m.2 Shared M.2 Bandwith Question

[Nevermore18]

Hi guys,

 

Nevermore here, first time writing in on this forum but been reading for a little bit now. I got a question regarding my a storage upgrade for my computer.

Currently I'm running on this system, but I would like to add 1TB Samsung 970 EVO (MZ-V7E1T0BW) because I can buy it really cheap. I have noticed that when I do such on the PCPartPicker, I get a message stating that "The motherboard M.2 slot #1 shares bandwidth with SATA 6.0 Gb/s ports. When the M.2 slot is populated, two SATA 6.0 Gb/s ports are disabled" and I am not entirely sure what that means and would like to ask you her some assistance. I have read the manual but I'm afraid that I am even more confused.

Would it be possible for me to add the M.2 without slowing down the other 2 ssd's?

Any advise is appreciated.

 

Thank you

 

 

[Tristerin]

I don't like suspect links - what motherboard specifically?

 

What it means is that when you populate an M.2 port on your board, it shares SATA data ports on the motherboards PCIe lanes lanes to communicate with the stuff.  So if you install an M.2 in that slot, it will disable 2 (typically 1 and 2) SATA data ports on your mobo as it will be saturating these PCIe lanes to use that slot.

 

If you have 4-6 SATA data ports, and 1 M.2. that means if you populate and use the M.2 slot, you will then have access to 2-4 SATA data ports on the mobo.

[Nevermore18]

Hi Tristerin,

 

Thank you for your reply. I'm running on MSI Z170A Gaming M7.

If M.2 slot is occupied, most likely SATA slots 1 and 2 will be disabled however will the remaining be affected?

[Dedayog]

1 hour ago, Nevermore18 said:

Hi Tristerin,

 

Thank you for your reply. I'm running on MSI Z170A Gaming M7.

If M.2 slot is occupied, most likely SATA slots 1 and 2 will be disabled however will the remaining be affected?

The remaining will be untouched.  Think of sharing as one or the other, they don't actually "share" the lanes as in work at the same time half speed.  One works, and the other doesn't.  

 

Your manual will tell you exactly what SATA ports are turned off, please reference that.

[Nevermore18]

Thank you guys for your assistance.