Samsung 950 Pro M.2 on Asrock Z97 Extreme6

Hi,

I just got the same motherboard and ssd drive (asrock z97 extreme6 and samsung 950 pro).

Thanks for the suggestions so far guy's, appreciated

whntxboy wrote: I've spent the weekend trying to get my Extreme6 motherboard and Samsung Pro 950 to work together.  I've been using the Extreme6 for several months with no problems. Just received the 950 and have been try to get it to work. In the UEFI bios, the M2_1 slot and M2_2 slot are not recognized with the 950 inserted into either. To check for SATA conflicts, I've unplugged all other SATA connections except for 3_0 with the boot drive. I've also removed the graphics card. What I've got at the moment is the raw motherboard, a single SSD boot drive, and the 950 Pro installed. No other SATA slots are used, nor are any PCIe slots. If I let the system boot, and the Samsung NVMe driver loads, Samsung Magician sees the drive and can access it. The whole thing seems flaky, though, as the 950 drive seems to come and go under Windows 7. Are we just on the bleeding edge? Do we need a firmware update on the 950 or a bios change on the Extreme 6 to get these things to work properly?

It is not uncommon for an NVMe SSD to not be recognized in the places we expect a drive to be shown, such as the Storage Configuration screen in the UEFI/BIOS. Is that what you are referring to when you said it is not recognized in either of the M.2 slots?

Be sure to use your 950 Pro in the M.2_1 slot, since that is the only PCIe 3.0 x4 slot available on this board. The M2_2 slot is PCIe 2.0 x2, and won't let the 950 perform optimally.

Just because you aren't seeing the 950 Pro listed in some of the usual places does not mean it is not working correctly.

Don't forget the 950 Pro is an NVMe drive. That is not related to SATA at all. There cannot be any SATA conflicts with it on the Z97 Extreme6 board, since the Ultra M.2 slot is connected to the CPU's PCIe 3.0 slots, and not to the SATA chipset at all.

UEFI version 2.10 adds additional NVMe support, that was initially added in version 1.60. Which UEFI version are you using? The 2.10 UEFI may not change how the 950 Pro is not shown in the UEFI.

Did you check the System Browser tool in the UEFI to see if the 950 Pro is recognized? You can also run System Browser from the ASRock A-Tuning program.

Have you run Disk Management in Windows to initialize and format the 950 Pro? Was is recognized in Disk Management?

You said you installed the 950 Pro driver, which will create an entry in Device Manager, under Storage Controllers. Windows 7 does not have a built in NVMe driver, so you must have the Samsung driver installed, and restart the PC after the installation. Win 8.1 and 10 have a built in NVMe driver, but you should use the Samsung driver anyway.

You will likely have problems installing Win 7 on a 950 Pro, due to the lack of an NVMe driver in Win 7. You cannot use the Samsung driver with the Load Driver option in the Windows installation program.

If the Samsung Magician software can recognize the 950 Pro, then everything is fine. How does the drive seem to "... come and go under Windows 7."

Yes, we are on the leading/bleeding edge when using any NVMe SSD. You now have drives using two different protocols (SATA and NVMe) on the same PC platform. The UEFI probably should have a separate listing for NVMe drives, but the source of the UEFI firmware, AMI, does not seem to have that capability yet, even on the new Z170 boards.

All I wrote is what I can offer. Nothing should be read into my post