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Old January 6th 19, 08:48 PM posted to alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus
Bill Anderson
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Posts: 249
Default All I wanted was just to use that M.2 socket

I have an Asus Prime X299-A board with an i7-7820X 8-core processor
loaded with six various sized SATA drives plus a 500GB Samsung 960 PCIe
3.0 x4, NVMe 1.2 EVO drive that serves as my main boot drive.

There are two M.2 sockets on the board: the one I use with my M.2
Samsung NVMe SSD is pointed vertically and is easily accessed any time I
want to remove the drive, and the other sits pointed horizontally under
a 3-screw metal plate that can't be removed without first removing the
graphics card -- not easy to access at all.

But that hidden M.2 slot is sitting there empty and I'd really like to
use it for storage of stuff I'd like to access at high speed. (I don't
want to use it as a boot drive.) The manual says it'll work with either
a PCIE drive or an SATA drive, so I stupidly ordered a 1T M.2 SATA
drive, even though I was slightly worried I'd already maxed out the
board's SATA capabilities with an 8-core processor. And yes, of course
I had -- when I installed the new M.2 drive, BIOS promptly disabled one
of my other SATA drives. Drat.

So I'm going to try to send it back to Amazon, though I won't be
surprised if they refuse to take back an electronic device, even though
I've never even partitioned it. We'll see.

But I accept responsibility for doing this stupid thing and I'm resigned
to paying the price if I must. Still, I'm wondering...

If it turns out Amazon will do an exchange, is it possible I could run a
second PCIE drive in that M.2 socket? I'm asking here because I no
longer trust my understanding of all this to make a purchase without
advice. According to the manual the socket I want to use supports "PCIe
3.0 x4 and SATA mode M key design." Does that mean a PCIe M.2 SSD would
not disable one of my regular SATA drives while an SATA M.2 SSD would?
Even though I want 1T for storage, I'd be willing to exchange my 1T M.2
SATA drive for a 500GB M.2 PCIe drive, as they're basically the same
price at Amazon.

Should I take that route, or just try to get my money back if I can and
forget the whole thing? Thanks.

--
Bill Anderson

I am the Mighty Favog