Can the Z77 Extreme4 boot from PCI-E in raid?

Asrockuser wrote: Hi, I'm thinking of buying two m.2 sata drives and an adapter to connect it to the PCI-E ports.  Could this motherboard be capabale of installing Win 7 and booting from those two in raid without the help of any sata drive? I don't want to use sata anymore since it's slower than PCI-E 3.0.    I want to atleast use one PCI-E m.2 ssd for windows 7, is that possible in the least?  If not I'd like to try my samsung 840 pro connected to my pci-e port to install windows and boot from if possible.  If none of those are possbile, can I use my 840 pro for a ssd cache on the pci-e slot?

We need to sort out the terminology and technology first to begin answering your question. I don't have direct experience doing what you described, but you should see if it will work at all as you attempt to do it. Also, some missing information is needed that makes a big difference about if it would work or not. One type of M.2 SSDs will not work in RAID.

You mentioned both M.2 SATA SSDs, and M.2 PCIe SSDs. Both exist, but have major differences in the ability to use them in RAID.

M.2 SATA SSDs are the most common type, for example the SAMSUNG 850 EVO MZ-N5E250BW M.2 250GB SATA III SSD.

M.2 PCIe SSDs are the least common type, examples include the Samsung XP941 and Samsung SM951.

Both of these types will fit in the M.2 slot on an ASRock board. But the connections and "key" on these different SSDs allow them to be identified as M.2 SATA or M.2 PCIe.

What M.2 SSDs are you considering to use?

Using a PCIe adapter card for M.2 SSDs adds another variable, as well as the mother board's chipset and its UEFI/BIOS. The unknown to me is whether or not a Z77 board will detect either SATA or PCIe M.2 SSDs correctly through a PCIe adapter card.

I do know that a M.2 PCIe SSD will NOT be able to be used in a RAID array, using the Intel IRST RAID support. The Intel IRST RAID will only work with SATA SSDs. PCIe M.2 SSDs will not be included in the IRST RAID utility for possible use in RAID arrays.

In your scenario, using M.2 SATA SSDs in a PCIe adapter card, IF those SSDs are recognized by the IRST RAID utility, then they may be able to work in a RAID array. I say may work because I have never done that myself.

Booting an OS from a PCIe M.2 SSD has required a UEFI/BIOS update for even the latest Intel chipset boards. I believe a beta/custom UEFI was created by ASRock for that purpose for the Z77 Extreme4 board, which you can find in a link in a thread in this forum.

Connecting a SATA SSD to a PCIe interface won't provide much if any difference in speed. If it's a SATA drive, it is limited by SATA and the SSD itself. The same thing goes for use as a cache drive. In either scenario, detection of a SATA SSD through the PCIe slot and adapter card is the variable about whether or not it would work.

How could you connect a Samsung 840 Pro, with its SATA inteface, to a PCIe adapter card? What adapter card are you talking about?


Edited by parsec - 17 Jul 2015 at 2:24am

Also Tweaktown set up their z77 mobo with this adapter below but for windows 8 enterprise...

You want to use a Samsung SM951 with your Z77 board. That is a PCIe M.2 SSD.

I use one with my Z97 Extreme6 board with its Ultra M.2 slot, providing 4 PCIe 3.0 lanes, which is required for the full performance of this SSD to be available.

The Addonics adapter looked interesting, until I saw the controller it uses, a Marvell 9130 or similar chipset. First time I've seen this product, but I was afraid it would be typical Marvell, and it is.

Check the specs for the Addonics card, it is electrically a two lane card, compatible with PCIe 1.0 and 2.0. That is a typical Marvell chipset architecture, which they STILL CLAIM is 6Gb/s!! They've been doing that for years, which has irritated me for years too.

PCIe 2.0 is 5Gb/s maximum, before 8 to 10 bit encoding (10 bits transmitted for each 8 bits of data.) The two lanes are not combined, one is used for input, the other for output.

The reality of this card is in the benchmark they show, Crystal DiskMark of two M.2 SATA SSDs in RAID 0 with two HDDs, the RAID provided by the Marvell chipset. Yes they used SATA M.2 SSDs, but two of them should really perform great, right? Not when the interface is electrically x2.

This is my single SM951 in the Ultra M.2 port:



You cannot use that card with a SM951, it expects a SATA type M.2 SSD.

You could use that card with your 840 Pro and a HDD, but it would not perform as well as the Intel SSD caching feature your board has now.

You could also use this card with M.2 SATA SSDs, but the RAID 0 they describe is the caching with the SSD and an HDD. The performance may be fine for you, but it does not provide better performance than the Intel SATA III ports on your board with standard SATA SSDs.

If you want to use a SM951, you'll need a different adapter card.

Right, I did notice the card is electrically a two lane card on the specifications, thanks for pointing that out.

Edited by Asrockuser - 17 Jul 2015 at 2:44pm