Triple M.2 Raid 0 bandwidth?

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KurtHansen1988

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Thinking about getting the Fatal1ty Z170 Professional Gaming i7 with 3 x Ultra M.2 Sockets, support type 2230/2242/2260/2280/22110 M.2 SATA3 6.0 Gb/s module and M.2 PCI Express module up to Gen3 x4 (32 Gb/s)**

If I were to say use 3x SAMSUNG 950 PRO M.2 512GB in RAID 0 would I be able to use them all to their full potential or would I run out of bandwidth?


Connection Type = PCI-E 3.0 x4
Theoretical Maximum Throughput = 32 Gb/s (4 GB/s)
Estimated Real-World Maximum Throughput = 31.5 Gb/s (3.9 GB/s)

So I'm guessing that means up to 4 Gb/s per M.2 connection or is it shared? Seeing as how these particular M.2 drives reach a peak of around 2500Mb/s having 3 in RAID 0 should = somewhere around 7000-7500 Mb/s right?
 
You'll cap out around 4GB/s. This is unfortunate more of a platform limitation. For any desktop use, you won't notice any difference between a single SSD or 3 in RAID. Generally, even the difference between a SATA and NVMe SSD is small in actual usage (in not benchmarks).
 
Gotcha, I have 4 SSD's and already get around 1500-1700Mb/s I mainly use RAID 0 for the operating system/games and a backup drive + NAS for storage. I'd like to have room to upgrade over time and money isn't that big of an issue, so with that in mind I was trying to decide on one of these setups.

GIGABYTE G1 Gaming GA-Z170X-Gaming 7 $193 + SM951 NVMe PCIe M.2 128GB x2 $200 TOTAL = $393
ASRock Fatal1ty Z170 Professional Gaming motherboard $200 after rebate + SM951 NVMe PCIe M.2 128GB x3 $300 Total = $500

$100 more for faster speeds and extra storage seems like a good deal to me anyway.
 
Not sure why you would want the SM951 now that the 950 Pro is out. Just get a single 512GB one of those. You will notice zero difference over 3 in RAID. Even if you have a bunch of money, it's still a waste to do 3 x 128GB in RAID 0.
 
if you want speed wait for XPoint. Also wait for higher capacity drives. They will be out before the year ends
 
I read a benchmark guide somewhere that confirmed the speed cap, however iops scaled up with each additional drive. IIRC there's also an EVO equivalent of the samsung m.2 nvme range on the way that i think will be wildly popular if the price is right - i have the more plain version of the board OP mentioned (Extreme 7+) and might fill up the other two slots with those eventually.
 
however iops scaled up with each additional drive
Click to expand...

That scaling will happen if you have a very unusually high queue depth for a desktop application or you run many simultaneous applications. Of course server loads with 100s of users can easily hit these high queue depths.
 
Last edited:
KurtHansen1988 said:
Thinking about getting the Fatal1ty Z170 Professional Gaming i7 with 3 x Ultra M.2 Sockets, support type 2230/2242/2260/2280/22110 M.2 SATA3 6.0 Gb/s module and M.2 PCI Express module up to Gen3 x4 (32 Gb/s)**

If I were to say use 3x SAMSUNG 950 PRO M.2 512GB in RAID 0 would I be able to use them all to their full potential or would I run out of bandwidth?


Connection Type = PCI-E 3.0 x4
Theoretical Maximum Throughput = 32 Gb/s (4 GB/s)
Estimated Real-World Maximum Throughput = 31.5 Gb/s (3.9 GB/s)

So I'm guessing that means up to 4 Gb/s per M.2 connection or is it shared? Seeing as how these particular M.2 drives reach a peak of around 2500Mb/s having 3 in RAID 0 should = somewhere around 7000-7500 Mb/s right?
Click to expand...


This was actually done a few months back by PC Perspective with a different board.

 
Well, with faster drives coming out reaching the 32 Gb/s cap there doesn't really seem be a reason to setup a M.2 raid. Maybe 2 drives but 3 would be a waste if you can easily reach max speeds with 1 or 2 drives. That said I'm thinking about just sticking with a single Ultra M.2 slot.
 
I have another question. "1 x Ultra M.2 Socket, supports type 2242/2260/2280 M.2 SATA3 6.0Gb/s module and M.2 PCI Express module up to Gen3 x4 (32Gb/s) **"


Does the M.2 PCI Express module plug into a PCI Express slot or the M.2 socket?
 
KurtHansen1988 said:
Does the M.2 PCI Express module plug into a PCI Express slot or the M.2 socket?
Click to expand...

It plugs into a socket on the mobo.

However you can buy adapter cards that you mount the drive to & install into a 4x pcie slot too, like if you had an older mobo that didnt have m2 slots but still wanted the sppeeeed of m2's........

remember to only get the pcie version m2 drives (with the "M" keyed connector) because the "B" keyed ones are just like regular SATA III ssd's speed-wise, but in the smaller form factor.
 
I tried 2X 950 raid and couldn't really tell any difference in daily use. Didn't really even boot any faster. Lot of trouble for nothing, to me anyway.
 
Cardio said:
I tried 2X 950 raid and couldn't really tell any difference in daily use. Didn't really even boot any faster. Lot of trouble for nothing, to me anyway.
Click to expand...
again...only worth while for a small subset of people and they know they benefit from it. large batch files, many VMs, congruent tasks, and some select other cases.

real world means absolutely nothing. I really hate this term.
 
It is possible to do RAID 0 using 2 m.2 ssds? Regarding the performance will you see any diff?

Thanks
 
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