im exploring intel parts to rebuild and upgrade my storage, and in-home streaming server. at the moment its running on vary old parts. im trying to find out the earliest, or maybe second gen (or something) intel mobos that would have at least 1 M.2 slot (2 would be nice) and and 6 or more sata ports.
Intel 5th gen / x99 was the first for ddr4, and far as I recall also first for desktop use of nvme m.2 devices. It was also HEDT and usually had a bunch of Sata ports on it. However this was also pci-e gen3, so it will not be particularly fast by modern standards. They’re unlikely to support bifurcated slots out of the box, but check the manuals before picking one up, if you do.
As an example board: asus sabertooth x99 had one m.2 nvme slot, 10 sata ports, 2 sata express ports, and (cpu dependent) either 28 or 40 lanes across the remaining slots to use.
That being said, it might be more sane (overall lifecycle for your build) to do a cheap alder lake or am4 build and grab a hba for the sata port requirements. How long do you intend to run this new machine before replacing it? Likewise, what’s the budget?
Officially or unofficially?
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The server it will be replacing was kind of just slapped together a few years ago from cheap parts, all of which are still functioning. So this new one probably won’t be replaced for several years. Likewise, the budget isn’t huge, I’d say a few hundred for CPU, mobo, and ram if needed.
If you don’t need it to boot, you can get an add-on PCIE card.
Otherwise, early Intel boards might have M.2, but might only be two lanes of pcie, as the older NGFF sticks had less speed, and more compatibility with sata and stuff.
Even if you found an old board (my x97 had it, not sure about x79) with an M.2 socket, make sure it does list the PCIe version, and lanes.
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Been going over this question with the LTT forum as well, seems that what I’m looking for may not exist with Intel. So I’m probably going ryzen instead.
not Shure but my Rampage V Extreme does, X99
so today i had a total “im dumb” facepalm moment. i forgot i already had a plan, but just cant act on it yet. that plan being…build myself a newer nicely spected machine, and then move my current machine (TR1950X build with all the specs i need) into the roll of a home server…so i asked this question for no dam reason …yay.
The earliest one I can recall was Z97 on LGA 1150. The MSI Gaming Z97 GAMING 5 had a 2x2 Gen 3 slot from what I recall. There weren’t any that had 2 slots from what I remember. The ASUS Z97-AR was another one and I think it was a full speed M.2 slot but not 100% sure on that one.
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Yep, came here to say Z97 and X99.
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I buy a lot of computers over the past decades.
My first motherboards with M.2 support is my two X99 systems.
Late reply, but I modded the BIOS of my P8Z77-V to have bootable NVME support using a guide on the old win-raid forums (which have moved to Level1Techs now, I think?). Of course the motherboard didn’t have an M.2 socket, so I used a standalone PCIe adapter card.
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Hello there… do you happen to still have the link (original/new) for the bios mod? Thanks…
No, sorry, I took a look, but couldn’t find it. 