GA-Z170X-Gaming 7 or GA-Z170X-Gaming G1 (2x M.2 NVMe) + SATA

Question

I have been considering building a new system with dual Samsung 950 NVMe SSDs and I am slightly confused about how the firmware on GIGABYTE supports this setup.

Reading the manual for the Gaming 7(page 32), it states in a note that the second M.2 runs at 2X speed. However the document is 'talking about' SATAe (AFAIK) and not NVMe so I am curious about:

1. Will the GIGABYTE firmware support both M.2 NVMe drives as RAID0?
2. Will the 'second' 950 M.2 run only on two lanes (or 2x as the manual implies).
3. Because the drives are NVMe and not SATAe, will I still lose the ability to populate the SATA3 ports? (i.e. Is it because the M.2 controller needs the lanes or is it because the SATAe configuration requires this.)

What I would ~like~ to do is have a dual Samsung 950 NVMe setup with RAID0 as a primary (and given that the machine is likely going to be a Linux box eventually, this could be software). Then have the 8 SATA3 ports populated with a RAID6 array of 5TB drives (likely MDADM->LVM->EXT4).

I'd pick the Gaming G1 (http ://www.gigabyte.us/products/product-page.aspx?pid=5478) over the Gaming 7 (http ://www.gigabyte.us/products/product-page.aspx?pid=5481) if it supported this better, even if SOME of the other features are not required.

Solution 1

Question 1:

Will the GIGABYTE firmware support both M.2 NVMe drives as RAID0?

The GIGABYTE Gaming 7 motherboard only has 2 x M.2 Socket 3 connectors on it. One appears to be a M.2 PCI-Express connector the other is a M.2 SATA connector. This is clear by the fact the chart in the manual, for each M2D_32G M.2 connector, is slightly different. If they were both M.2 PCI-Express connectors they would be identical. The "PCIe x4 SSD runs at x2 speed." comment is in reference to any device connected to the PCIe 3.0 x4 bus this includes NVMe devices. So if your goal is to use two Samsung 950 NVMe SSDs you won't acomplish your goals with that motherboard.

Directly from the manual:

The M.2 connectors support M.2 SATA SSDs and M.2 PCIe SSDs and support RAID configuration through the Intel® Chipset. "The Intel® Chipset supports RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, and RAID 10.

You should take note of this though:

Please note that an M.2 PCIe SSD cannot be used to create a RAID set either with an M.2 SATA SSD or a SATA hard drive. To create a RAID array with an M.2 PCIe SSD, you must set up the configuration in UEFI BIOS mode.

Question 2:

Because the drives are NVMe and not SATAe, will I still lose the ability to populate the SATA3 ports? (i.e. Is it because the M.2 controller needs the lanes or is it because the SATAe configuration requires this.)

The chart belows explains what SATA ports you will or will not lose based on the configuration you select.

Question 3:

Because the drives are NVMe and not SATAe, will I still lose the ability to populate the SATA3 ports? (i.e. Is it because the M.2 controller needs the lanes or is it because the SATAe configuration requires this.)

Your motherboard does not support the use of two NVMe devices based on the manual you provided.

My conclusion is also based on this statement.

1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x4 (PCIEX4) * The PCIEX4 slot shares bandwidth with the M2H_32G connector. The PCIEX4 slot will become unavailable when an SSD is installed in the M2H_32G connector.

This statement by itself, indicates that only one of the M2H_32G connectors, is a M.2 PCI-Express connector. If the board supported two M.2 PCI-Express devices, the bandwidth to a second PCI-E slot would have to be shared, the amount of PCI-E bus is finite in the chipset being used.

Solution 2

1. GA-Z170X-Gaming 7 does support two NVMe devices. I am currently using two Samsung 960 1TB PCIe NVMe M.2 SSDs successfully as RAID 0 equaling 2TB in storage.

2. From the chart, it says it operates as double the speed.

3. One of the issues I had is understanding the diagram in the motherboard for the disabling of SATA controllers. From what I've been able to figure out by trial-and-error is that when two of the aforementioned m.2s are installed, all SATA ports are disabled EXCEPT SATA 4,6,& 7.

Comments

[Yorik]

Yeah, I found those charts indecipherable.

[ErnieE]

(It was) About as clear (to me) as mud. It is quite unfortunate that M.2 has this kind of dual identity. I have used an M.2 SATAe SSD drive and they are VERY impressive compared to SATA3 SSD. THANK YOU for the clear explanation. It was misleading (to me at least) that one was not quite 'up to snuff'. I have seen a dual M.2 add-on card that had the same problem. Now I guess it is either wait or just go with the single M.2 solution. (I've had decent luck with ASUS in the past.) No matter when you 'buy in' something new is just around the corner!

[metalim]

How this answer got accepted? GA-Z170X-Gaming 7 DOES support 2 NVMe drives, both M.2 slots are NVMe compatible. I just got them working, after a little dance with BIOS not wanting to recognize the second drive. But after Load Optimal Defaults, it turned power off 2 times automatically, and magically both NVMe drives (Samsung 950 Pro and Plextor M8Pe) appeared in the boot section.

[Legolas]

I think that makes sense form the charts: a PCIe x4 SSD in the M2D slot lists 0,1,2,3 and 5 with a 'X', so that disables those ports, together with the sata express ports also listed (with the exception that using the 1st one would halve lanes avaialble to that SSD as noted in the '(Note)' part). A similar SSD in the M2H port only disables 5, but that's already disabled anyway because of the ssd in the M2D slot. So 0,1,2,3, and 5 are dead (which suddenly leaves surprisingly few sata ports available...)

[Ramhound]

@Legolas - I interpreted the information differently. I stand by my answer. The author also wanted to connect 8 SATA HDDs to the system. Difficult to determine my original justification nearly 3 years. Without rewriting the entire answer I won’t be able to determine my original justification, and that isn’t going to happen, since the answer was accepted.