M.2 SATA connected but not used

Mando772004 · January 5

I have an m.2 sata connected to my motherboard but its not working because my mobo doesnt support m.2 sata, i didnt know that until after i bought it but its fine. i just wanna know can this negatively affect my pc in any way?

SImoHayha · January 5

how is it connected?? Are you sure it's not supported and you simply forgot to initalize the disk in windows?

Mando772004 · January 5

1 hour ago, Ramamataz said:

how is it connected?? Are you sure it's not supported and you simply forgot to initalize the disk in windows?

in the m,2 port, i checked the support page for my b650 aorus pro ax, it doesnt support m.2 sata. is having it connected gonna affect anything?

mariushm · January 5

if you're sure none of the ports on motherboard support SATA in the M.2 connector (some have SATA but it's shared with regular sata ports, one becomes disabled if other is used) ... if you're sure, you can buy adapters to connect the drive to a regular sata port.

Here's an example : https://www.ebay.com/itm/155841391962

Bottom (closest to pcb) m.2 connector is connected to the pci-e lanes in the slot (so it's x1, x2 or x4 depending on how many lanes the slot has)

The top m.2 connector is just sata, and simply routes the sata wires to that sata connector on the board, so you just use a sata cable between that connector and a regular sata port on the motherboard.

if you don't want to waste pci-e slots, there's adapter boards that convert the m.2 to sata : https://www.ebay.com/itm/386308394088

There's also some that have case like a 2.5" drive, like for example this one : https://www.ebay.com/itm/145522629427

- but this one i don't really like because the voltage regulator on the board (which converts 5v to 3.3v M.2 SATA drives need) is kind of weak and may not be able to provide enough power for all sata drives out there (it can only produce around 3.3v x 1A = ~4w , some sata drives can consume 2-3A (6-9w) when writing a lot.

The one in the previous example (the m.2 - sata adapter board) above can do 3A or around 10w easily.