Booting on MSATA?

[An0maly_76]

I'm looking at an Intel DH77EB board, which happens to have an MSATA port on it. My limited understanding is these are the next best thing to a built-in SATA M.2 slot. However, I am wondering if since these are not PCIe, the board can boot from them, and if so, how much fuss and muss is involved. I'd be using 2nd-gen Intel if that makes a difference.

Edited October 25, 2022 by An0maly_76
Revised, more info

[Oshino Shinobu]

mSATA should just pick up as a normal SATA device as far as the board is concerned. The protocl is the same, just a different form factor so should boot no issue. Shouldn't be any more fuss than using a normal 2.5" SATA drive.

[An0maly_76]

6 minutes ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

mSATA should just pick up as a normal SATA device as far as the board is concerned. The protocl is the same, just a different form factor so should boot no issue. Shouldn't be any more fuss than using a normal 2.5" SATA drive.

Okay, that's what I thought, thanks. I just read a few old posts in other forums where people were having to fight with it to get it to work, and I think this is a better solution than what I was planning a couple hours ago (nickel-and-dime adapters for proprietary OEM boards that were not that great to start with). I'm repurposing a couple 2nd-gen Intels and I could just about buy two DH77EBs with 256GB MSATAs for what I was going to spend jumping through hoops and hurdles to reuse the OEM boards.

 

I read something else somewhere about only being able to boot on drives either larger than 128GB or 128GB and larger. Is that true? Doesn't make sense to me.

Edited October 25, 2022 by An0maly_76
Revised, more info

[Oshino Shinobu]

4 minutes ago, An0maly_76 said:

Okay, that's what I thought, thanks. I just read a few old posts in other forums where people were having to fight with it to get it to work, and I think this is a better solution than what I was planning a couple hours ago (nickel-and-dime adapters for proprietary OEM boards that were not that great to start with). I'm repurposing a couple 2nd-gen Intels and I could just about buy two DH77EBs with 256GB MSATAs for what I was going to spend jumping through hoops and hurdles to reuse the OEM boards.

 

I read something else somewhere about only being able to boot on drives either larger than 128GB or 128GB and larger. Is that true? Doesn't make sense to me.

Unless there's some odd OEM stuff that would prevent it, should be able to boot from smaller drives.

 

Only thing that should affect boot drive sizes would be support for botting from GPT over MBR. But even then if it only supports booting from MBR, that should support everything up to 2TB, shouldn't be any requirement for a minimum drive size, provided your OS fits on the drive.

[An0maly_76]

1 minute ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

Unless there's some odd OEM stuff that would prevent it, should be able to boot from smaller drives.

 

Only thing that should affect boot drive sizes would be support for botting from GPT over MBR. But even then if it only supports booting from MBR, that should support everything up to 2TB, shouldn't be any requirement for a minimum drive size, provided your OS fits on the drive.

Might just be some rhetoric left over from early hardware issues. Most of the posts I've found on it were in the 2012-2015 range.

[kokosnh]

on laptops, it should work (but well could be blocked), but on desktop, the mSATA can be a on added SATA controller, that can have the boot disable, or controlled from UEFI (as in my case with P8z68-v pro)

This one looks like native SATA II, connected to intel chipset SATA controller, but I don't understand that multiplexer on gray SATA port 

 

1 x SATA 6.0 Gb/s connector (multiplexed with an mSATA port, routed to the PCI

Express Full-/Half-Mini Card slot) (gray)

 

2 x SATA 3.0 Gb/s connector through the PCH (black)

 

2 x SATA 6.0 Gb/s connector through the PCH (blue)

And as stated, the MBR/GPT can be also a problem. 
Windows 11 only support the GPT, so UEFi boot. 
Windows 10 do support MBR, and GPT.        

[An0maly_76]

3 minutes ago, kokosnh said:

1 x SATA 6.0 Gb/s connector (multiplexed with an mSATA port, routed to the PCI

Express Full-/Half-Mini Card slot) (gray)

Obviously this may be different on the DH77EB boards I am getting, but the multiplexer raises an interesting point. Could the MSATA rob lanes from the GTX750ti and GT1050 I plan to use, just as a PCIe M.2 would rob lanes from a GPU? The reason I ask is that the x16 is PCIe3 by default. Speed cuts to PCIe2 it might be okay, but PCIe1 might be a problem.

[kokosnh]

The manual is from this board 

no, the main PCIe x16 is driven directly from the CPU and is PCIe 3.0 x16, it can't be ripped, as it has only one PCIe x16 port.

The other 3 x  PCIe x1 2.0 ports are driven from chipset, and they look OK on the diagram (can't be ripped off)

Ohh I get it. 
That mini PCIe slot next to gray SATA, are just sharing lanes.     
Didn't see that mini PCIe earlier.   (ps. that's not the M.2, it mini PCIe slot, it's physically different from M.2, but is actually physically identical to mSATA (but uses different protocol))  

[An0maly_76]

35 minutes ago, kokosnh said:

The manual is from this board 

no, the main PCIe x16 is driven directly from the CPU and is PCIe 3.0 x16, it can't be ripped, as it has only one PCIe x16 port.

The other 3 x  PCIe x1 2.0 ports are driven from chipset, and they look OK on the diagram (can't be ripped off)

Ohh I get it. 
That mini PCIe slot next to gray SATA, are just sharing lanes.     
Didn't see that mini PCIe earlier.   (ps. that's not the M.2, it mini PCIe slot, it's physically different from M.2, but is actually physically identical to mSATA (but uses different protocol))  

So occupying the MSATA slot will not affect PCIe x16 operation?

Edited October 25, 2022 by An0maly_76
Revised, more info

[kokosnh]

No, it will not rob the PCIE x16 

ahh I get it (finally)

It's actually a dual mini PCIe / mSATA port 
They are physically identical, but uses different protocol, so they had to have a multiplexer. It's first time I see it. 
If you use it with the mSATA, the gray SATA port should be disable, as they share the SATA lanes. 

[An0maly_76]

4 minutes ago, kokosnh said:

No, it will not rob the PCIE x16 

ahh I get it (finally)

It's actually a dual mini PCIe / mSATA port 
They are physically identical, but uses different protocol, so they had to have a multiplexer. It's first time I see it. 
If you use it with the mSATA, the gray SATA port should be disable, as they share the SATA lanes. 

So the two black pair and two blue pair will still work. That's good. A 512GB MSATA is a bit more expensive than a 512GB 2.5, but I've seen people say these things can boot to Win7 or Win10 in about 7-8 seconds. The i7-2600 / GTX1050 can hold its own, but that poor i3-2100 is going to need all the help it can get, even with a GTX750ti SC.

Edited October 25, 2022 by An0maly_76
Revised, more info

[kokosnh]

4 minutes ago, An0maly_76 said:

So the two black pair and two blue pair will still work.

yes 

 

 

4 minutes ago, An0maly_76 said:

A 512GB MSATA is a bit more expensive than a 512GB 2.5, but I've seen people say these things can boot to Win7 or Win10 in about 7-8 seconds.

There is no different in the SSD AHCI architecture in mSATA AHCI, SATA AHCI 2.5", or M.2 AHCI SATA.  
They use the same AHCI controllers, NAND and sometimes DRAM.  
you would be better, to buy a good SATA AHCI 2.5" SSD (more flexibility, the mSATA connector is not popular)

[An0maly_76]

7 minutes ago, kokosnh said:

There is no different in the SSD AHCI architecture in mSATA AHCI, SATA AHCI 2.5", or M.2 AHCI SATA.  

They use the same AHCI controllers, NAND and sometimes DRAM.  
you would be better, to buy a good SATA AHCI 2.5" SSD (more flexibility, the mSATA connector is not popular)

So an MSATA won't boot any faster than a 2.5?

[kokosnh]

yes, it's just different layout, the component are the same... And that mSATA is actually only SATA II, so why bother with it, if you have 2 x SATA III. 

You would be better with good SATA 2.5" SSD, like samsung 860 evo/870 evo, MX500, or KC600.