M.2 assistance

[Mikius10001]

So, forgive me if I miss something or explain incorrectly, this is why I'm here

 

First off, hardware.

X470 Aorus Gaming Wifi 5 Rev 1.0 (https://www.gigabyte.com/ca/Motherboard/X470-AORUS-GAMING-5-WIFI-rev-10#kf)

WD Blue SN550 NVMe SSD (https://shop.westerndigital.com/en-ca/products/internal-drives/wd-blue-sn550-nvme-ssd#WDS250G2B0C)

WD Blue Solid State Drive 3d (https://shop.westerndigital.com/products/internal-drives/wd-blue-3d-nand-sata-ssd#WDS250G2B0B)

 

So, there are 2 m.2 slots. The M2A, and the M2B. I put the SN550 in the M2A, and the SSD in the M2B figuring the better drive goes in the better slot, right? No. I found out according to my manual ((Note) The M2B_SOCKET connector supports only PCIe SSDs.) So, I swapped them because I'm a bone head and didn't realize this. So now at least they are both detected. My issue/question is, the M2A is PCIe 3.0 x4, while the M2B is only PCIe 2.0 4x. This SN550 can do "theoretically up to 2400 MB/s". but I'm only getting 1600MB/s roughly. Is this simply a limitation of the PCIe 2.0 slot? After digging a bit a 2.0 slot should at least do 2000 MB/s at a theoretical max. Am I missing something?

 

*Edited for spelling*

[Mikius10001]

Additive to this, I have 3 other SATA drives, an SSD and two HDD. I'm looking to move all the data off the HDD on to this new drive in order to completely remove them from the system. I was having issues with the drives sharing lanes with the m.2 SATA SSD, but have since resolved that.

[Paroxy]

From the specs page for your board:

• M2A_SOCKET: 1 x M.2 connector (Socket 3, M key, type 2242/2260/2280/22110 SATA and PCIe 3.0 x4 (Note 2)/x2 SSD support)
• M2B_SOCKET: 1 x M.2 connector (Socket 3, M key, type 2242/2260/2280 PCIe 2.0 x4/x2 SSD support)

 

It looks like you got screwed by the engineering team at GB: M2A is the faster slot, but it's also the only one that supports SATA.  So you have to put your slower SATA SSD in the the faster Gen 3 slot and your faster NVMe SSD in the slower Gen 2 slot.    That speed you are getting is about right for PCIe Gen 2.

 

You may want to get a SATA M.2 to PCIe card for the SATA drive and move the NVMe to it's rightful spot in the M2A socket.

 

Alos, it isn't mentioned in your manual, but often when you install a SATA M.2 drive one of the SATA ports gets disabled.

[Mikius10001]

Yeah, after some fiddling I got it figured out, and you're right. Looking like I may get an add in card just to make it easier and to take full advantage of the read/write of the SN5500.

 

https://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX75786

 

As for this "Alos, it isn't mentioned in your manual, but often when you install a SATA M.2 drive one of the SATA ports gets disabled", yeah, it's port 0 and 1 in fact. So I moved my 850 to port 5

[Paroxy]

On 4/9/2020 at 1:46 AM, Mikius10001 said:

 

https://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX75786

 

Yeah that one looks perfect.  I use a similar one in my shop to test drives and do backups. Works good but you may not be able to use it as a boot drive, but I assume your Windows is installed on your NVMe drive anyways.  You'll need to connect a SATA cable between it and one of your SATA ports.

[Mikius10001]

23 hours ago, Paroxy said:

Yeah that one looks perfect.  I use a similar one in my shop to test drives and do backups. Works good but you may not be able to use it as a boot drive, but I assume your Windows is installed on your NVMe drive anyways.  You'll need to connect a SATA cable between it and one of your SATA ports.

I know this is going to sound silly, but my boot drive is an 850 EVO 250 GB, only thing on it is windows, lol. I know I should put the boot on one of these newer ones, but I have the 1TB for games, and the 500gb for video files. I like to keep the data clean  Thanks for your help on this one!