Z97 Extreme4 and M.2 question

Roadkill61 wrote: Will ASRock Z97 Extreme4  support a Samsung EVO 950 M.2 drive?

A Samsung EVO 950 model does not exist. Do you mean an M.2 850 EVO, or the M.2 950 Pro?

From the board's specification page:

1 x M.2_SSD (NGFF) Socket 3, supports M.2 SATA3 6.0 Gb/s module and M.2 PCI Express module up to Gen2 x2 (10 Gb/s)

http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z97%20Extreme4/?cat=Specifications

If you mean the M.2 850 EVO, then yes this board supports it fine.

If you mean the 950 Pro, then yes you can use one with this board, BUT it will not operate at its full speed. The M.2 port is a PCIe 2.0 x2 slot on this board, and the 950 Pro requires a PCIe 3.0 X4 interface to get its full performance.

Roadkill61 wrote: Thanks for the nfo and I apologize for the typo. I will be buying the M.2 850 EVO. Should I be expecting a major speed increase over a SAMSUNG 850 EVO ?

Ok, an M.2 850 EVO. That is compatible with your board's M.2 slot.

A major speed increase? No, and very little if any difference in speed between those two SSDs.

They really are identical in their parts and firmware, and both use SATA as the interface. M.2 SATA does not have any advantage performance-wise over the standard SATA interface. They both use the same internal resources of the chipset, but use a different physical interface.

The PCIe M.2 SSDs like the 950 Pro are not SATA drives. The 950 Pro is able to use more and different IO resources in the board to achieve higher speeds, and uses the new NVMe protocol.

PCIe M.2 SSDs and a SATA M.2 SSDs have a different pattern and number of notches in the connector on the SSD, which identifies it to the board and causes it to be routed to the appropriate support devices. There is more to it than that, but that is the basic physical difference.

M.2 SATA SSDs are simply a different form factor than standard 2.5" SSDs. A 2.5" 850 EVO SSD has a circuit board that is ~1/3 the length of the SSD case.

If you don't have a specific reason, such as space constraints or connection limitations, since the two SSDs perform identically, you are better off using a standard 2.5" 850 EVO. It will operate cooler than an M.2 850 EVO, which might throttle its speed due to being to hot, depending where it is mounted in the PC. Sometimes the M.2 slot is near the video card mounting, where it is shielded from airflow by the video card, heated up by the video card, or both.