Is m.2 and hdd a thing?

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edgarc189411

Sep 5, 2018
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I am building a pc soon and i was wondering can i use a 1tb hdd and 500gb m.2? I'm only asking because I am still learning and in the pc partpicker website where I have my build says "The motherboard M.2 slot #1 shares bandwidth with SATA 6.0 Gb/s ports. When the M.2 slot is populated, two SATA 6.0 Gb/s ports are disabled." Can someone explain this?
 
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M2 is not an interface in itself, I believe M2 supports a bunch of interfaces like PCIe, Sata etc.

When you connect an M2 drive on the motherboard slot, the connection is physically routed the the relevant interface (depending on pinout)

M2 drives can be designed to utilize the Sata interface OR the PCIe lanes.

Newer motherboards support both Sata and PCIe (NVMe) storage on the M2 slot.

Now you see since, M2 is not exactly an interface, it will use either the sata or PCIe bus - hence limiting said bus in it's native operations / bandwidth.

What your motherboard is trying to say is "Hey man I have X number of sata ports and 1 M2 slot but only enough channel bandwidth to run the X number of sata ports, therefore if you want to use...
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engineer5261

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Apr 26, 2016
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M2 is not an interface in itself, I believe M2 supports a bunch of interfaces like PCIe, Sata etc.

When you connect an M2 drive on the motherboard slot, the connection is physically routed the the relevant interface (depending on pinout)

M2 drives can be designed to utilize the Sata interface OR the PCIe lanes.

Newer motherboards support both Sata and PCIe (NVMe) storage on the M2 slot.

Now you see since, M2 is not exactly an interface, it will use either the sata or PCIe bus - hence limiting said bus in it's native operations / bandwidth.

What your motherboard is trying to say is "Hey man I have X number of sata ports and 1 M2 slot but only enough channel bandwidth to run the X number of sata ports, therefore if you want to use the M2 as well the only way I can guarantee sufficient M2 bandwidth is by disabling 2 of my X sata ports"
 
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edgarc189411

Sep 5, 2018
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Okay sorry still a bit confusing but I still think I get the point, so will I even be able to use the wb 1tb hdd since it will be disabling the 2 other data ports? Sorry if you basically already answered that i just am new to this
 
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engineer5261

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Apr 26, 2016
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Which motherboard do you have?
Most motherboards come with a decent amount of Sata ports. I have 6 sata ports on my motherboard, of which I am using 4 as I have 2 HDD's and 2 SSD's in addition to an M2 NVMe. Which motherboard are you getting and how many SSD/HDD do you plan on having with it?

Otherwise, if your motherboard M2 port supports NVMe - you could get a NVMe PCIe based M2 drive instead which will not affect sata ports or bandwidth at all.
 
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edgarc189411

Sep 5, 2018
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I'm planning to get the msi b450 gaming plus. And I am for sure getting a WB 1tb HDD and I also wanted an ssd so initially I was going to get the samsung mz-76e500b but then I was suggested the Crucial CT500MX500, and When I added the crucial one in got that message in pcpartpicker so that's why I am asking if I can even do hdd and the m.2 crucial ssd. And of course if it doesnt work I'll just get the samsung one
 
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engineer5261

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That motherboard has 6 sata ports, so you will be fine even if you hook up 4 drives along with a Sata M2 (which will disable the remaining 2 ports)
(You only need 1 Sata connector per SSD / HD)

That motherboard's M.2 also supports PCIe NVMe drives, so you can get one of those if you want to use ALL 6 of your sata ports
 
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