Z170 Mainboard PCIe SSD config

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   I just purchased a ASRock Fatal1ty Z170 Professional Gaming i7 and now I am confused with all the talk of shared CPU lanes, chipset lanes, SATA ports and PCI slots. I simply don't know where to put what component to get the best performance out of the board and get the maximum number of SSDs at best speed.

1. Graphics adapter
I have a GTX970, I guess this goes in the PCIE2 slot using up the 16 CPU lanes. 

2. Boot/OS SSD
My boot/OS partition will be on a Kingston HyperX Predator PCIe SSD and I wonder if it's best to put the M.2 module into the M2_1 slot or just use the PCIe adaptor and use one of the PCIE slots, PCIE3 for example as it provides x4 lanes. Can I actually still do that since the GTX970 already uses 16 CPU lanes?  (or do the chipset lanes automatically jump in?). If I use the M2_1 slot I will sacrifice the SATA_EXP0, SATA3_0 and SATA3_1 ports, effectively losing 2 SATA ports since I don't use the SATA_EXP ports.

3. Additional SATA adapter cards
In addition I have two 4 Port PCI Express 2.0 SATA III 6Gbps RAID Controller Cards to add 8 more SSDs to the system. These need PCIe x2 slots, so I could still use PCIE4 (x8) and PCIE6 (x4).
Together with the ten SATA3 ports I could connect 18 SATA SSDs given I use a PCIe slot for the Kingston PCIe SSD. Is this correct?

Thanks to anyone who can help me with this 

Edited by sluTTY - 16 Dec 2016 at 4:24am

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sluTTY Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Newbie Joined: 16 Dec 2016 Status: Offline Points: 5	Post Options Post Reply Quote sluTTY Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Topic: Z170 Mainboard PCIe SSD config Posted: 16 Dec 2016 at 4:23am
	I just purchased a ASRock Fatal1ty Z170 Professional Gaming i7 and now I am confused with all the talk of shared CPU lanes, chipset lanes, SATA ports and PCI slots. I simply don't know where to put what component to get the best performance out of the board and get the maximum number of SSDs at best speed. 1. Graphics adapter I have a GTX970, I guess this goes in the PCIE2 slot using up the 16 CPU lanes. 2. Boot/OS SSD My boot/OS partition will be on a Kingston HyperX Predator PCIe SSD and I wonder if it's best to put the M.2 module into the M2_1 slot or just use the PCIe adaptor and use one of the PCIE slots, PCIE3 for example as it provides x4 lanes. Can I actually still do that since the GTX970 already uses 16 CPU lanes? (or do the chipset lanes automatically jump in?). If I use the M2_1 slot I will sacrifice the SATA_EXP0, SATA3_0 and SATA3_1 ports, effectively losing 2 SATA ports since I don't use the SATA_EXP ports. 3. Additional SATA adapter cards In addition I have two 4 Port PCI Express 2.0 SATA III 6Gbps RAID Controller Cards to add 8 more SSDs to the system. These need PCIe x2 slots, so I could still use PCIE4 (x8) and PCIE6 (x4). Together with the ten SATA3 ports I could connect 18 SATA SSDs given I use a PCIe slot for the Kingston PCIe SSD. Is this correct? Thanks to anyone who can help me with this Edited by sluTTY - 16 Dec 2016 at 4:24am

sluTTY Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Newbie Joined: 16 Dec 2016 Status: Offline Points: 5	Post Options Post Reply Quote sluTTY Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 16 Dec 2016 at 8:22pm
	Seems this is not so trivial after all... and I was concerned these are noob questions

sluTTY Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Newbie Joined: 16 Dec 2016 Status: Offline Points: 5	Post Options Post Reply Quote sluTTY Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 20 Dec 2016 at 2:17am
	Really? Nobody? Pretty lame for the official support forums

Xaltar Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Moderator Group Joined: 16 May 2015 Location: Europe Status: Online Points: 27113	Post Options Post Reply Quote Xaltar Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 20 Dec 2016 at 3:13am
	Haha, firstly this is a community forum, official certainly but not official tech support If you need actual tech support: http://event.asrock.com/tsd.asp Questions posed here are answered by community members (and moderators) who have an answer to give. If we don't know, we don't waste your time pretending we do Please also bare in mind we are not on all the time and may miss posts in the deluge of others made here every day. Give tech support a try, they should be better able to answer your questions. Your question is a tricky one to answer though it should be covered in the user manual. It should outlay what ports share resources and which are disabled when the other is in use.