X370 killer sli NVMe question

Hi. I have a killer X370 sli for my Ryzen and I?�m thinking about getting a m.2 NVMa Ssd but I just wanted clarification that my motherboard supports NVMa ssd?�s and do I have to do any setting up in the bios or is it just plug and play.
Thanks for any help and advice. ??

Lambouk wrote: Hi. I have a killer X370 sli for my Ryzen and I?�m thinking about getting a m.2 NVMa Ssd but I just wanted clarification that my motherboard supports NVMa ssd?�s and do I have to do any setting up in the bios or is it just plug and play. Thanks for any help and advice. ??

From your board's (X370 Killer SLI) specifications:

- 6 x SATA3 6.0 Gb/s Connectors, support RAID (RAID 0, RAID 1 and RAID 10), NCQ, AHCI and Hot Plug

- 1 x Ultra M.2 Socket (M2_1), supports M Key type 2230/2242/2260/2280 M.2 SATA3 6.0 Gb/s module and M.2 PCI Express module up to Gen3 x4 (32 Gb/s) (with Ryzen Series CPU) or Gen3 x2 (16 Gb/s) (with A-Series APU)*

- 1 x M.2 Socket (M2_2), supports M Key type 2230/2242/2260/2280 M.2 SATA3 6.0 Gb/s module and M.2 PCI Express module up to Gen2 x2 (10 Gb/s)*

*Supports NVMe SSD as boot disks
Supports ASRock U.2 Kit

http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/X370%20Killer%20SLI/index.asp#Specification

Of course your board has NVMe support. ASRock has provided NVMe support for all of their more recent boards for years. Some older boards (Z77 Extreme4) have Beta UEFI versions that provide NVMe support.

NVMe support allows an NVMe SSD to be used as the OS/boot drive. Otherwise, any board can use an NVMe SSD just as a data drive as long as you can provide the appropriate interface for it.

But pay close attention to the specs, only the M2_1 M.2 slot provides the full PCIe 3.0 x4 interface that most NVMe SSDs require to provide their full performance.

The M2_2 slot is a PCIe 2.0 x2 interface M.2 slot, due to the limited resources of the Ryzen platform, and how the PCIe resources are allocated in the board's design.

Also, if you are not using a Ryzen processor, the A-Series APU processors only provide a PCIe 3.0 x2 interface for the M2_1 M.2 slot.

There are no special UEFI/BIOS settings required when using an NVMe SSD. But there are some things to know about using an NVMe SSD with any mother board:

Windows 7 does not have a built in NVMe driver, so it is not possible to install Windows 7 on an NVMe SSD without modifying the Windows 7 installation files, or using other techniques to include an NVMe driver and use the appropriate UEFI boot loader.

Windows 8, 8.1, and 10 have a built in NVMe driver, so work fine as is with an NVMe SSD as the OS drive.

When installing Windows on an NVMe SSD, you must select the entry in the boot order for the installation media you are using that is, "UEFI:<device name>" where device name is the Windows installation media device. That entry will usually be the default, first entry in the boot order, but it is always good to check that it is. If you don't use that entry, Windows will install, but will not boot afterwards. Some older optical drives do not have UEFI support, and won't provide that entry in the boot order. USB flash drives will always have the "UEFI:" entry in the boot order.

Thanks so so much for all the help and advice. ???��