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Support for NVMe?

Support for NVMe?
« on: January 14, 2020, 11:14:25 pm »
Please help me guys, I'm confused.
Mobo is GA-Z170X-UD3 with F23G BIOS (Legacy)
I'm currently running W10 Pro off a Samsung 850 EVO 2.5" SATA SSD, but I need more storage, so I thought I would take the opportunity to uprate it to the Samsung M.2 970 EVO Plus but I'm not sure if it would fit in the Mobo. The manual is just not clear (although it does mention PCIex4).
Then, on Page 17 of the manual, the configuration suggests that under AHCI mode (which I'm using) the M2A_32G M.2 connector supports PCIex4 but then talks about various SATA connectors incl SATA Express
Then at the very bottom, after the RAID config tables (which I don't need) there is a note "The PCIeSSD runs at x2 speed.
Could one of you knowledgeable guys please explain this lot to me and advise whether it is worth going for the NVMe or sticking with the 2.5 SSD SATA drives
Thanks in advance

shadowsports

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Re: Support for NVMe?
« Reply #1 on: January 15, 2020, 03:37:52 pm »
Greetings,
The 970 is supported on your board 128GB~1T

"D" is the upper slot

"A" is the lower slot


Charts on page 17.  Since the board does not have an unlimited number of resources or lanes available, certain installations "share" resources.  This is why you see "check marks" in some areas and "x's" in others.  It's also why you see PCIe x4 SSD runs at x2 speed if you run in the "D" upper slot.

Suggest you install in the lower slot "A".  Here's why:

You will get full x4 performance from your 970
You will have use of all SATA and SATA Express connectors (if you wish)
Drive will run a little cooler since it won't be behind or near your GPU

If you want to migrate your OS, here's what you are going to do.

Create a full back up image of your windows OS
Shut down and disconnect power to your your SSD
Install the NVMe 970
Start the system, enter BIOS and ensure the NVMe device is present
Restart again
Use a bootable USB or CD to restore the image you made of your OS

Now your system is booting from the new storage

Shut down and reconnect power to your old SSD
Boot into windows, open an administrative command prompt
type diskpart, press enter
type list disk, press enter
type select disk x (Note x is an example be sure to select the correct number)

Disk x now selected

type clean, press enter
type convert gpt, press enter

Finally,

type create partition primary, press enter
type select partition x (Note x same as above example)
type active, press enter

Close the command prompt and assign a drive letter.

Hope this helps.
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Re: Support for NVMe?
« Reply #2 on: January 15, 2020, 10:28:58 pm »
Hi Shadowsports, and thankyou so much for your quick and comprehensive reply, it clarified quite a few things for me, much appreciated.
I was assuming Samsung's own Data Migration software would be the alternative way to migrate OS, Data and apps/programs across. I've used that a few times when instaling 2.5" Samsung SATA drives without problems. I will be removing the old 2.5" SATA SSD in favour of the NVMe drive.
Its in a desktop with a couple of other conventional 3.5" drives for data backup but as luck would have it, (along with the current SSD) they are currently using SATA3-2, SATA3-3, SATA3-4 and SATA3-5 so if I understand you (and the A slot table) correctly, SATA3-0 and SATA3-1 are free as a pair so that gives me full channel availablity for max performance. If I had used one connection in each of the "pairs" that would've effectively halved the bandwidth available.
Thanks again.
Now I just need to watch for my retailer of choice here in the UK to have it on a special deal, which they seem to do quite frequently.
« Last Edit: January 15, 2020, 10:54:53 pm by Ricardo »