Ultra M.2 "Not Detected" in Advanced Storage Confi

Aristoc wrote: Looking in the BIOS I noticed this: Ultra M.2 "Not Detected" in the Advanced Storage Configuration ? I have a Plextor installed. Is this normal? Thanks

Yes, completely normal for ASRock X99 boards, I don't see my NMVe SSDs (two) in the Storage Configuration screen. That is not a problem. A few reasons for that, and some explanation, but first...

In the Advanced screen, do you have an NVMe Configuration screen? I believe you should have that, if you have a newer or newest UEFI/BIOS version. You can also find it listed in the System Browser feature, in the Tools screen.

Your Plextor M.2 SSD is an NVMe SSD, right? If so, don't forget that SSD is NOT a SATA SSD. We are so used to SATA drives, we forget that other drives, like USB flash drives, are not shown in that screen. USB is a different protocol than SATA, so we really don't expect the two types to be shown on the same screen.

The same is true about NVMe, it is a different protocol than SATA, and uses a different driver. There are M.2 SATA drives, which will be listed with the M.2 entries in Storage Configuration. But consider that an M.2 SATA drive is using SATA resources from the X99 chipset, so it makes sense that it would be included in the Storage Configuration screen, which really should be titled SATA Configuration screen.

On X99 boards, the M.2 slots are connected directly to the PCIe 3.0 lanes provided by the CPU. So to pass information to the chipset and the UEFI/BIOS, about drives connected to the CPU, does not really make sense. I don't expect platforms that use the PCIe 3.0 lanes from the CPU will ever include NVMe SSDs in the Storage Configuration screen.

Some of the newest ASRock boards (Z170, and other Intel 100 series chipsets) will now include NVMe SSDs connected to the M.2 slots, in the Storage Configuration screen. There is a reason for that. The new chipsets like Z170 now have the equivalent of PCIe 3.0 lanes (DMI 3) in the chipset itself, which is not true for any other earlier Intel chipsets. Next, the M.2 slots are now connected to the new DMI 3 lanes in the Z170 chipset instead of the CPU's PCIe 3.0 lanes. Since the chipset is "talking" to the M.2 slots, it makes sense the drives can be included in the Storage Configuration screen.