Booting from NVMe, on an ancient motherboard

[rlsx]

Hello,
I am planning to install a Samsung Pro 950 m.2 NVMe as boot drive on an "ancient" motherboard:
ASUS Maximus IV Gene-Z (year 2011)
Intel Z68 Express
Pretends to have: "UEFI AMI BIOS with 64 Mb Flash ROM"

I read that the Samsung Pro 950 has a BIOS ROM that allows booting on legacy systems.

Question: Is this correct?
Does the choice of a PCIe adapter make any difference?
If true, do any other drives have this capabilty?

Thanks!

 

[Insert_Nickname]

First of all, you may want to consider upgrading your entire system, since a 950 Pro or SM951 will not be cheap. It could cost more in itself then a full system upgrade, and adding a standard issue NVMe drive.

I read that the Samsung Pro 950 has a BIOS ROM that allows booting on legacy systems.

If you can find it, the SM951 AHCI model avoids all this since it's AHCI.

That is correct. You do need one additional thing, an OS capable of booting from an NVMe drive. This means either Windows* 8.1 or 10, or a recent Linux distro.

*There is an official NVMe driver available from MS for Windows 7. But it's a little convoluted to add.

Does the choice of a PCIe adapter make any difference?
If true, do any other drives have this capabilty?

1) Absolutely none. Though I'd stay clear of the cheapest.
2) Yes, the Kingston HyperX Predator and the Plextor M6e. But they're AHCI drives. All are getting hard to find.

 

[rlsx]

Thank you very much for your detailed reply.

A second hand 512 GB Samsung Pro would cost me about 140 Euros (150 USD)
I would love upgrading my system but it would cost a bit more: Motherboard + Processor + Ram
I am presently running with a Core i7 K-series, and 16 GB of Ram, on this ASUS Maximus IV Gene-Z

As to booting, I use Clover to boot Windows 10 or a Hackintosh setup. I presume it can handle this?

 

[bradly1101]

In this situation I used my nvme (Intel 750) for programs only so everything can talk at the same time It actually works quite well.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

This isn't exactly advice as to what you should do. But it's what I might do myself.

If the system provides PCIE v.3.0 on an available slot that is x4 or x8, I'd get a 250GB NVME M.2 and a license to Primo-Cache. Then, I'd cache a 1TB SATA SSD or HDD to it. So I wouldn't have to worry about "booting from NVME." The 1TB SATA device would be the boot drive, sped up with NVME caching.

I have an (old?) i7-2700K system with a Z68 motherboard. That poses a problem because I don't think the processor provides for v.3.0 PCIE. I would have to upgrade it to an Ivy Bridge processor. What is PCIE v.2.0? Half the bandwidth?

I'd only do it if I were replacing the caching NVME on my Skylake. It doesn't seem worth the money to upgrade the 2700K system, if only because I also have the Skylake system.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

A second hand 512 GB Samsung Pro would cost me about 140 Euros (150 USD)

Well, most prices for new 950's I've seen locally run on the wrong side of €400. If you can even source them. Hence the warning.

If it's a second hand drive, make absolutely sure of the write count of the drive. A screenshot of Samsung Magician wouldn't go amiss.

As to booting, I use Clover to boot Windows 10 or a Hackintosh setup. I presume it can handle this?

The bootloader itself should be fine. It's the OS itself that needs an NVMe driver.

I'm not well versed in hackintoshes though, so I'm unsure about that.

If the system provides PCIE v.3.0 on an available slot that is x4 or x8, I'd get a 250GB NVME M.2 and a license to Primo-Cache. Then, I'd cache a 1TB SATA SSD or HDD to it. So I wouldn't have to worry about "booting from NVME." The 1TB SATA device would be the boot drive, sped up with NVME caching.

I have an (old?) i7-2700K system with a Z68 motherboard. That poses a problem because I don't think the processor provides for v.3.0 PCIE. I would have to upgrade it to an Ivy Bridge processor. What is PCIE v.2.0? Half the bandwidth?

As a workaround, that isn't a bad idea. Just be aware of the usual pitfalls of caching.

PCIe 1.0 250MB/s pr. x1 link
PCIe 2.0 500MB/s
PCIe 3.0 985MB/s
PCIe 4.0 1969MB/s
PCIe 5.0 3938MB/s (?)