised on the 960 evo package.

 

Only module i inserted into the bios was the "nvme express". So none of the nvme, nvmeint13, nvmessm or samsung ones, but i imagine it must include parts of one or even all of them.

 

 

Thanks for sharing this bud.  I have the same motherboard and want to add a bootable nvme drive to my system as well.  Would you be kind enough to share with me what expansion card you are using (anything special?)?  I still need to buy the PCI card and a nvme drive.  I also have to figure out how to insert modules to the BIOS!  I didn't even know that was possible.

 

Any further tips or links you can share would be helpful.  Thanks again.

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  • 2 months later...
Posted
On 1/4/2017 at 8:34 PM, dbzgod said:

Took me most of the night testing but finally got my Samsung 960 EVO booting on my ASUS P8Z77-V Pro Z77 motherboard

Can you help with the Asus P8Z77 WS motherboard (latest) BIOS v3505 2013/04/01 (attached)  modification to be able to use the NVMe PCIe-drive as a bootable?

P8Z77-WS-ASUS-3505.zip

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On 1/2/2017 at 4:55 PM, Sakkura said:

Nonsense. They absolutely are.

 

However, X79 boards will not support an NVMe boot drive. Old tech is old.

X79-Deluxe with BIOS-4805 dose have NVME boot with Plextor M9Pe(Y) AIC Card. I to computers X79 Booting NVMe. 

     bushr1938

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  • 3 months later...
Posted

I recently purchased an X79 Huanan Xeon Motherboard Combo for an amazing price. It does have a M.2 slot on the board, but I am assuming I can use a regular 500GB SSD, right? For some reason on certain build list sites when I add a standard SSD it says it isn't compatible. Not sure why it wouldn't be though. Any answers? I'm waiting on some more parts to complete the build, so I can't just find out for myself. Thanks.

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  • 3 months later...
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36 minutes ago, TheBritishVillain said:

Well well well.... would someone like to retract their statement? ?

Let the dead lie.

 

Thread Necro Locked.

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You can trust me, I'm from the Internet.

 

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