M.2 Ports with SATA port disabled work around?

[SaintERosa]

Hey guys so here is my question, is there a work around the disabiling of SATA ports when using an M.2 slot (WD Black 500gb NVME M.2 Drive)?

 

Motherboard: Asrock Z270 Extreme 4

Boot: M.2 WD Black 500Gb NVME in the M.2 slot

Problem: Disables 2 SATA ports

 

Theoretical Solution: PCIE x4 M.2 Card to mount the M.2 and get same speeds as M.2 slot but won't disable 2 SATA ports (I want to add more storage one day).

 

Will this drive still be bootable? Or will it not be usable as a boot drive?

 

Please Note: The SATA ports actually do get disabled, I've tested it.

[Fasauceome]

I sort of ignored it on my board and just used the ports I was told would be "disabled". Might work for you too.

[SaintERosa]

Just now, fasauceome said:

I sort of ignored it on my board and just used the ports I was told would be "disabled". Might work for you too.

I should of mentioned they actually do get disabled.

[Alex Atkin UK]

I believe the answer is it may or may not be bootable depending on the BIOS and the card you are using.

 

It also might not be as fast, as it will be sharing PCIe with the other slots.  If you have a GPU then it may reduce the speed of its PCIe slot.

 

Basically the whole reason why those SATA ports get disabled is to allow you a dedicated x4 PCIe lanes for the NVME, so it can run full speed.  You are attempting to bypass that limitation so your results will more than likely be sub-optimal.