ASRock AB350 Pro 4

Hi :)

I currently have a (WB Blue 3D NAND 250GB M.2 2280 6Gbps) SSD, its just a standard SSD but fits on the M.2 slot, i'm wanting to upgrade it to a proper NVMe drive.

So here is the question, i have never been able to get my existing M.2 slot SSD to work in the Ultra M.2 slot near the CPU, it does work in the M.2 slot near the GPU at the bottom of the board.

Now, as i understand it the slot near the CPU is the one required for high performance NVMe drives, the one at the bottom is just a standard SATA interface limited to 6Gb/s.

Because i have never been able to get me SSD to work in the high speed Ultra M.2 slot my fear is the slot doesn't actually work, its broken, so if i did get a high speed NVMe drive i wouldn't be able to use it.

Or is it that the M.2 SATA SDD will not work in the NVMe Ultra M.2 slot because its not an NVMe drive? that the Ultra M.2 slot is ok but will only work with a proper NVMe drive?

Extra info: BIOS has been upgraded as far as 4.90.

AFAIK, the Ultra slot should take both types of M.2 drives, i.e. SATA and NVMe. Bottom slot works ONLY with SATA devices.

If you choose a NVMe drive (check the QVL to be sure model is tested), put it the Ultra slot. Mobo should pick it up automatically. If not, check if there is a switch for drive type in BIOS.

Easy as that.

It appears the bad in on my end. I just checked the manual and it says the Ultra slot accepts ONLY PCIe devices, i.e. no SATA devices. That's not the case with my mobo, that's why I was confused initially.

So, that's that. You can check here for QVL https://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/AB350%20Pro4/#Storage and see how you can proceed from there.