Taichi x370 M.2 drive confusion
Printed From: ASRock.com
Category: Technical Support
Forum Name: AMD Motherboards
Forum Description: Question about ASRock AMD motherboards
URL: https://forum.asrock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=18635
Printed Date: 22 Dec 2024 at 1:10am
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 12.04 - http://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: Taichi x370 M.2 drive confusion
Posted By: Docjon
Subject: Taichi x370 M.2 drive confusion
Date Posted: 16 Apr 2021 at 3:22pm
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I'm a little confused and I'm hoping someone here can straighten me out. Please bear with me. I built this machine, then immediately took ill and spent 9 months in a hospital and rehab. I'm no longer entirely sure what my thought process was when building it, and I'm only just getting around to needing to upgrade it. The Taichi has 2 M.2 slots, labeled in the manual as M2_1 (closest to the CPU), and M2_2 (closest to bottom of board & Dr. Debug). I have a Samsung 960 EVO Series - 250GB PCIe NVMe, which in the m2_2 slot being used as my boot drive. I'm interested in buying another M.2 SSD, so I've been digging in the manual, but I'm finding it unclear. I'm really confused. 1. Which slot is designed for the NVMe drive, M2_1, or M2_2? From the manual, it looks like it's M2_1, but my 960 EVO is plugged into the M2_2 slot. This is messing with my head. . . is it possible to plug an NVMe drive into a non-NVMe slot, and have it work? 2. Once I get question #1 sorted, I would like to know if adding a second M.2 drive will slow down the first M.2 drive. I know that one M.2 drive is going to have a slower interface, but I thought I read that using both M.2 slots slows down the faster NVMe drive. Here is a link showing the M.2 drive I'm currently using: https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-960-EVO-Internal-MZ-V6E250BW/dp/B01LYFKX41" rel="nofollow - https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-960-EVO-Internal-MZ-V6E250BW/dp/B01LYFKX41 I appreciate your help, and thank you for your time. ------------- Windows 10 Pro AMD R7 1700x in an ASrock Taichi x370 G. SKill Ripjaws V, 2 sticks of 8gb 3200, 14-14-14-34 EVGA 1660ti Seasonic G 550w Gold PS |
Replies:
Posted By: muziqaz
Date Posted: 16 Apr 2021 at 7:55pm
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Both slots support NVMe, both slots support booting from them. However if you are using M2_2 slot, your PCI-e 5 slot will be automatically disabled. Now you are using M2_2, so if you plug anything into PCI-e5 slot on your motherboard, the plugged device will not work. You should be able to get full PCIE Gen3 x4 speeds from both M2 slots at the same time. You probably will need to set certain BIOS settings to switch to x4 speeds for both M2 slots though. You can also test the drive speeds with Crystal Diskmark. ------------- folding@home |
Posted By: Docjon
Date Posted: 16 Apr 2021 at 9:05pm
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Thanks for the reply. OK, Both slots handle NVMe, that explains why my SSD was working in the m2_2 slot. Going back over the manual, it looks like the m2_2 slot is slower than the M2_1 slot. "(M2_2) supports M.2 PCI Express module up to Gen2x4 (20Gb/s)." "(M2_1) supports SATA3 6.0Gb/s module and M.2 PCI Express module up to Gen3 x4(32Gb/s)" M2_2 being slower confused me and made me think it wasn't NVMe. It is, it's just slower. Using M2_2 disables PCI-e 5 slot. OK, I understand that. ** Is it also true that using M2_1 disables PCI-e 4? I think this is the case, but I wanted to verify it. ** Thanks for the help. I'm starting to get a handle on things. ------------- Windows 10 Pro AMD R7 1700x in an ASrock Taichi x370 G. SKill Ripjaws V, 2 sticks of 8gb 3200, 14-14-14-34 EVGA 1660ti Seasonic G 550w Gold PS |
Posted By: muziqaz
Date Posted: 16 Apr 2021 at 9:25pm
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You are correct: M2_1 is Gen3 x4, M2_2 is Gen2 x4. M2_2 should not disable PCIe4 slot, it will disable the last slot right at the bottom of the motherboard. Also, in theory it would be better to have your boot drive in M2_1 slot for that added throughout. ------------- folding@home |
Posted By: Docjon
Date Posted: 16 Apr 2021 at 10:19pm
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Yeah, it has occurred to me that I should have put my boot drive in the m2_1 slot for the greater speed, but it seems like more trouble than it's worth to fix it now. Oh well. :( > "M2_2 should not disable PCIe4 slot, it will disable the last slot right at the bottom of the motherboard." I feel like we're mixing our M2 slots now. M2_2 (m2_two) disables the PCI-e 5 slot. You said that above, and the manual backs you up. I was asking about m2_1 (m2_one). The manual says M2_1 disables PCI-e 4, so I guess it does, but I wasn't expecting to give up a slot for each M.2 drive I install. It seems like trading off a PCI-e slot for every m.2 drive is a steep cost. I think this is the last thing I need verified. ------------- Windows 10 Pro AMD R7 1700x in an ASrock Taichi x370 G. SKill Ripjaws V, 2 sticks of 8gb 3200, 14-14-14-34 EVGA 1660ti Seasonic G 550w Gold PS |
Posted By: muziqaz
Date Posted: 16 Apr 2021 at 10:26pm
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OK, I see that Asrock is very sneaky. They mention in specifications that M2_2 will disable PCI-e5 slot. But forget to mention that M2_1 disables pci-e4 slot. And moving your boot drive to M2_1 should not be complicated. Just move it over, and in BIOS select it as boot drive. I believe there is no magic dust to adjust anything else ------------- folding@home |
Posted By: Docjon
Date Posted: 16 Apr 2021 at 11:35pm
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Yeah, aside from that one mention in the manual, I've not seen anything about each M.2 drives disabling a PCI-e port. Not in reviews or anywhere. Thanks again for the help. ------------- Windows 10 Pro AMD R7 1700x in an ASrock Taichi x370 G. SKill Ripjaws V, 2 sticks of 8gb 3200, 14-14-14-34 EVGA 1660ti Seasonic G 550w Gold PS |
Posted By: datonyb
Date Posted: 17 Apr 2021 at 12:52am
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also to note the top nvme slot connects directly with the cpu the lower one goes via the chipset as said above swap it into top slot is best advice and enjoy the pc i also have the x370 taichi its a very nice board and rather conincidential , i have the 256gb evo 960 ,as my boot drive for greater storage use i just use a sata ssd an older samsung 850 to be honest its fast enough for the mass storage ------------- [url=https://valid.x86.fr/jpg250]  [/url]3800X, powercolor reddevil vega64, gskill tridentz3866, taichix370, evga750watt gold |
Posted By: Docjon
Date Posted: 17 Apr 2021 at 3:53am
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> "the top nvme slot connects directly with the cpu the lower one goes via the chipset > as said above swap it into top slot is best advice" ** Can I just physically move my boot drive from M2_2 to M2_1, turn on the computer and have it work? ** Or, do I have to format & reinstall, or copy it to a new NVMe in the top slot? If I buy another NVMe drive, it's gonna be about a terabyte, and I want it for games. I don't want to partition that up for my boot drive. If I can just pull the current NVMe drive from the m2_2 slot and put it in the m2_1 slot, I might do that. Otherwise, I'm not doing a format/reinstall. I was thinking of buying a regular SSD and a large HDD, as storage is running low, but I already have a collection of small SSD's and HDD's in my machine. Seven SSD slots are already in use, and when you go beyond eight, the last two SSD slots are funky kludges that are slower and share the same bandwidth. I got to thinking and remembered I still had a free NVMe slot, and that started to look appealing in this situation, and so here I am. ------------- Windows 10 Pro AMD R7 1700x in an ASrock Taichi x370 G. SKill Ripjaws V, 2 sticks of 8gb 3200, 14-14-14-34 EVGA 1660ti Seasonic G 550w Gold PS |
Posted By: Docjon
Date Posted: 17 Apr 2021 at 3:56am
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> "I was thinking of buying a regular SSD and a large HDD, as storage is running low, but I already have a collection of small SSD's and HDD's in my machine. Seven SSD slots are already in use, and when you go beyond eight, the last two SSD slots are funky kludges that are slower and share the same bandwidth." I'd like to correct that to read: I was thinking of buying a 1TB SATA SSD and a large SATA HDD, as storage is running low, but I already have a collection of small SSD's and HDD's in my machine. Seven SATA slots are already in use, and when you go beyond eight, the last two SATA slots are funky kludges that are slower and share the same bandwidth. ------------- Windows 10 Pro AMD R7 1700x in an ASrock Taichi x370 G. SKill Ripjaws V, 2 sticks of 8gb 3200, 14-14-14-34 EVGA 1660ti Seasonic G 550w Gold PS |
Posted By: cx5
Date Posted: 19 Apr 2021 at 4:38pm
YES. ------------- x370taichi@3.50gen4 AX750 Optane900P SN770 3800x PosdonZro4 BarrowPWM-17w>420x140x28 XFX SWFT319 6900XT MSI RX560 LP to get Fluid Motion BlueskyFRC 75hz |
Docjon wrote:Posted By: Docjon
Date Posted: 20 Apr 2021 at 2:28am
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Thank you. I'll do that then. And with that, all my questions have been answered. Thanks to all. ------------- Windows 10 Pro AMD R7 1700x in an ASrock Taichi x370 G. SKill Ripjaws V, 2 sticks of 8gb 3200, 14-14-14-34 EVGA 1660ti Seasonic G 550w Gold PS |