I want to upgrade my system by adding an SSD to boot from and to run applications/games from. I want to get a 256-512Gb PCI-e SSD but am not sure if I will be able to boot from it, anyone know? Also, What kind of drive would I need, I'm a little confused with the compatibility of new M.2 and PCI-e Gen2 drives on my motherboard.
X58 won't support boot from NVMe drive (NVMe requires UEFI support to boot). As long as PCI-Ex SSD is of AHCI type there shouldn't be any problems with booting from it. I would advise against M.2 drives running via converter. Myself have X58 system and it's most definitively not guaranteed to work as boot device.
As data drive intel 750 works perfectly well on X58 (using one right now), but you cannot boot from it. Same goes for 950Pro or 951 NVMe.
X58 won't support boot from NVMe drive (NVMe requires UEFI support to boot). As long as PCI-Ex SSD is of AHCI type there shouldn't be any problems with booting from it. I would advise against M.2 drives running via converter. Myself have X58 system and it's most definitively not guaranteed to work as boot device.
As data drive intel 750 works perfectly well on X58 (using one right now), but you cannot boot from it. Same goes for 950Pro or 951 NVMe.
I want to upgrade my system by adding an SSD to boot from and to run applications/games from. I want to get a 256-512Gb PCI-e SSD but am not sure if I will be able to boot from it, anyone know? Also, What kind of drive would I need, I'm a little confused with the compatibility of new M.2 and PCI-e Gen2 drives on my motherboard.
I haven't seen a NVMe SSD yet that you can't boot on older X58 systems and earlier boards. Also, 100% of all 950 Pro's boot on older systems because Samsung has built in support for legacy bios systems on their 950 series. For drives such as the 960 or SM961 etc, including most if not all other NVMe SSD's you can use DUET to boot ANY SSD on ANY Motherboard with a PCIe slot. That's its sole purpose to add support to legacy BIOS systems. Sure it may not be easy to do but you won't really know unless you try. DUET simply adds the necessary NVMe protocol to your old school systems bootup sequence, it then see's any NVMe SSD and initializes them. Yes, it adds some extra time to the boot up process, but nothing wrong with that. Once the SSD initializes and Windows starts to boot it will load the NVMe drivers on its own and within seconds you will be at the desktop. Some systems can even get modded BIOS support to see these SSD's.
Your only real roadblock is the fact that you don't get the full benefit of a PCIe 3.0 SSD if you go these routes. So what, who cares, its still much faster then SATA.
EDIT: Sorry I didn't even see the previous post before replying, my bad please forgive. P.S. the 950 boots on my Rampage III and my fathers older 775 system, forgot the model though but he has no problem with it.
Its too bad people some people just have to rush to answer without knowing what they are talking about. Hope you can return the Sata drives and get on the NVME ones because the difference is noticeable. Good luck I love my 950 pro.
Its too bad people some people just have to rush to answer without knowing what they are talking about. Hope you can return the Sata drives and get on the NVME ones because the difference is noticeable. Good luck I love my 950 pro.
Yeah its probably too late now, lol. And sadly he clearly didn't care about the latency or risks involved with raid. So the 950 Pro would have been a much better option for him even if his motherboards BIOS didn't see it, he could have used something like DUET to boot from it...
But I know for fact the Sabertooth x58 see's the 950 Pro in its BIOS and boots to it without any issues. He should have asked me because I knew the 950 Pro booted on older systems way back in March of 2016 when someone by the name of nick29 accidentally stumbled upon this fact. Ever since then MANY have reported the same thing, the 950 Pro is seen as either an IDE drive or SCSI drive in the BIOS, and this allows the system to select it and boot to it. Windows then loads the proper NVMe drivers during boot giving you the same NVMe support as any other newer system. The only downfall seems to be the PCIe 2.0 bus if that should matter, and any UEFI benefits which no one that I know has missed. When SATA 3 SSD's first became available people still purchased them when they only had SATA 2 ports, so someone arguing that it is a waste of money to buy a NVMe M.2 SSD and installing it on a PCIe slot 2.0 doesn't seem to understand why people buy new hardware. You don't buy a NVMe SSD for PCIe 3.0, you buy it to kick the crap out of your SATA SSD's and get three times the performance at least. Makes no sense to waste a perfectly good PCIe 2.0 slot now does it? LOL
Unfortunately, the legacy bios option rom that Samsung had in their 950 Pro does NOT seem to be included in the 960 series as of yet (maybe firmware update someday?). So using DUET to add NVMe support to your older motherboards boot up sequence is a must, or a bios mod if one is available.
no its the NVMe version. does not have legacy mode. im not sure if it wa sdue to having previously messed with modding bios with a NVMe module. I didnt do it much on my main but messed with it a lot of my other x79. both worked. booted with the windows on the drive already. Only thing is i had some boot manager issues but it was figured out when i essentially had no drives plugged in with windows on it and installed that way. look up the modding bios guide on win-raid (http://www.win-raid.com/t871f16-Guide-How-to-get-full-NVMe-support-for-Intel-Chipset-systems-from-Series-up.html). see if this helps u
no its the NVMe version. does not have legacy mode. im not sure if it wa sdue to having previously messed with modding bios with a NVMe module. I didnt do it much on my main but messed with it a lot of my other x79. both worked. booted with the windows on the drive already. Only thing is i had some boot manager issues but it was figured out when i essentially had no drives plugged in with windows on it and installed that way. look up the modding bios guide on win-raid (http://www.win-raid.com/t871f16-Guide-How-to-get-full-NVMe-support-for-Intel-Chipset-systems-from-Series-up.html). see if this helps u
Yeah many BIOS's especially ones from series 6 and up can be modded. My Fathers old P67 mobo got a UEFI bios update like 3 years after it was released, went from a normal BIOS to a normal UEFI all in one update. Gave him support for NVMe as well, which was VERY surprising for a i7-2600K setup.
mine didnt get NVMe support natively from Asus so i had to add it myself. but the main thing is changing the adapter as it may have some code or something that only allows it to be used on specific systems.
mine didnt get NVMe support natively from Asus so i had to add it myself. but the main thing is changing the adapter as it may have some code or something that only allows it to be used on specific systems.
Yeah Asus kinda sucks at bios updates. I know all too well about it, lol. I have been using modded BIOS's on my Asus boards for many many years now, just to get the latest option roms etc.
Yeah Asus kinda sucks at bios updates. I know all too well about it, lol. I have been using modded BIOS's on my Asus boards for many many years now, just to get the latest option roms etc.
Things like Intel option roms, Marvel option roms, Xeon codes, and other CPU codes. Recently I killed my old P5B Deluxe adding some Xeon codes into the bios, so I will need to solder on a new bios chip to fix that one, but that's really easy to do. Its the $20 dollars lost for making a mistake, I don't like that much... lol
My Rampage III has bios support from 3rd parties, so I never really had to do much with it. I like installing Xeon's into boards that didn't support them, they make great cheap systems.
Unfortuntely the responses were a bit too late and I ended up going with the sata 3 ssds which have been working alright, but looking to add some more ssd space now and might aswell do it right this time.
Would the 950 Pro still be a good choice or are there any better native options now that work without using duet?
Edit: Also, from what I understand, I have to run my motherboard in AHCI mode instead of RAID. I have 2 raid arrays, a Raid 10 HDD arrary for my main storage and the raid 0 ssd setup, would I have to also get a seperate PCIe raid controller to keep those working? Starting to run low on rear slots.
The 950 Pro should work just fine. I use the SM961 myself (same as 960 Pro) and just boot my 2010 Rampage III Extreme using the super easy Clover bootloader method. Of course my BIOS has to boot Clover, then Clover has to boot the OS on my SM961 (booting Linux and the latest xanmod kernel), but I am perfectly OK with that. What's a few seconds extra for a more modern experience without having to buy current hardware.
Very good question and no I do not know if that can be used outside of a recent dell. I wouldn't take the risk myself. In fact, I would assume it only works on modern EFI motherboards. Now maybe, just maybe something like Clover would see it? lol
Very good question and no I do not know if that can be used outside of a recent dell. I wouldn't take the risk myself. In fact, I would assume it only works on modern EFI motherboards. Now maybe, just maybe something like Clover would see it? lol
Yeah, saw the compatibility issue too after posting, updated the link with one that doesn't do any raid and is just a dummy passthrough like most. Clover should be able to do a software raid on those, right? Gonna be using Clover for my hackintosh boot anyway, so if I can use 2x256Gb drives in raid 0 for that instead of a single 512 that would be a plus.
Edit: These are supposed to be comming out soon, worth a shot to try it out for that price I guess. Wanted to do some kind of active cooling for the M.2 anyway.
Yeah, saw the compatibility issue too after posting, updated the link with one that doesn't do any raid and is just a dummy passthrough like most. Clover should be able to do a software raid on those, right? Gonna be using Clover for my hackintosh boot anyway, so if I can use 2x256Gb drives in raid 0 for that instead of a single 512 that would be a plus.
Edit: These are supposed to be comming out soon, worth a shot to try it out for that price I guess. Wanted to do some kind of active cooling for the M.2 anyway.
OMG, what the heck? Am I to believe that card would allow 4 NVMe SSD's to occupy just one x16 slot? I thought that was considered impossible without some sort of controller?
OMG, what the heck? Am I to believe that card would allow 4 NVMe SSD's to occupy just one x16 slot? I thought that was considered impossible without some sort of controller?
Thanks. I was asking in the other thread (960 Pro thread) to see if anyone knows anything about this and sure enough someone does and told me it works perfectly to allow a single system to see all drives as independent. That is crazy crazy goodness to say the least.
Thanks. I was asking in the other thread (960 Pro thread) to see if anyone knows anything about this and sure enough someone does and told me it works perfectly to allow a single system to see all drives as independent. That is crazy crazy goodness to say the least.
Sweet, should be all set to do the software raid with Clover on OSX then. Good thing you brought up Clover too, didn't even realize that was a thing. I was going to use Chameleon for my OSX boot, but Clover is a much better option.
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