Asus Hyper Kit compatibility on Ultra M.2 port

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   I have a Z97 Extreme9 board and I would like to install an Intel 750 SSD. I prefer to connect the SSD to the available Ultra M.2 port instead of a PCIe slot. Asus makes a Hyper Kit adapter that connects the Intel 2.5 inch 750 via cable with a mini-SAS HD connector and SFF-8639 connection for the drive. Since the Ultra M.2 port is a PCI-Express 3.0 4x pathway and that matches the interface on the Hyper Kit, is it possible the Asus kit would work on an ASRock motherboard with the Ultra M.2 port, or is the kit limited to Asus motherboards?
The drive comes in 2 versions and the Asus Hyper Kit compatibility will determine if the 2.5 inch case version will work, or if I'm forced to go with the card slot version.

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qqqman Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Newbie Joined: 07 May 2015 Status: Offline Points: 5	Post Options Post Reply Quote qqqman Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Topic: Asus Hyper Kit compatibility on Ultra M.2 port Posted: 07 May 2015 at 3:36pm
	I have a Z97 Extreme9 board and I would like to install an Intel 750 SSD. I prefer to connect the SSD to the available Ultra M.2 port instead of a PCIe slot. Asus makes a Hyper Kit adapter that connects the Intel 2.5 inch 750 via cable with a mini-SAS HD connector and SFF-8639 connection for the drive. Since the Ultra M.2 port is a PCI-Express 3.0 4x pathway and that matches the interface on the Hyper Kit, is it possible the Asus kit would work on an ASRock motherboard with the Ultra M.2 port, or is the kit limited to Asus motherboards? The drive comes in 2 versions and the Asus Hyper Kit compatibility will determine if the 2.5 inch case version will work, or if I'm forced to go with the card slot version.

parsec Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Moderator Group Joined: 04 May 2015 Location: USA Status: Offline Points: 4996	Post Options Post Reply Quote parsec Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 07 May 2015 at 4:36pm
	Complete information about your question is difficult to find. The ASRock Ultra M.2 slot, while unique in the PC mother board industry at first, must be compatible with the M.2 slot standards. M.2 SSDs of any type (in this case, PCIe 3.0 x4 interface) must conform to the M.2 standard, and the M.2 slots on a mother board also must conform to this standard, or these SSDs would not work. So physically and electrically, this adapter kit from Asus must be compatible with the ASRock Ultra M.2 slot. But that is not the entire story, and then we get into a gray area. Besides the board's UEFI firmware being able to support NVMe, there is this caveat about this kit: Beyond that there is a configuration parameter that ideally must be enabled within the UEFI. This helps to ensure the motherboard recognizes the M.2 Hyperkit SSD as a fully bootable solution. What this parameter is was not mentioned. Many ASRock X99 and Z97 boards currently have UEFI updates that support NVMe, but I did not see any new option in the UEFI UI of my Z97 board related to NVMe. The bootable support for NVMe SSDs is likely enabled automatically on my board, but Asus makes it an option for some reason. The mysterious nature of this option makes me wonder what it really is all about. You can read about it here: http://https://pcdiy.asus.com/2015/04/asus-z97-x99-motherboards-intel-750-series-nvme-ssds-all-you-need-to-know/

qqqman Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Newbie Joined: 07 May 2015 Status: Offline Points: 5	Post Options Post Reply Quote qqqman Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 08 May 2015 at 5:03am
	Thanks for the information. I did see the note about having to set the UEFI to make the hyper kit bootable, but wasn't sure if that was an Asus-only feature or if it applies to all boards using the hyper kit. Additionally, there is no indication if the Plex architecture is compatible with the Hyper Kit. It truly is a gray area with not much information. I think my next step is to check with Asus. I don't expect much other than the corporate mantra to buy an X99 board if I want to use the hyper kit connection. After all, this is a $23 part intended for Asus boards. Why would Asus want to test this kit on ASRock boards simply to sell a $23 part when they could sell a $250+ motherboard? Ultimately I want to put the M.2 Ultra port to work with a NVMe solution, and the latest review on the Samsung SM951 was not encouraging at all (http://www.legitreviews.com/samsung-sm951-nvme-m-2-pcie-ssd-review_162219). If Asus doesn't provide a straight answer, I'll need to decide between the Intel 750 on an available PCIe slot, or use a Samsung SM951 AHCI until Samsung's NVMe version gets sorted out. Edited by qqqman - 09 May 2015 at 12:00am

parsec Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Moderator Group Joined: 04 May 2015 Location: USA Status: Offline Points: 4996	Post Options Post Reply Quote parsec Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 09 May 2015 at 3:53pm
	I found a listing of the Hyper Kit on Newegg, but it said out of stock. I doubt the Asus UEFI setting to allow a NVMe drive to boot is connected to this adapter. ASRock just added UEFI updates for some of their boards to allow booting from an AHCI SM951, and there is no new option in the UEFI to enable it. Why would we need that option, it would be like having an option to allow booting from SATA SSDs/drives, what is the point? Yes, Samsung needs to provide their own NVMe driver for the NVMe version of the SM951. Intel provides a NVMe driver for use with their NVMe 750 SSD. Considering how long it took AHCI to finally become established (years), NVMe may suffer the same fate. I considered getting an Intel 750, but its firmware is tuned for certain file sizes that are not optimal for OS booting and operation. Plus PCs rarely if ever experience a queue depth of greater than four since their response time is so fast. AHCI provides a queue depth of 32, while NVMe provides many times that using multiple queues. For server and database use NVMe will be a great advantage, but will PC users ever need that much IOP potential? I like the reduced 4K random read overhead reduction that NVMe brings, but then Intel optimized the 750 for 8K and larger transfers. I just bought an AHCI SM951 which boots an OS fine on my Z97 Extreme6 board. The Win 8.1 installation took five minutes.

qqqman Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Newbie Joined: 07 May 2015 Status: Offline Points: 5	Post Options Post Reply Quote qqqman Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 10 May 2015 at 11:51am
	Thanks for the feedback on the AHCI SM951. I still haven't decided which way to go - NMVe 750 or AHCI SM951. I'm only using one GTX 980 right now, but would like to keep the other 16x slot open in case I want to go with SLI. That makes the SM951 a better choice instead of the PCIe version of the 750. I posted a question on the Asus DIYPC board regarding the Hyper kit working with ASRock M.2 Ultra and J.J. deleted it because it was not an Asus motherboard related post. As I mentioned before, I'm not surprised.

Mars2k Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Newbie Joined: 23 Jul 2015 Location: Texas Status: Offline Points: 1	Post Options Post Reply Quote Mars2k Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 23 Jul 2015 at 11:08pm
	MSI is producing and adapter card as well. A great uses for the Intel 750 would be supporting a number of VMs. Anandtech review of the 750 is pretty good for use cases. They say Intel for sustained I/O and the Samsung NVMe M drives for random