Using a PCIe M.2 Adapter on a non M.2 Motherboard?

[TigerClaw]

I did a little bit of research on these PCIe M.2 Adapter Cards. My motherboard is an Asus P9X79 Pro. It doesn't have M.2 slots. I was told that i can boot from an M.2 NVME SSD using one of those adapter cards.

 

Currently the Motherboard is occupied with 3 PCIe cards. The GTX 1080 Ti. Soundblaster Recon 3D. and the Blackmagic Intensity Pro. The Soundcard is connected to a 4x slot. and the Capture Card is connected to a 16x slot. So the available PCIe slots are 2 16x slots in white. and one 16x in blue right underneath the graphics card. I also have 5 SSDs and a Blu-Ray Writer connected to the Sata ports.

 

The CPU is an I7 3930k which has 40 PCI Lanes. Would using a PCIe M.2 adapter with an NVME SSD hinder the performance on the Graphics Card and all the other devices installed?

[Electronics Wizardy]

You can use a nvme drive just fine, just just can't boot from it easily.

 

You have plenty of lanes, it won't hurt the gpu

 

reason why you want a nvme drive? Id probalby just get a sata drive here.

[TigerClaw]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

You can use a nvme drive just fine, just just can't boot from it easily.

 

You have plenty of lanes, it won't hurt the gpu

 

reason why you want a nvme drive? Id probalby just get a sata drive here.

I read that you can't boot from it. But someone in another thread I created said that you can.

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, TigerClaw said:

I read that you can't boot from it. But someone in another thread I created said that you can.

You can mod the bios on some board, and you can use a usb stick to hold the bootloader, but there is no easy way to boot from a nvme drive.

 

but why do you want a nvme drive anyways? What workload are you using?

[TigerClaw]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

You can mod the bios on some board, and you can use a usb stick to hold the bootloader, but there is no easy way to boot from a nvme drive.

 

but why do you want a nvme drive anyways? What workload are you using?

I don't do any workloads. Its just I been hearing a lot about NVME drives being super faster. Whooping the floor of Sata 3 SSDs. But I then found out that they don't really gain much performance in games.

[TigerClaw]

Then again. You can still use them as storage drives . But it seems counter intuitive to have an Addon card for an m.2 drive. That will be taking up some space in the case.

 

So maybe its not a good idea to invest on that. Until you built a new system down the line.

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, TigerClaw said:

I don't do any workloads. Its just I been hearing a lot about NVME drives being super faster. Whooping the floor of Sata 3 SSDs. But I then found out that they don't really gain much performance in games.

for normal consumer use the difference is tiny, esp with that older system. The qd1 random io is very similar, and those numbers that are adversed are normally at qd32 and will never be used on any desktop

[Bananasplit_00]

1 minute ago, TigerClaw said:

I don't do any workloads. Its just I been hearing a lot about NVME drives being super faster. Whooping the floor of Sata 3 SSDs. But I then found out that they don't really gain much performance in games.

they dont make sense unless you do video work in 4K or similar, for everything else id get a larger SATA SSD especially as you are going to have a hard time booting from it even if it can be done

[TigerClaw]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

for normal consumer use the difference is tiny, esp with that older system. The qd1 random io is very similar, and those numbers that are adversed are normally at qd32 and will never be used on any desktop

Having all those SSDs in my system does help with the performance when it comes to encoding audio files.

[TigerClaw]

1 minute ago, Bananasplit_00 said:

they dont make sense unless you do video work in 4K or similar, for everything else id get a larger SATA SSD especially as you are going to have a hard time booting from it even if it can be done

I figured that. Right now this system having 5 SSDs is enough. I needed plenty of storage for my media and for backups.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, TigerClaw said:

Having all those SSDs in my system does help with the performance when it comes to encoding audio files.

not really. Audio files are tiny, and they will all be cached in ram.  Compared to a hdd maybe a bit faster, but a nvme nand drive isn't helping here. optane may help much more.

[Bananasplit_00]

Just now, TigerClaw said:

I figured that. Right now this system having 5 SSDs is enough. I needed plenty of storage for my media and for backups.

for media and backups id probably just get some nice HDDs. maybe some 4TB WD red or black

[TigerClaw]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

not really. Audio files are tiny, and they will all be cached in ram.  Compared to a hdd maybe a bit faster, but a nvme nand drive isn't helping here. optane may help much more.

I usually would encode from a .wav to an mp3. It takes less time with an SSD.

[Firewrath9]

Why dont you get a dedicated pcie like a optane 800p/900p/905p

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, TigerClaw said:

I usually would encode from a .wav to an mp3. It takes less time with an SSD.

really? got numbers? Those files are tiny so they will all be cached in ram, so the drives won't even be used.

[TigerClaw]

1 minute ago, Bananasplit_00 said:

for media and backups id probably just get some nice HDDs. maybe some 4TB WD red or black

I decided to move away from HDD storage for longevity. I wanted to move away from mechanical storage due to how fast they are and for reliability.

[TigerClaw]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

really? got numbers? Those files are tiny so they will all be cached in ram, so the drives won't even be used.

Don't know the numbers. But i noticed they only take a few minutes or something to encode. and also using encoding software that supports multicore encoding.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, TigerClaw said:

I decided to move away from HDD storage for longevity. I wanted to move away from mechanical storage due to how fast they are and for reliability.

hdds should actually last longer. nand flash can lose data if unpowered for a few years.

 

But keep backups. Never rely on a single drive.

[Bananasplit_00]

1 minute ago, TigerClaw said:

I decided to move away from HDD storage for longevity. I wanted to move away from mechanical storage due to how fast they are and for reliability.

but a HDD should last longer than an SSD? you also dont have data rot to deal with

[TigerClaw]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

hdds should actually last longer. nand flash can lose data if unpowered for a few years.

 

But keep backups. Never rely on a single drive.

I have a couple of external HDDs that i use for backup too.

[WereCat]

19 minutes ago, TigerClaw said:

I read that you can't boot from it. But someone in another thread I created said that you can.

You can ONLY IF you modify your BIOS first. 

There are guides online on how to do that and it doesn't work with every motherboard. 

[TigerClaw]

1 minute ago, WereCat said:

You can ONLY IF you modify your BIOS first. 

There are guides online on how to do that and it doesn't work with every motherboard. 

Yeah I read about it. But I don't want to mess with that. I think I should only invest in M.2 NVME if I ever built a new system.

[WereCat]

Just now, TigerClaw said:

Yeah I read about it. But I don't want to mess with that. I think I should only invest in M.2 NVME if I ever built a new system.

Just get a Crucial MX500. It's one of the best SATA based SSDs and its quite cheap. 

[TigerClaw]

7 minutes ago, WereCat said:

Just get a Crucial MX500. It's one of the best SATA based SSDs and its quite cheap. 

My system currently has 5 SSDs, 1 Samsung 850 Pro 512GB, 1 Samsung 840 Pro 512GB SSD, 2 WD Blue 500GB SSDs, and 1 WD Blue 1TB SSD.

 

The two WD Blue 500GB SSDs I actually bought from Walmart. and they are the non 3D Nand ones.

[TigerClaw]

With the system now having 5 SSDs. I been noticing a high pitched whine at times. So I did some research on it. And it turns out that SSDs would emit a high pitched sound. And you can only hear it when an SSD is under heavy load.