Which NVMe slot(s) on ASUS z490 board?

[johnny2678]

Here's the board diagram.

 

 

Seems pretty obvious to me that if I add 1 NVMe drive it should be in slot B - I would just lose a PCIEx1 slot.

 

But what if I wanted to add a second NVMe drive? 

 

looks like slots C & D both share bandwith with the HDD/SDD SATA ports.  Will that affect array performance?  Will I get lower performance from the NVMe drive?

[ChatNoir]

Seems to me that M.2_1 and M.2_2 only are compatible with SSDs.

The M.2 connector have several different keying to prevent pluggin the wrong component in the wrong place.

 

In that case, B is a Key E while NVME drives use Key M (sometimes B, sometimes both ^^). On the diagram, it is indicated (WiFi).

 

From the information you a showing, my choice would be M.2_1 as you are only loosing 1 SATA; M.2_2 seems to remove 2 ports.

[testdasi]

7 hours ago, johnny2678 said:

Here's the board diagram.

 

Seems pretty obvious to me that if I add 1 NVMe drive it should be in slot B - I would just lose a PCIEx1 slot.

 

But what if I wanted to add a second NVMe drive? 

 

looks like slots C & D both share bandwith with the HDD/SDD SATA ports.  Will that affect array performance?  Will I get lower performance from the NVMe drive?

If you see the board physically (e.g. picture on the website), you will see that slot B is too short for a typical NVMe SSD. So even if you get a M->E adapter, there's zero chance of fitting one in there because it would be even longer.

 

Those Key E slots are cost-saving measures by manufacturer so if they want to produce a cheaper version of their board, all it takes is to not plug in a Wifi module (instead of in the long past which required physical soldering of Wifi modules).

[johnny2678]

Seems to me that M.2_1 and M.2_2 only are compatible with SSDs.
The M.2 connector have several different keying to prevent pluggin the wrong component in the wrong place.
 
In that case, B is a Key E while NVME drives use Key M (sometimes B, sometimes both ^^). On the diagram, it is indicated (WiFi).
 
From the information you a showing, my choice would be M.2_1 as you are only loosing 1 SATA; M.2_2 seems to remove 2 ports.

Oh yuck, so using the 2 NVMe slots would cause me to lose 3 SATA ports off the motherboard??

I’ve got and LSI HBA card coming but that would only leave me with 11 drives. Thought I was getting 14.

Are all motherboards like this?


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[ChatNoir]

Consumer grade CPUs and boards offer a limited number of PCIe lanes that have to be splitted between addon cards and drives.

 

That is why some people turn to higher end plateforms (workstation or server) to have more possibilities. And given the high cost, often it is second hands stuff that is retired.

[JorgeB]

46 minutes ago, johnny2678 said:

Oh yuck, so using the 2 NVMe slots would cause me to lose 3 SATA ports off the motherboard??

No, M2_1 will disable SATA_2 if used with an M.2 SATA device, it won't with an NVMe device, you also can still use M2_2 and SATA_5/6 if you run the NVMe device @ x2.

 

[johnny2678]

No, M2_1 will disable SATA_2 if used with an M.2 SATA device, it won't with an NVMe device, you also can still use M2_2 and SATA_5/6 if you run the NVMe device @ x2.
 

Ok thanks, I just ordered a Crucial P1 1TB 3D NAND NVMe PCIe Internal SSD, up to 2000 MB/s - CT1000P1SSD8

So I should still have access to all 6 data ports? Even I get get a 2nd one?


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[JorgeB]

1 minute ago, johnny2678 said:

So I should still have access to all 6 data ports? Even I get get a 2nd one?

Yes, as long that slot is set to x2 in the BIOS.

[johnny2678]

Yes, as long that slot is set to x2 in the BIOS.

Thank you very much!


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