What to do with a SATA Express header?...ignore it???

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BlackDragon1971

Limp Gawd
Joined
Dec 24, 2012
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I have on order an ASUS x99 Deluxe (gen I, not Deluxe II) motherboard. It'll be a while before it gets here.
Is there any hardware for SATA Express out there on the Market?
Are there adapters that convert NVMe SSDs or U.2 enterprise SSDs to using the SATA Express hardware on an x99 motherboard?
Should I just consider the 2x SATA Express headers (Intel and ASMedia) on the x99 Deluxe motherboard as dead real estate?
I plan on using the vertical M.2 header later on in the build with something like a Samsung 960 Pro NVMe drive (but that is a future consideration right now). What I am looking at right now is the option to use something faster than SATA III 6 Gb/s SSDs as a secondary drive (file dump) if I go with a m.2 NVMe solution for this (new to me) motherboard. Something that will take advantage of using a M.2 NVMe SSD when I want to copy files to another drive without adding a PCIe add in card taking up an expansion slot. Are there SATA Express solutions out there?... or is it deader than a Dodo bird ?
SATAB.jpg
 
Right now, when I do my upgrade from the system in my Sig to the new hardware... I am perfectly happy to reuse the 2.5 " 1 TB WD Blue 3D NAND SSD I have on hand to get up and going.
I am comfortable enough with Cloning and loading disk images, to to the upgrade to an m.2 solution later on as the primary drive.
 
Just trying to figure out a storage landscape I'd like to lay out. Bulk storage of photos and video I shoot + plus music and movies could be handled by 3x 6 TB HGST NAS drives I have on hand in a RAID 5 solution. Which would provide more than enough space for long term storage and have parity in case of drive failure ( not a Back Up solution). But to have a fast drive to dump files to in order to work with, a 2.5" 1 TB SSD would work; however there are better solutions. The OS drive ideally I'd like to switch over to a M.2 NVMe solution eventually.
Just doing Social Media content creation for an Artist page builds up a large amount of footage with Posts nearly everyday. My need in amount of storage I have currently has not changed much, but how I utilize content has evolved.
 
SATA Express was a dead-end. I can't recall any drive or adapter that actually used the connector when sold, much less that would be available now. SATAe is also limited to two lanes, and many implementations don't support NVMe.

If you're looking to get a NVMe SSD A PCIe slot unit or m.2/u.2 SSD adapter are the only choices for that mainboard.
 
SATA Express never went anywhere. I saw one prototype drive at a trade show. There are SATAe->NVMe adapters (10Gb/s data limit), but it's really not worth it over using a PCIe-slot based NVMe adapter. The ports that look like SATA ports are regular SATA ports and can be used as such. It's only when the extra wide connector is used that the express part is in play.
 
BlueLineSwinger and Grebuloner, thanks for your input. The more I look at it, using a NVMe add in expansion card as well as the m.2 slot would be the way to go...
For now, once the rest of the parts arrive I can go forward with parts in hand.
 
Grebuloner said:
SATA Express never went anywhere. I saw one prototype drive at a trade show. There are SATAe->NVMe adapters (10Gb/s data limit), but it's really not worth it over using a PCIe-slot based NVMe adapter. The ports that look like SATA ports are regular SATA ports and can be used as such. It's only when the extra wide connector is used that the express part is in play.
Click to expand...

Oof, wow. Someone actually did come out with a SATAe adapter? At ~$50? Holy hell, why?
 
I have a Asus x99 and wondered about the Express option about a year ago. I looked it up on the web, hunted through Amazon and Ebay...went nowhere.

The PCIe card is the only real option for more than one NVMe. I did go three NVMe for a bit (a second ASUS PCIe NVMe card) but had to switch off my USB3.1 ports to do it. I ended up removing it as it was just an experiment. Must get round to reenabling the 3.1 ports...
 
SATAe is pretty much dead in the water, yeah. It actually uses the same pins as U.2 but these pins are used differently (hence, x2 vs. x4 PCIe lanes) so it's not cheap to convert.
 
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