Can the Z77 Extreme4 boot from PCI-E in raid?
Printed From: ASRock.com
Category: Technical Support
Forum Name: Intel Motherboards
Forum Description: Question about ASRock Intel Motherboards
URL: https://forum.asrock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=419
Printed Date: 27 Dec 2024 at 12:50am
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 12.04 - http://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: Can the Z77 Extreme4 boot from PCI-E in raid?
Posted By: Asrockuser
Subject: Can the Z77 Extreme4 boot from PCI-E in raid?
Date Posted: 16 Jul 2015 at 10:44pm
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Hi, I'm thinking of buying two m.2 sata drives and an adapter to connect it to the PCI-E ports. Could this motherboard be capabale of installing Win 7 and booting from those two in raid without the help of any sata drive? I don't want to use sata anymore since it's slower than PCI-E 3.0. I want to atleast use one PCI-E m.2 ssd for windows 7, is that possible in the least? If not I'd like to try my samsung 840 pro connected to my pci-e port to install windows and boot from if possible. If none of those are possbile, can I use my 840 pro for a ssd cache on the pci-e slot? ------------- Asrock Z590 Extreme I9-11900k G.Skill Trident Z Royal 4266mhz 1.45v EVGA RTX 2080 Super FTW3 Ultra Hybrid Samsung 980 Pro 1TB & 870 Asus XG248Q 240hz Seasonic 850W Platinum PSU |
Replies:
Posted By: parsec
Date Posted: 17 Jul 2015 at 2:23am
We need to sort out the terminology and technology first to begin answering your question. I don't have direct experience doing what you described, but you should see if it will work at all as you attempt to do it. Also, some missing information is needed that makes a big difference about if it would work or not. One type of M.2 SSDs will not work in RAID. You mentioned both M.2 SATA SSDs, and M.2 PCIe SSDs. Both exist, but have major differences in the ability to use them in RAID. M.2 SATA SSDs are the most common type, for example the SAMSUNG 850 EVO MZ-N5E250BW M.2 250GB SATA III SSD. M.2 PCIe SSDs are the least common type, examples include the Samsung XP941 and Samsung SM951. Both of these types will fit in the M.2 slot on an ASRock board. But the connections and "key" on these different SSDs allow them to be identified as M.2 SATA or M.2 PCIe. What M.2 SSDs are you considering to use? Using a PCIe adapter card for M.2 SSDs adds another variable, as well as the mother board's chipset and its UEFI/BIOS. The unknown to me is whether or not a Z77 board will detect either SATA or PCIe M.2 SSDs correctly through a PCIe adapter card. I do know that a M.2 PCIe SSD will NOT be able to be used in a RAID array, using the Intel IRST RAID support. The Intel IRST RAID will only work with SATA SSDs. PCIe M.2 SSDs will not be included in the IRST RAID utility for possible use in RAID arrays. In your scenario, using M.2 SATA SSDs in a PCIe adapter card, IF those SSDs are recognized by the IRST RAID utility, then they may be able to work in a RAID array. I say may work because I have never done that myself. Booting an OS from a PCIe M.2 SSD has required a UEFI/BIOS update for even the latest Intel chipset boards. I believe a beta/custom UEFI was created by ASRock for that purpose for the Z77 Extreme4 board, which you can find in a link in a thread in this forum. Connecting a SATA SSD to a PCIe interface won't provide much if any difference in speed. If it's a SATA drive, it is limited by SATA and the SSD itself. The same thing goes for use as a cache drive. In either scenario, detection of a SATA SSD through the PCIe slot and adapter card is the variable about whether or not it would work. How could you connect a Samsung 840 Pro, with its SATA inteface, to a PCIe adapter card? What adapter card are you talking about? |
Asrockuser wrote:Posted By: Asrockuser
Date Posted: 17 Jul 2015 at 2:44am
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I'm considering this m.2 ssd http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA2W032J1130 I found an adapter but I'm not sure I can set up raid with it on this link. http://www.addonics.com/products/ad2m2s-px4.php Now for your second question; I just found this adapter to connect a sata ssd to pci-e port and m.2. http://www.addonics.com/products/ad4sahm2.php Here's a list of adapters as well. http://www.addonics.com/category/ngff.php Thanks for your feedback, it's helpful. I did find this post interesting, a man hooked up his pci-e ssd made for windows 7 on a z77 motherboard. http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/71858-63-unable-install-windows-pcie
------------- Asrock Z590 Extreme I9-11900k G.Skill Trident Z Royal 4266mhz 1.45v EVGA RTX 2080 Super FTW3 Ultra Hybrid Samsung 980 Pro 1TB & 870 Asus XG248Q 240hz Seasonic 850W Platinum PSU |
Posted By: Asrockuser
Date Posted: 17 Jul 2015 at 3:02am
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Also Tweaktown set up their z77 mobo with this adapter below but for windows 8 enterprise... http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/6422/addonics-adm2px4-pcie-3-0-to-m-2-ssd-adapter-review/index.html# ------------- Asrock Z590 Extreme I9-11900k G.Skill Trident Z Royal 4266mhz 1.45v EVGA RTX 2080 Super FTW3 Ultra Hybrid Samsung 980 Pro 1TB & 870 Asus XG248Q 240hz Seasonic 850W Platinum PSU |
Posted By: Asrockuser
Date Posted: 17 Jul 2015 at 3:25am
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Does the Samsung SM951 utilize rapid mode? ------------- Asrock Z590 Extreme I9-11900k G.Skill Trident Z Royal 4266mhz 1.45v EVGA RTX 2080 Super FTW3 Ultra Hybrid Samsung 980 Pro 1TB & 870 Asus XG248Q 240hz Seasonic 850W Platinum PSU |
Posted By: parsec
Date Posted: 17 Jul 2015 at 1:30pm
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You want to use a Samsung SM951 with your Z77 board. That is a PCIe M.2 SSD. I use one with my Z97 Extreme6 board with its Ultra M.2 slot, providing 4 PCIe 3.0 lanes, which is required for the full performance of this SSD to be available. The Addonics adapter looked interesting, until I saw the controller it uses, a Marvell 9130 or similar chipset. First time I've seen this product, but I was afraid it would be typical Marvell, and it is. Check the specs for the Addonics card, it is electrically a two lane card, compatible with PCIe 1.0 and 2.0. That is a typical Marvell chipset architecture, which they STILL CLAIM is 6Gb/s!! They've been doing that for years, which has irritated me for years too. PCIe 2.0 is 5Gb/s maximum, before 8 to 10 bit encoding (10 bits transmitted for each 8 bits of data.) The two lanes are not combined, one is used for input, the other for output. The reality of this card is in the benchmark they show, Crystal DiskMark of two M.2 SATA SSDs in RAID 0 with two HDDs, the RAID provided by the Marvell chipset. Yes they used SATA M.2 SSDs, but two of them should really perform great, right? Not when the interface is electrically x2. This is my single SM951 in the Ultra M.2 port:  You cannot use that card with a SM951, it expects a SATA type M.2 SSD. You could use that card with your 840 Pro and a HDD, but it would not perform as well as the Intel SSD caching feature your board has now. You could also use this card with M.2 SATA SSDs, but the RAID 0 they describe is the caching with the SSD and an HDD. The performance may be fine for you, but it does not provide better performance than the Intel SATA III ports on your board with standard SATA SSDs. If you want to use a SM951, you'll need a different adapter card. |
Posted By: parsec
Date Posted: 17 Jul 2015 at 1:51pm
Rapid Mode is a feature of the Samsung SSD Magician software, for use with their SATA SSDs. Since the SM951 is not a SATA SSD, it cannot be used with the Rapid feature. AFAIK the SM951 will not work with the Magician software at all. It may be recognized by the Magician software to a degree, and display basic information and the SMART data, but that is all. Rapid Mode is a RAM disk front end that makes Samsung SSDs appear much faster than other SSDs in benchmarks, but you're just seeing the performance of the RAM disk it creates out of some of your PC's memory. The SSD itself is not any faster, data is read from and written to the RAM disk at the usual speed of the SSD. |
Posted By: Asrockuser
Date Posted: 17 Jul 2015 at 2:42pm
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Right, I did notice the card is electrically a two lane card on the specifications, thanks for pointing that out. But I see the M2.SSD can be boot into Windows 7 on the Z77 Extreme4 so I will have to get a SM951, but preferably two of them for raid 0 if I can find an adapter that has raid 0 on it like this card here below. http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/71858-63-unable-install-windows-pcie This man hooked up his pci-e ssd made for http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00H09BB16" rel="nofollow - windows 7 on a z77 motherboard in Raid 0. I actually meant to post this link in one of my replys and had to edit it so incase you don't see it, there ya go. Incase anyone is needing the bios update for the Z77, the next link below will take you there. http://forum.asrock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=272&KW=SM951&PID=1141&title=z77-extreme4-sm951-uefi-bios#1141
------------- Asrock Z590 Extreme I9-11900k G.Skill Trident Z Royal 4266mhz 1.45v EVGA RTX 2080 Super FTW3 Ultra Hybrid Samsung 980 Pro 1TB & 870 Asus XG248Q 240hz Seasonic 850W Platinum PSU |
Posted By: parsec
Date Posted: 19 Jul 2015 at 12:50am
The PCIe SSD in the thread in your link is an OCZ RevoDrive X2 PCIe SSD. That is an older and quite different type of PCIe SSD, and is not the same type of PCIe SSD as the SM951. Also, the RAID 0 that person if referring to in that thread is not being done with a separate RAID card. If you read the details about this SSD (below) you'll find it has four individual SSDs on its circuit board with four SSD controllers. The RAID 0 of this card is done on the card itself, not by an adapter card. A quote from the page in the link below: The RevoDrive X2 family gets its edge by employing a PCIe x4 interface (1GB/s bandwidth as opposed to 3Gb/s of SATA II) and four SandForce-1200 controllers in RAID 0 design to maximize data access and bandwidth. Therefore the RevoDrive X2 SSDs (240GB-960GB) feature up to 740 MB/s read & 720 MB/s write speeds, up to 600 MB/s sustained write speed, and incredible random write up to 120,000 IOPS (4KB Aligned). This is an example of that type of OCZ RevoDrive: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227661" rel="nofollow - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227661 Your goal of multiple SM951s in RAID 0 is interesting, but if you were able to accomplish that you would have the only setup like that in the world. That is, unless LSI has a RAID card with multiple PCIe M.2 interfaces that can somehow work around the interface controller on a PCIe M.2 SSD. Good luck! |