Are there any Z170 motherboards that will handle 2x m.2 PCIe SSD's as well as 6 or 8 SATA HDD's?

[Maddan]

Hi all,

Newbie to the forum here.

I've been looking hard but I haven't been able to find a Z170 motherboard that looks like it will work.

I'd like to run 2x M.2 PCIe SSD's (probably raid 1, but might just use one as a cache/scratch disk)

I also have 6x SATA HDD's running in Windows spaces 2-way mirror ( Raid 10 )

Every board that I've come across that has 2x M.2 slots loses SATA ports when running a second M.2 drive.

The Asus Z170-WS looks like it will work, but one of the M.@ slots looks like it shares with SATA, but it assigns priority to M.2 over SATA instead of disabling SATA.  I didn't want to spend that many $$ if there's a more budget friendly option that will work.
 
The Gigabyte GA Z170X Gaming GT look like a contender but I may have misread the manual re. the SATA/M.2 crossover.

I'm only running 1 GPU, so I guess I could put an adaptor into the second PCIe x16 slot and do it that way, but I'd like to keep options open for future SLI or other expansion.

The computer is mostly used as a photo editing workstation, with some video editing and some gaming.  My tests and those from others, have shown PS and LR to work better on fewer faster cores with around 4 looking like the ideal number, hence not looking at X99, or server/workstation gear.

The logical answer is either an adaptor or just suck it up and use one M.2 drive, which opens up my options considerably, but I'm stubborn so if anyone knows of a motherboard that will work I would very much appreciate your assistance.

[Divide_By_0]

The motherboard seems good, I would advise you to grab a cheap x4 to m.2 adapter if needed

[Electronics Wizardy]

14 minutes ago, Maddan said:

I also have 6x SATA SSD's running in Windows spaces 2-way mirror ( Raid 10 )

Why not run this off a raid card. You can get a h700 off ebay for about 70 these days.

 

Id also suggest getting one m.2 drive. Raid one is pointless. They have low failure rates and raid isn't a backup.

 

You don't need a m.2 scrach disk when you have a raid of 6 ssds. that will probably be about the same speed anyways.

[Energycore]

40 minutes ago, Maddan said:

Hi all,

Newbie to the forum here.

I've been looking hard but I haven't been able to find a Z170 motherboard that looks like it will work.

I'd like to run 2x M.2 PCIe SSD's (probably raid 1, but might just use one as a cache/scratch disk)

I also have 6x SATA SSD's running in Windows spaces 2-way mirror ( Raid 10 )

Every board that I've come across that has 2x M.2 slots loses SATA ports when running a second M.2 drive.

The Asus Z170-WS looks like it will work, but one of the M.@ slots looks like it shares with SATA, but it assigns priority to M.2 over SATA instead of disabling SATA.  I didn't want to spend that many $$ if there's a more budget friendly option that will work.
 
The Gigabyte GA Z170X Gaming GT look like a contender but I may have misread the manual re. the SATA/M.2 crossover.

I'm only running 1 GPU, so I guess I could put an adaptor into the second PCIe x16 slot and do it that way, but I'd like to keep options open for future SLI or other expansion.

The computer is mostly used as a photo editing workstation, with some video editing and some gaming.  My tests and those from others, have shown PS and LR to work better on fewer faster cores with around 4 looking like the ideal number, hence not looking at X99, or server/workstation gear.

The logical answer is either an adaptor or just suck it up and use one M.2 drive, which opens up my options considerably, but I'm stubborn so if anyone knows of a motherboard that will work I would very much appreciate your assistance.

I'm gonna help you this time, but know that if you go to pcpartpicker.com you can use its filters to find a motherboard with any configuration of M.2 and SATA.

 

http://pcpartpicker.com/products/motherboard/#E=1,3&K=8,10&sort=a8&page=1&qq=1

 

Honorable mention the ASRocx A88M-G/3.1 which is fucking amazing value for an FM2+ motherboard. 8 SATA Ports, 2 M.2 ports, USB 3.1, 4+2 power phase design and a VRM heatsink so you don't set your power delivery on fire when you overclock

[Maddan]

28 minutes ago, Energycore said:

I'm gonna help you this time, but know that if you go to pcpartpicker.com you can use its filters to find a motherboard with any configuration of M.2 and SATA.

 

http://pcpartpicker.com/products/motherboard/#E=1,3&K=8,10&sort=a8&page=1&qq=1

 

Honorable mention the ASRocx A88M-G/3.1 which is fucking amazing value for an FM2+ motherboard. 8 SATA Ports, 2 M.2 ports, USB 3.1, 4+2 power phase design and a VRM heatsink so you don't set your power delivery on fire when you overclock

 

 

Thanks.  I've been through PC part picker, and most of the options that it came up were not suitable after further/deeper investigation.

The ASRock looks good but I'm looking for an LGA-1151 board.

[Maddan]

57 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Why not run this off a raid card. You can get a h700 off ebay for about 70 these days.

 

Id also suggest getting one m.2 drive. Raid one is pointless. They have low failure rates and raid isn't a backup.

 

You don't need a m.2 scrach disk when you have a raid of 6 ssds. that will probably be about the same speed anyways.

 

Thanks,  I'll check them out.

The main advantage of the SSD is the random read and write speeds which are well above what I get out the 6 HDD's, which is why it had my interest as a scratch disk.