An M.2>PCIe adapter card usually doesn’t contain an own BIOS chip. It just makes an M.2 SSD usable with a PCIe slot.
The specific Intel NVMe driver named IaNVMe.sys will only work with NVMe SSDs, which were manufactured by Intel.
Much more important for the performance of an SSD is the amount of actually usable cells. That it why I recommend to trigger TRIM (either by the Win8/10 "Optimizer" or another specific tool) before doing any benchmark test.
I was talking about gtx 1070 lol.
Trim is enabled.
EDIT by Fernando: Quoting code corrected
Provided, that the OS supports TRIM, it is enabled by DEFAULT, but this does not mean, that TRIM will be permanently active within the SSD.
That is why I recommend to trigger TRIM and to wait minimum half a minute before executing any benchmark tool.
Unfortunately, not even toolbox is supporting 600P atm 
Called intel this morning (US) about 600P driver.
They said no inbox driver bla bla bla, with an unknown date with regards to 600P driver. Let alone the driver when there is no toolbox for the ssd yet lol. Although they should come simultaneously in like a month or so( less now since time has passed since release date) like it was with 750 series.
Please help Fernando, I’m going to upgrade my SSD for bootable OS, but I don’t know witch one is working the best for my MB Asrock X79 Extreme9 and CPU Xeon E5-2667 v2 ES LGA2011. Should I buy XP941, SM951 NVMe (AHCI hard to find, was replaced by NVMe on the market where I live) and I prefere 950 Pro NVMe, but will it work for my MB ? Do I have to flash modded BIOs (Please link me to how ? I’m a newbie to this). By reading all the posts…is it true that my MB does not support NVMe ? is there any modded BIOs that can make it to supports 950 Pro NVMe…? I already bought the PCI-E 4X for M.2 SSD ADAPTER card. Thank you…Any suggestions are welcome…Please.
Kind regards. Jen
@Jen :
Hello Jen,
welcome at Win-RAID Forum!
Since you obviously want to buy an NVMe SSD and not an AHCI one, I have moved your post into this better matching thread.
Yes, it will work, if there is a suitable NVMe module within the mainboard BIOS.
If ASRock hasn’t yet inserted the required NVME EFI module into their latest BIOS for your mainboard, you have to insert it yourself and to flash this modded BIOS. The BIOS modification is very easy. The guide is within the start post of this thread.
Good luck!
Dieter (alias Fernando)
Thank you very much for your help and fast respond…I’ll learn how to flash modded BIOs.
hi everyone
I have the P9X79WS and Zotac Sonix pcie 480MG Nvme , recognizes , but does not let me boot with Win 10.
I have seen that you can update the bios , I could help with that.
thnkss you
@seba_valmont :
Welcome at Win-RAID Forum!
To get the NVMe SSD bootable, you need
a) to insert an EFI mode NVMe BIOS module into the BIOS (look into the start post) and
b) to install Win10 in UEFI mode onto the SSD.
Have you already tried to insert the EFI NVMe module according the start post of this thread?
Regards
Dieter (alias Fernando)
Hello, guys. Searching about NVMe devices I have found this forum. I see you have gather a lot of knowlage and I hope you will be able to enlighten me.
I have an Asus B85PRO-Gamer motherboard. I have also ordered m.2 to NVMe adapter and think to buy some m.2 SSD like A-Data SP550 240GB(yeah i know its tlc). My questions are do you know if this motherboard support booting from NVMe or I will need to modify the BIOS. Also will there be any difference in read/write speed when using a regular m.2 drive with NVMe adapter? Thank you in advance.
@promailer :
Welcome at Win-RAID Forum!
What is that? I only know about M.2 to PCIe adapters.
I am pretty sure, that you will be able to use an NVMe SSD with your current system, but you may have to insert the required NVMe module into the BIOS.
The exact answer to your question depends on the NVMe SSD model you want to use (has it a LEGACY mode NVMe Option ROM or not?), on your mainboard BIOS (has it already an NVMe EFI module or not?) and on the OS you are running (does it natively support NVMe?).
No, there is no big difference between using a natively present M.2 port or a PCIe slot via adapter.
Regards
Dieter (alias Fernando)
Hi, thanks for replying. This is the adapter I have ordered → https://www.aliexpress.com/item/JEYI-SK7…2663265346.html . And I really have no idea if A-Data SP550 have legacy mode or not as for my bios. And I want to use it under Windows 7 as I have seen some videos and guide that it is indeed possible for Windows 7 to boot from NVMe, but it was a samsung one…
P.S. So if I understand this correct there are regular m.2 drives(designed to be used on m.2 slot) and m.2 drives designed for NVMe? And if I used m.2 device designed for m.2 slot it won’t make any difference in speed even using it with an adapter over PCI slot?
EDIT by Fernando: Unneeded fully quoted post removed (to save space)
No, there are M.2 SSDs, which are using the AHCI protocol, and M.2 SSDs, which are using the NVMe protocol.
All these M.2 SSDs can be connected via M.2>PCIe Adapter to a PCIe slot.
No, the performance is the same.
All my benchmark results, which I have published within this Forum, were done under "normal conditions", that means with my standard Antivirus running in the background (currently it is the Windows Defender) and no tricks to boost the performance like overclocking, booting in safe mode, running Magician’s RAPID Mode etc…
I have a doubt… I have flashed a modified BIOS file with the NVMe modules with the AFUWINGUI aplication, checking the "Recovery" option for step a "18 - Error: Secure Flash Rom Verify fail". I rebooted the PC, and when I open AFUWINGUI again and click "Save" for verify if the new BIOS has the NVMe modules incorporated, I can not find them. How can I be sure that I have correctly flashed the new modified BIOS and it has the NVMe modules incorporated?
I have tried to flash the BIOS with the ASUS USB BIOS Flashback too, because the ASUS EZ Flash give me an error "Secutiry verification failed" and when I go to verify with AFUWINGUI I still can not find the NVMe modules in the BIOS file. I need to be sure that I have flashed correctly the BIOS.
@APoL0 :
Welcome at Win-RAID Forum!
The topic of this thread is how to prepare the BIOS to get full NVMe support, but not how to get a modded BIOS properly flashed into the BIOS chip of the mainboard.
If you have an ASUS mainboard with USB Flashback option, you have to use it and it will work (if you do it the correct way).
For details please have a look into the start post of >this< thread.
Regards
Dieter (alias Fernando)
After 3 days of following this guide, learning, testing, switching and changing, I finally installed a bootable Windows 8.1 on a OCZ RD400 256GB on my ASUS Sabertooth X79 and got the fastest System I’ve ever seen! Thank you so much, Fernando and the others, for working out this great guide. Toshiba itself claims that on X79 this Drive could not be booted and as I saw that ASUS did not update BIOS Versions since 2014, I nearly gave up hope…
I did not read all 60 pages of this Thread, but I had some struggle while trying this: every time, I changed the CSM settings to UEFI Boot, there was only a black screen, so I later found out that this setting is unimportant. I had to add the Patition Table to the drive with gparted and no other way worked.
Here my benchmark result:
@Anthro :
Welcome at Win-RAID Forum and thanks for your feedback!
It is fine, that you succeeded with BIOS modification according the start post of this thread and with the OS installation onto the NVMe SSD. Now you can enjoy the brilliant performance of such SSD with your officially not supported X79 Chipset system.
Another, maybe easier method would have been to create the bootable USB Flash drive containing the OS image by using the tool Rufus and to choose the "Partition Scheme" option "GPT Partition Scheme for UEFI".
Regards
Dieter (alias Fernando)
Another, maybe easier method would have been to create the bootable USB Flash drive containing the OS image by using the tool Rufus and to choose the "Partition Scheme" option "GPT Partition Scheme for UEFI".
