Regarding Brads new rig and a question about installing an OS on an NVME drive

from Stardock.net Forums

After reading about Brads awesome Build. I also will be building around an 8700K. My question to you folks who have done so. 

I am likely going to use an Asrok extreme 4 motherboard. 

  • z370 extreme 4 (asrok)
  • Samsung 960 Evo 250gig NVME M.2

 

The NVME was going only have Windows. That's it.

All that lovely space only for the bloatware that is Windows 10 Pro. Ill  have a 4 terrabyte platter drive for storage and windows folders such as downloads, my documents and 'desktop'.

 

My question. I have never used NVME and have read stories about it not being seen. Do I need to do anything other then 'plug it into' the motherboard? My idea of this was to install just the nvme first, get windows 'happily' installed first with all updates then add a samsung 850 EVO SSD 500 gig for games and then the 4 terrabyte drive for storage. 

 

Will I have problems installing and booting windows from this drive?

Any stories or experience you can share or teach me is most appreciated. Again i have experience with building computers and my horror story was to only have the ssd attached and installed first and no other drives. 

 

Thanks! 

98,657 views 10 replies
Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Almonty, 

Thank you. I will review that when I get home. 

Multiplicity - Control multiple PCs using one keyboard and mouse
Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top

By now [and with Win 10] BIOS should not have issues with M.2 drives ....not like it was 2 years ago [and with Win 7].

Several hoops had to be jumped through back then....and 7 didn't know what DDR4 was ....

I still try to reboot as little as possible since the method of doing so is a little painful....almost never works first time.

...but once it does you'll never NOT use a M.2 ever again ...;)

Reply #4 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Jaffo, This was helpful. I shut the computer off each day and start it up multiple times a day. Do you think this would be a problem?

Reply #5 from JoeUser Forums Top

My experience was common back when M.2 drives were new and [mostly] untried.

You "shouldn't" have the same issues these days, not anymore.

As long as your MoBo specs reference UEFI and M.2 drive booting/recognition you'll be fine....;)

2 years ago I think my method was to install the OS on a SSD....image it, and transfer it to the M.2 and then 'convince' the UEFI to see the M.2 and boot it.

Reply #6 from StarControl Forums Top

Just built two machines yesterday, one M.2 mSATA the other with a NVMe. Both installed and running Win10 within half an hour, absolutely zero problems. 

Just make sure you read the mobo docs on what SATA ports are unusable when M.2 slot is in use.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

out of curiousity and somewhat off topic, does windows make the drive gpt or mbr by default? ie.. without the user choosing one or the other explicitly. or is that dependent on the bios setting (uefi mode only / uefi+legacy)? not that it should matter as it's below the 2 TB size limit.. but still.. curious.

Reply #8 from StarControl Forums Top

Here are a few things I ran into with my build using the Asus Rog Maximus X Hero (WiFi) model with the 960 Pro M.2 NVMe drive.

Earlier versions of the bios I had to manually specify that the M.2 was using 4 lanes and was a PCIe/NVMe controller instead of Sata which has been fixed via a later update to the BIOS.

Also, do note that Samsung has a package for NVMe drivers on their download site just below Samsung Magician - At this point I would highly suggest not installing the latest bios on your SSD as people have reported noticeable hiccups in performance which may or may not have been fixed by motherboard manufacturers "I didn't have this issue but saw many reports of it"

Other than the above, if you're going to use Windows only make sure you set your security settings for CSM to Off and UEFI Secure mode on and configured for Windows instead of Other OS before you perform the load of Windows.

Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top

You sometimes have to use the "load driver" for the installation media to recognize on the select disk screen.

Reply #10 from StarControl Forums Top

I just built a new computer with an m2, along with my old SSD. I plugged in both, the new motherboard recognized both, booted off the SSD, ran a disk clone program to clone my SSD to my new M2, then booted off my M2 with no problems. I did need to use Disk Manager to get windows to recognize my SSD when it was no longer my C:\