[SOLVED] Asus Hyper M.2 x16 card as simple M.2 storage device? How can I get it to work?

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Michael Jacky

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May 24, 2016
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Hi

So, I bought an Asus Hyper M.2 x16 card, and thought that it was just a simple storage expansion card, meaning I could put two newly bought Samsun M.2 SSDs in it and just have extra storage.
But, alas, such was not the case. It works fine for ONE(1) drive. The other isn't even detected, not in Windows or BIOS. Funnily enough, though, the BIOS seems to think I've got an extra terabyte on my 960 Pro I got attached directly to my mobo.

I've got a Gigabyte GA-Z170-SOC FORCE motherboard. My thoughts are, there is no proper support for Z170 chipset, it only works properly on Intel X299 or AMD X399 or it was designed to be a RAID card for M.2 SSDs and not a simple storage expansion card at all...
My BIOS has very few options regarding storage settings, so I'm not getting a lot of feedback from that...

What do you think? Is there a way to get it to work? To use both my 970 EVOs? Or do I have to order one of those off-brand 2x M.2 expansion cards? Any you'd recommend in particular?
I live in Sweden BTW, so it has to be able to ship there. Hopefully quickly.
 
Solution
hang-the-9
Did you check with Asus support? There is also a description of what you bought on the Amazon site which talks about supported motherboards and Intel VROC https://www.amazon.com/Asus-Hyper-M-2-x16-Card/dp/B0753JTJTG

I would not bother getting those M.2 drives for storage, a standard SATA drive will be just fine. Sure newer is fancy and has good benchmarks, but in real world use you are not going to see any difference worth the extra money or hassle.
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hang-the-9

hang-the-9

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Did you check with Asus support? There is also a description of what you bought on the Amazon site which talks about supported motherboards and Intel VROC https://www.amazon.com/Asus-Hyper-M-2-x16-Card/dp/B0753JTJTG

I would not bother getting those M.2 drives for storage, a standard SATA drive will be just fine. Sure newer is fancy and has good benchmarks, but in real world use you are not going to see any difference worth the extra money or hassle.
 
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Michael Jacky

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May 24, 2016
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Sorry, storage was probably the wrong description of it. I will use it for games that I want to load fast and that might actually NEED that speed to perform well.

So yes, I am gonna bother. Sad thing I learned, though, was that a M.2 is not good for boot. Was gonna use my 960 Pro as boot, but read at a forum that there isn't much improvement, and that a SATA SSD performs better as OS drive.

Cause if it would work well, I'd just put my OS on that and connect the second 970 EVO directly in my mobo


No, I didn't check with Asus support, don't see how they could help properly when my mobo is Gigabyte, they might not be able to give proper suppoer.
And yes, I've read of the "supported" motherboards, and no it's not exclusive to them because I've read of other people without them who got it working, but one guy I remember somewhat well had an Asus mobo, so maybe that has something to do with it.
 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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Regarding games, the user facing performance difference between an m.2 drive and a regular SATA III SSD will be minimal if any.

Both type of drives have near zero latency. That's where an SSD shines over HDD.
The NVMe shines over a regular SSD in moving large sequential blocks of data around. Which is not what we're doing in the context of games.
 
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hang-the-9

hang-the-9

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You should contact Asus support because it's their card you want to use, so they would be best to tell you what it can work on.

There are no programs or games that would need anything faster than a standard SATA SSD unless you are CERN and are trying to map a few billion data points in fractions of a second.
 
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karenjoly

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Yeah you are headed in the right direction.Use"em or loose'em. The nay sayers find that a NVMe is a poor choice. Is that why lots of them are sold every year ? It depends on the M2 of course. In particular though is this bit of nonsense

" Sad thing I learned, though, was that a M.2 is not good for boot. Was gonna use my 960 Pro as boot, but read at a forum that there isn't much improvement, and that a SATA SSD performs better as OS drive."

Right now I have the 970 Pro as the boot running on top of two stellar SSDs. The NVMe is snappier than either of the others as a boot and as anything else. Loads faster, opens faster and closes faster. I notice it real clear. How much faster ? Depends, can be very little, so yeah, not that much for sure.( We are already dealing in less than a second comparisons.). But when my regular back up clone op goes from 5 min for SATA to 2.5,for M.2 I gotta like the M.2. And no wires and cables. Is that well worth the cost ? Sure if one has the money. For those on a tight budget a SATA will always be the better value choice.

Especially since you already have these drives, I too would use'em both.
 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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We're not saying it is a universal poor choice.
My next system will include one, possibly two. But only if they are natively connectable.

But for a lot of assumptions and use cases, it is.

A game PC and expecting...what increase?
As you state, we're already in sub 1 second access times.

As for "Is that why lots of them are sold every year ?"
Reference the many posts we get here every day, of people wanting to merge a 970 PRO with a 10 year old Z68 motherboard. Because....faster!
 
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