What M.2 drive for ASUS Z170I PRO GAMING?

Heya!

I’m looking to get a M.2 SSD (less cables, wohoo!) for the Z170I-PRO-GAMING motherboard but I’m a little unsure what type of M.2 SSD would be a good fit. The motherboard product page says it’s compatible with SATA and PCIE M.2s, so would that include SSDs like the Samsung 960 EVO NVMe?

I’ll likely go for a 500gb model of Samsung 960 EVO, if it’s compatible.

I love the M.2 form factor, but all the different interfaces (?) sure make it a bit more troublesome than the older SSDs.

M.2 drives can use the SATA bus or they can use the PCIe bus, if you set the M.2 drive to use the PCIe bus you are using the drive as an NVMe drive.

Your Asus board has a M.2 socket 3 slot, the socket 3 can operate at PCIe 3 x4 speed ( 4 Gigabyte per second max ), if you set the drive as an NVMe drive.

This will work with your board.

Well that settles it then, thanks a bunch!

I’ll post some kind of a build log once I get the whole thing done.

This one went really swell. I got the 960 EVO, popped it onto the motherboard and downloaded and ran the Samsung cloning software and the system booted from the M.2 without a hitch!

The system is really clean with only the motherboard requiring cables from the PSU. <3

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