ASRock.com Homepage
Forum Home Forum Home > Technical Support > AMD Motherboards
  New Posts New Posts RSS Feed - ASRock X370 Taichi/Professional Gaming M.2 Support
  FAQ FAQ  Forum Search Search  Events   Register Register  Login Login

ASRock X370 Taichi/Professional Gaming M.2 Support

 Post Reply Post Reply
Author
Message Reverse Sort Order
parsec View Drop Down
Moderator Group
Moderator Group
Avatar

Joined: 04 May 2015
Location: USA
Status: Offline
Points: 4996
Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote parsec Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: ASRock X370 Taichi/Professional Gaming M.2 Support
    Posted: 18 Mar 2017 at 9:07am
Originally posted by InvisibleArrow InvisibleArrow wrote:

Hi Guys

I was looking at the ASRock X370 Taichi and Professional Gaming motherboards. According to the specs, the second M.2 slot works only in PCIe 2.0 x4 mode, but it doesn't mention whether SATA M.2 are supported or not. Can anybody please confirm if SATA M.2 drives are supported on the second M.2 slot?

BTW, the ASRock X370 Killer SLI/AC and Gaming K4 motherboards do seem to support SATA M.2 drives on the 2nd M.2 slot as per the specifications. So I was guessing the same would be true with the Taichi and Professional Gaming, which is why I wanted to confirm.


This table is from the FAQ list for ASRock Ryzen mother boards, found in the Support -> FAQ link:



To specifically answer your question, the M2_2 slot on the X370 Taichi and Fatal1ty X370 Professional Gaming boards do not support SATA M.2 SSDs. The M2_2 slot on these boards only support PCIe M.2 SSDs.

You can see which ASRock Ryzen boards in the table support M.2 SATA SSDs in the M2_2 port.

If we look closely at all of these boards, particularly the X370 boards, we can see why the X370 Taichi and Fatal1ty X370 Professional Gaming boards do not support SATA M.2 SSDs.

 The X370 Taichi and Fatal1ty X370 Professional Gaming boards have a third PCIe x16 slot (PCIE5, PCIe 2.0 x4 electrical) that the other X370 boards do not have. These boards provide eight standard SATA III ports. Also, the M2_2 slots on these two boards are PCIe 2.0 x4 interfaces, and share those resources with the PCIE5 slots.

The M2_2 slot on the other X370 boards that support SATA M.2 SSD are PCIe 2.0 x2 interfaces. Those boards provide six standard SATA III ports. So two fewer standard SATA III ports, but M.2 SATA support.

We find two different design decisions between the two groups of boards, and how they allocate the available resources to the various feature interfaces, and the number of interfaces of each type provided.

As with any PC platform, we need to carefully check the specifications regarding how the various (limited) resources are used and distributed on Ryzen systems.

Back to Top
twf85 View Drop Down
Newbie
Newbie
Avatar

Joined: 08 Mar 2017
Location: Tucson, AZ
Status: Offline
Points: 144
Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote twf85 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18 Mar 2017 at 7:44am
Eh, I'm gonna' go out on a limb here and say that it's highly unlikely. If you read through the manual, though it does say on page 45, "The M.2, also known as the Next Generation Form Factor (NGFF), is a small size and versatile card edge connector that aims to replace mPCIe and mSATA", a couple more pages down there is a table with supported devices, and there are no SATA drives listed there. The other port does list SATA drives.

I don't have any mSATA SSDs that I could test for you, but I wouldn't count on them working. On the plus side, $20 will net you an adapter that you can plug into the PCIe slot adjacent to it (thus disabling it) if you must have mSATA.. Though, I believe a two slot GPU in the slot above would negate that as an option.
Back to Top
Nejaa View Drop Down
Newbie
Newbie


Joined: 06 Mar 2017
Location: USA
Status: Offline
Points: 30
Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Nejaa Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17 Mar 2017 at 10:36am
I don't have an official answer, but looking at my manual for the Pro Gaming, it only mentions PCIe compatibility.
Back to Top
InvisibleArrow View Drop Down
Newbie
Newbie
Avatar

Joined: 11 Aug 2016
Status: Offline
Points: 6
Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote InvisibleArrow Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17 Mar 2017 at 12:14am
Hi Guys

I was looking at the ASRock X370 Taichi and Professional Gaming motherboards. According to the specs, the second M.2 slot works only in PCIe 2.0 x4 mode, but it doesn't mention whether SATA M.2 are supported or not. Can anybody please confirm if SATA M.2 drives are supported on the second M.2 slot?

BTW, the ASRock X370 Killer SLI/AC and Gaming K4 motherboards do seem to support SATA M.2 drives on the 2nd M.2 slot as per the specifications. So I was guessing the same would be true with the Taichi and Professional Gaming, which is why I wanted to confirm.
Back to Top
 Post Reply Post Reply
  Share Topic   

Forum Jump Forum Permissions View Drop Down

Forum Software by Web Wiz Forums® version 12.04
Copyright ©2001-2021 Web Wiz Ltd.

This page was generated in 0.109 seconds.