# Z97/SSD Question



## NumberCruncher (Sep 17, 2016)

New to the SSD world, so what is the best way, to set up a SSD with a z97 board: pcie 3.0 or 6gb sata. I am assuming that the z97 boards don't do nvme ? Will be using as a boot drive, with other drives data, GPU not needed for applications that will be ran, just really fast I/O. System has 32gb of ram, i7-4790k, Win7 pro. Can't think of anything else. Any thoughts will be appreciated greatly.


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## jboydgolfer (Sep 17, 2016)

just go Sata, unless You have some dire requirement to take the other way, and Yes Z97 have PCI-E SSD support. There would be some increase in transfer speeds with the PCI-E option, but I dont know if the SSD's of today, Even saturate the 6Gb/s route yet, atleast not the ones im aware of.

i have This board, and it supports SSD over PCI-E


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## NumberCruncher (Sep 17, 2016)

Thank you for your reply. As I stated, new to the whole SSD craze and a little skirmish☺


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## FR@NK (Sep 17, 2016)

I really want one of these:

2200MB/s read speeds!


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## alucasa (Sep 17, 2016)

I prefer M.2 since it reduces cable. I prefer SATA M.2 since it's cheaper. You won't be able to tell any speed difference with bare eyes in general usage.

So, grab affordable one for you. While I prefer Samsung, anything affordable works nowadays.


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## francisw19 (Sep 17, 2016)

I think if you're buying new, going M.2 isn't a bad approach as long as your OK with knowing that you're not getting the peak performance from the SSD (only x2 10 Mb/s bandwitch on the Z97 boards).  With that, if you upgrade your board down the road (say X99 or Z170 or newer), you'd get the full use of the SSD then.  In the meantime, you'd only have to buy one SSD (as opposed to buying say a SATA III SSD now and then getting another M.2 later on).  And really, it's still going to be a very speedy drive regardless.


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## 95Viper (Sep 17, 2016)

NumberCruncher said:


> I am assuming that the z97 boards don't do nvme



Some do NVMe... depends, if you want to boot to a PCIe NVMe drive, then you probably need a BIOS update.

Some boards have only PCIe x2 on the board and some may have PCIe x4... if you have x2 on the board, you can get a PCIe x4 M.2 (or U2) adapter card and mount the NVMe M.2(or U2) drive there (or, even, get a U2 kit/adapter, and run a U2 drive from the M.2 adapter) .  There are a few different options for what your configuration needs are.

For instance, the Asrock Z97 Extreme 4, that  jboydgolfer posted can/should do NVMe boot, with the BIOS update 2.40; however, the board only has an PCIe x2 m.2 slot.  To get full benefit he would need a PCIe x4 adapter card.
There are a number of NVMe drives out now that can obtain the high read/write speeds.

OP:  Fill out your specs in your Profile and make sure you have "Show System Specs" set to yes.  It will help speed up assistance.

What motherboard do you have?
Also, google around and find some legit sites to help explain M.2, U2, NVMe, etc. and the different types.


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## slozomby (Sep 17, 2016)

jboydgolfer said:


> just go Sata, unless You have some dire requirement to take the other way, and Yes Z97 have PCI-E SSD support. There would be some increase in transfer speeds with the PCI-E option, but I dont know if the SSD's of today, Even saturate the 6Gb/s route yet, atleast not the ones im aware of.



6 Gb is 600MB per sec give or take. the Samsung 850's will do it. the Samsung 840's will come real close. the high end M2's and intel 750s are 4 times as fast. personally. booting windows in 6 seconds vs 10 seconds doesn't mean much to me. its still booted well before I can get a cuppa coffee.

and office and visual studio still pop nearly instantly on the 840 that is my c: drive.


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## jboydgolfer (Sep 17, 2016)

slozomby said:


> 6 Gb is 600MB



i know what 6GB/s is in MB/s, Ive been doing this long enough to know the difference between "realistic" numbers, and expectations, and projected, or numbers on a box. I know there is some commercial , or other top of the line drives that likely perform 10% better in Actual real world enviroments, but I own several 850 evos, they dont always do what the numbers say, not in real life they being SSD.dont get me wrong they are real nice but ..I stand behind my Sata recommendation, i also feel i should mention im not only considering speeds as reason for going sata, obviously there are other factors...cost, the reliability of Sata, etc.


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## Bill_Bright (Sep 17, 2016)

W7 is already 7 years ago. I recommend W10. Remember, there is a HUGE difference between privacy and security. Microsoft is NOT trying to steal your passwords, access your bank accounts, steal your identity, hack your contacts, or infect your computer. If worried about privacy, be afraid of ISP before Microsoft, and be totally scared to death with your cell phone carrier!

W10 is by far the most secure Windows to date. And it is easy to make W10 look and feel like W7 for just $5, or less. Plus W10 is designed from the ground up to support today's hardware - like SSDs. Microsoft's mainstream support for W7 already ended 21 months ago in January 2015. Driver support will follow.



> so what is the best way, to set up a SSD with a z97 board: pcie 3.0 or 6gb sata.


PCIe (or M.2) is faster than SATA, but whether you will notice any difference or not is another story. The slowest SSDs run circles around even the fastest HDs. The gap between SATA SSD and PCIe SSD is much less dramatic. But if me and I were building a new rig today, I would go with PCIe. But I know I would not be disappointed with SATA.


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## newtekie1 (Sep 17, 2016)

jboydgolfer said:


> There would be some increase in transfer speeds with the PCI-E option, but I dont know if the SSD's of today, Even saturate the 6Gb/s route yet, atleast not the ones im aware of.



Even the budget SSDs today max out the SATA 6Gb/s SATA connection.


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## NumberCruncher (Sep 18, 2016)

Bill_Bright said:


> W7 is already 7 years ago. I recommend W10. Remember, there is a HUGE difference between privacy and security. Microsoft is NOT trying to steal your passwords, access your bank accounts, steal your identity, hack your contacts, or infect your computer. If worried about privacy, be afraid of ISP before Microsoft, and be totally scared to death with your cell phone carrier!
> 
> W10 is by far the most secure Windows to date. And it is easy to make W10 look and feel like W7 for just $5, or less. Plus W10 is designed from the ground up to support today's hardware - like SSDs. Microsoft's mainstream support for W7 already ended 21 months ago in January 2015. Driver support will follow.
> 
> PCIe (or M.2) is faster than SATA, but whether you will notice any difference or not is another story. The slowest SSDs run circles around even the fastest HDs. The gap between SATA SSD and PCIe SSD is much less dramatic. But if me and I were building a new rig today, I would go with PCIe. But I know I would not be disappointed with SATA.



Thanks Bill, I do have Win10 Pro on my laptop. My wife has some work related, software that she uses that will not run on W10, when the programmer was asked to make it run on 10, the fees were outrageous and getting the code and doing it myself wasn't an option given. Tried 7 compatibility mode, even tried doing a VMware Win 7 to no avail. So 7 it is for the foreseeable future for the desktop machine. Anyhow, what part of the big red state are you from? I am originally from Grand Island, but live in Tennessee now.


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## Bill_Bright (Sep 18, 2016)

NumberCruncher said:


> Thanks Bill, I do have Win10 Pro on my laptop. My wife has some work related, software that she uses that will not run on W10, when the programmer was asked to make it run on 10, the fees were outrageous and getting the code and doing it myself wasn't an option given. Tried 7 compatibility mode, even tried doing a VMware Win 7 to no avail. So 7 it is for the foreseeable future for the desktop machine. Anyhow, what part of the big red state are you from? I am originally from Grand Island, but live in Tennessee now.


That's the problem with custom software. Off-the-shelf, when possible, should always be used - but of course, hindsight is 20/20.  I would recommend your wife look for alternatives. It will be a pain to migrate to it, but as time passes, it will just get harder and harder (and more expensive too). And eventually, your wife will have to replace her current hardware. And just like now where much of the new hardware coming out does not support XP (and older versions of Windows), new hardware one day soon will not support W7.

The Air Force sent me to Offutt AFB in Bellevue, 30 years ago - it was not by my choice. Been here ever since even though I retired from the AF over 20 years ago. It kinda grows on you.


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