I have an ASUS Prime Z370-P II motherboard, and I'm looking to install an M.2 drive. I've tried to find out if it supports 3rd or 4th generation M.2 drives, but I'm confused by the manual. It mentions: **- 2 x M.2 Socket 3 with M key, type 2242/2260/2280 storage devices support (both SATA & PCIe x4 mode)**. I'm not sure if this means it supports 4th generation drives or just 3rd generation. I bought the motherboard in 2019, so I'm curious about how common M.2 drives were at that time and what generations are typically supported.
1 Answer
According to the manual, your motherboard operates on PCIe 3.0 x4, which is compatible with M.2 drives. However, it only supports up to the 3rd generation. If you try to use a 4th generation drive, it'll still work, but it'll run at 3rd generation speeds.
Exactly! It’ll just perform like a 3rd generation drive.
So, to clarify, it won't take advantage of the faster speeds of the 4th gen drive, right?