Samsung 950pro not detected on Ultra M2

I have a Samsung AHCI SM951 in my Z97 Extreme6 board, and it is detected and works fine. It is used as my Windows 10 drive.

Mr. Punch and Naz75, while having a similar problem apparently, have very different SSDs. That makes a difference for each of their issues.

Naz75's M.2 850 Evo is an M.2 SATA SSD. If you check the Z97 Extreme6's manual, Section 2.11, page 39, you'll find that M.2 SATA SSDs are only supported in the M2_2 socket. The way this is stated in the manual is done in a "what the socket can do" style, rather than a "what the socket cannot do" style. The Storage Support list corroborates the compatibility of PCIe SSDs in the M2_1 socket only, although they can be used in the M2_2 socket.

The M2_2 socket is connected to the Z97 chipset, and shares resources with two SATA ports. It is not connected to CPU's PCIe lanes like the Ultra M.2 (M2_1) socket. The bottom line for you Naz75 is your 850 Evo won't work in the Ultra M.2 socket (M2_1), sorry to say.

Mr. Punch has a 950 Pro, a true PCIe SSD, and also using an NVMe controller. On my ASRock Z170 board, the only place I can find my 950 Pro is in the System Browser tool, either in the UEFI/BIOS, or in Windows 10. That is the only place you will see your 950 Pro, if it is shown at all, it may not be. But that is not automatically a problem.

Question for you Mr. Punch: What version of Windows are you using? Windows 7 does not have a built in NVMe driver, which is required for using any NVMe SSD like the 950 Pro.

Also Mr. Punch, did you install the Samsung NVMe driver?

I do not expect you to see your 950 Pro NVMe SSD listed anywhere in the UEFI/BIOS, except in the System Brower tool. But if it is NOT shown in System Browser, I would still start Windows, and try to initialize the 950 in Disk Management. But if you are using Windows 7 without the Samsung NVMe driver, I doubt the 950 will be seen by Windows 7.

One thing you must do to use the 950 Pro as the Windows drive is this: In the Boot screen in the UEFI/BIOS, at the bottom is an option called CSM. Click on that to show the sub-options. One of the sub-options is Launch Storage OpROM Policy. Set that to UEFI Only, not Legacy. Save and exit. You should do this just to see if that will cause your 950 to be shown in the System Browser tool.

Please answer my questions so we have more information about your issue.

We must be careful when we have a new interface (M.2) that is also shared with multiple types of SSDs (SATA/AHCI, and PCIe AHCI and PCIe NVMe). SATA M.2 SSDs have a different M.2 "key" (two notches in the connection end of the board) than PCIe SSDs (one notch in the connection end.)

Another complication to this is the changing (evolving?) way these multiple types of SSDs are connected to the board's resources, and the routing of the devices connected to those resources. Z97 and X99 boards have identical architecture in this area, which Z170 connects all M.2 devices through the Z170 chipset, which for the first time has PCIe 3.0 resources in it.

The RST PCIe Remapping option that DooRules mentioned is not related to either of your issues, and is only an option(s) on Z170 boards.


Edited by parsec - 14 Dec 2015 at 2:41pm

Thanks Parsec for the explicit reply.

I work with Windows 10, i also tried to install the NVMe driver.
All negativ.
The 950pro don't show up during the Windows installation or in disk management.

I will try your advise for the bios setup in the evening.
And i also ordered another Z97 extreme6.

Deleted for correction below ~




Edited by Endlesspath - 15 Dec 2015 at 8:07am

No issues here. I was merely commenting on the fact that they don't show up in bios.  Finished playing with them in raid now. Using one for OS and the other for storage.

I got a new Z97 extreme6 today...and everything is fine now!
The 950 pro is shown in the "System Browser" and in the boot menu as well.

Seems that the UltraM2 slot on my first mobo is broken.