Would this M2 slot expansion card work in my system?

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David689

Gold Level Poster
Hi,

I bought the PCS system below about 18 months ago.

As you can see both M2 slots on the motherboard are currently occupied. I wonder of the following expansion card would work in this machine, allowing me to add up to 4 M2 drives? I wonder if there would be any issues, such as the card creating a bottle neck? I might use it to store video (up to 4k) or pictures to be used in Adobe programs such as Lightroom, Photoshop, Premiere and After Effects. I am not planning on buy anything at the moment and will try and concentrate on better housekeeping with the data I currently have, but I like to be aware of my options.

I have two PCI-e cards at the moment - one providing a 3.2 gen 2x2 USB-c socket and the other is the AX-200 bluetooth/wifi card.

I note the issue in one of the Amazon reviews about curvature of the card making it difficult to screw into the chassis and another one about chacking BIOS settings. (I certainly would have no intention of modding the BIOS).

Any thoughts very welcome.


CaseCORSAIR 4000D AIRFLOW TEMPERED GLASS GAMING CASE
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Change to: LIAN LI LANCOOL 215 GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)AMD Ryzen 9 5950X 16 Core CPU (3.4GHz-4.9GHz/72MB CACHE/AM4)
MotherboardASUS® ROG STRIX X570-F GAMING (USB 3.2 Gen 2, PCIe 4.0) - ARGB Ready!
Memory (RAM)64GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3200MHz (4 x 16GB)
Graphics Card12GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 3060 - HDMI, DP
1st M.2 SSD Drive1TB SAMSUNG 980 PRO M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 7000MB/R, 5000MB/W)
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Change to: 500GB SAMSUNG 980 PRO M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 6900MB/R, 5000MB/W)
2nd M.2 SSD DriveNONE
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Change to: 1TB SAMSUNG 980 PRO M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 7000MB/R, 5000MB/W)
1st Storage DriveNOT REQUIRED
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Change to: 2TB Samsung 870 QVO 2.5" SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (up to 560MB/sR | 530MB/sW)
2nd Storage DriveNOT REQUIRED
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Change to: 512GB PCS 2.5" SSD, SATA 6 Gb (520MB/R, 450MB/W)
3rd Storage DriveNOT REQUIRED
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Change to: 8TB SEAGATE BARRACUDA SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 5400RPM, 256MB CACHE
DVD/BLU-RAY DriveNOT REQUIRED
Memory Card ReaderUSB 3.0 EXTERNAL SD/MICRO SD CARD READER
Power SupplyCORSAIR 850W RMx SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor CoolingCorsair H115i ELITE CAPELLIX RGB Hydro Series High Performance CPU Cooler
Thermal PasteSTANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound CardONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Card10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT
Wireless Network CardNOT REQUIRED
USB/Thunderbolt OptionsMIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating SystemNO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
 
RichLan564

RichLan564

Bright Spark
I might be wrong but it think only one of the drives will work as the X570 MB doesn't support bifurcation to spit the PCIe lanes, i wanted to do the same with mine and just used a Startech card that could accept one NVME M.2 and a SATA M.2 if required, works fine on the NVME but haven't used a SATA one yet (SATA M.2 are surprisingly expensive)
 
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TonyCarter

VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
PICe channel bifurcation is entirely dependent on the motherboard and total number of PCIe lanes your motherboard/chipset supports. Most consumer motherboards do not offer enough lanes to take full advantage of these cards.

I've got the same motherboard/chipset, with an Asus HYPER M.2 X16 CARD V2 GEN4 card, and it will only recognise 2 of the 4 slots in the add-in card, so my 3rd/4th are housed in a speedy USB 3.1 dual-M.2 enclosure.

You will also need to configure this PCIe bifurcation mode in the BIOS.

ASUS motherboard PCIe bifurcation support document:

[Motherboard] Compatibility of PCIE bifurcation between Hyper M.2 series Cards and Add-On Graphic Cards | Official Support | ASUS UK

www.asus.com

ASUS Add-In card:
www.asus.com

Hyper M.2 x16 Gen 4 Card｜Motherboards｜ASUS United Kingdom

ASUS ThunderboltEX 3-TR is a Thunderbolt™ 3 add-on card that delivers 40 Gbps bi-directional bandwidth and DisplayPort™ 1.4 support. It's able to support up to six Thunderbolt-enabled devices in a daisy-chain configuration, and its USB Type-C® port enables up to 100-watt charging for laptops.
www.asus.com www.asus.com

ORICO dual-M.2 enclosure:
 
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TonyCarter

VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
Martinr36 said:
That certainly looks interesting, I've a couple of these that I use

Click to expand...
It's just 2 slots/controllers/USB in one housing...each M.2 has their own USB connection and controller, and it worked out slightly cheaper than 2 x single ones. I didn't realise that when I bought it, as I just assumed I'd only ever be playing one game at a time, so only needed a single USB connection shared between both...but it is what it is ;)

I've not tried to set it up as RAID to see if I can double the speed, but I think they're quick enough for gaming (about 800-950MBps read/write - which is probably the limit of the USB connection rather than the basic 2TB Crucial P2s or P3s I think I put in there)!
 
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David689

Gold Level Poster
CountingDown said:
Given your stated use for the drive:

"I might use it to store video (up to 4k) or pictures to be used in Adobe programs such as Lightroom, Photoshop, Premiere and After Effects"

You could probably get away with an SSD or even a HDD depending how you move files around....just for storing things doesn't need fast speeds. You could always store them on the HDD/SSD and then move them over to one of the M.2s when needed. I have a PCS M.2 SSD half the speed of your drives and I just transferred 15GB of data from that to a normal Samsung SSD and it took about 30 seconds
Click to expand...
Good point.
 
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