# Adding SSD through PCIe



## Prockamanisc (Oct 26, 2017)

So basically, I’ve run out of SATA ports to add more SSDs. One option is to remove one of my 500GB SSDs and replace it with a 2TB SSD (a topic which I explored indirectly a bit here: Does SSD Quality Matter?). 

The other option that I’ve been slowly realizing is the idea of adding extra 2.5” SSDs into a PCIe slot. Does anyone have any recommendations for doing this? I’m thinking about doing one that has 4 slots for SSDs. Theoretically, since they’re all PCIe Gen2 running through 4 lanes, I’d be able to get 2GB/s, which is around 500MB for each drive, which is just a tiny bit below an SSD’s peak speeds anyway. Am I correct in all of this? Does anyone have experience with this?


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## Prockamanisc (Oct 26, 2017)

I don't want to to the RAID configuration, I care more about space than speed at that point. It all streams perfectly to me at regular SATA III speeds.


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## chimuelo (Oct 26, 2017)

Gen 2 M.2 speeds are 768MBps, so Gen 2 PCI should be the same.
Go for the best warranty whatever you choose though.

Also suggest direct cooling.
This little sucker is strong and quiet.


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## AR (Oct 28, 2017)

I bought pcie to sata adapters on amazon. Work fast enough for standard samsung ssds. Some said they had problems with compatibilty. I tested them on 4th gen Asus mainboards as well as hp compaqs and they work on both. But you gotta check if windows drivers or the delievered drivers work better. In some cases my computer took 5 min to boot. Thats because the bios tried to boot from pcie connected drives first. Disabling them at all at power-on in your main bios (cause the adapters have a small bios too) solved the problem. I have 3 of these in each slave pc. Never had any problems.


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## chimuelo (Oct 28, 2017)

I like the BIOS trick to skip boot scan.
Windows tweaks are nowhere near as effective as a good BIOS.


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## Prockamanisc (Oct 29, 2017)

This is good info in case I ever want to boot from the PCIe. The drives I'm currently adding aren't going to be for boot drives or a raid drive, it's purely to expand my storage capacity. I'm running my OS off of a Samsung 950 M.2 drive, so it's running great already. My mini ITX slave computer only has 2 SATA ports (2!!!), so I need some kind of way to get more SSDs inside, and this seems to be it.


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