- o Convert M.2 PCIe based SSD to work in main board PCIe x4 bus slot
- o Support PCIe Gen3 & Gen2 M.2 80, 60, 42mm SSD
- o M.2 NGFF type 2280-D5-M Connector on board
- o Support PCIe 1.0, 2.0 & 3.0 systems
Perfectly good choice for using a 960 Pro/EVO M.2 in PCI-Express mode
01/06/2017
This review is from: DT 120 (M.2 PCIe to PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe/AHCI Adapter support M.2 PCIe 2280, 2260, 2242)
Pros:
There are several makes and models of these devices. I originally built my Skylake system without any deep planning for use of M.2 NVMe drives. When I finally got around to investigating the prospects after the system was up and running, I had two choices: Use my Sabertooth Z170 board's M.2 slot and lose SATA ports 1 and 2 to still take a performance hit; and use an M.2 NVMe in a PCI-E slot with full performance -- losing SATA ports 5 and 6 so that I can use my third "PCIE x16" slot in x4 mode. It would otherwise default to x2.
The BIOS was already configured properly for this. I just connected my Samsung 960 EVO 250GB M.2 to the DT 120, moved some SATA connections around so as not to use ports 5 and 6, and put the rocket in the socket. Samsung Magician proves out the M.2 spec showing about 3,100+ MB/s sequential reads and 1,500 MB/s sequential writes.
I'll explain in "Other" how and why I'm using that small-capacity EVO.
Cons:
None.
Overall Review:
One reviewer noted something about disappointing performance. Maybe he used the right slot, but it was configured to offer only x2 speeds. But I have none of the frustrations he says he suffered.
We all want to integrate older tech with newer. HDD electro-mechanical storage still provides the highest capacity at the lowest price per gigabyte. With a 250GB EVO and this PCIE card as a caching SSD, I can cache SATA devices (both SSD and HDD) to the EVO and cache all of that to RAM. The benchmark results are insane, and you can feel the difference. Great idea, if you don't want to spend $600 on a 1TB M.2 NVMe. And if the price is right and you still chose to buy such a 1TB drive, you could simply move the small drive and DT 120 to another system, get another DT 120, add your OS volumes and a caching volume to the NVMe, and still come back with the same sort of integration and insane speed.
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- John B.
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Verified Owner
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Owned For:
1 day to 1 week
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