Aurora R7, storage question

Congrats on getting the R7 Mak, I got mine recently too and I've been having a look inside..

There's only the one m.2 slot on the mobo unfortunately but there is 1x 3.5" SATA bay and 2x 2.5" SATA bays at the bottom of the case too.

So really for total drive storage you're looking at the max thats supported in 2.5" format x2 and then an additional 3.5" drive if you want it.

Most hd's in 2.5" are easily available and affordable for up to 2TB each, there are larger, perhaps 4TB but they will be thicker 15mm drives and they 'might' not fit in the bays. Someone else will need to advise on that as I haven't had chance to look at the 2.5" bays closely yet.

You could replace the 128GB m.2 that comes with the R7 with your 1TB m.2 but to do that without losing windows and all the dell settings etc you will need to take an image of the 128GB drive using something like clonezilla onto a separate drive and restore the image onto the 1TB m.2 drive you have. That takes some knowledge and practice though, maybe Dell would do it for you if you got on the phone quick and offered to post them an m.2 drive for the job?

No harm in asking I suppose :)

EDIT: According to the specs it's possible to fit 2x 2.5" drives in the 3.5" bay I mentioned, I don't see any extra plastic clips for that so I can only guess you would need to order some separate clips to go round the 2.5" drives that would make them both fit in that one bay.

M2 B Keyed is Sata

M2 Not B Keyed is PCI-E

You can get 2.5 inch adapters for M2 B keyed to 2.5 inch drive.  You can also Get 2.5 inch to 3.5 inch adapter.

So it DEPENDS on WHICH TYPE you are talking about. One size DOES NOT fit all.

NVME B KEYED

https://www.amazon.com/M-2-Converter-Adapter-Enclosure-SATA-bus/dp/B0721Q2R8D

This card will take one or the other

https://www.amazon.com/Tanbin-Adapter-Controller-Expansion-Profile/dp/B07BJJ5VDB

When you use the B keyed part you have to attach a SATA data cable to the back of the card to the motherboard. This is why it says B keyed on one socket and M keyed on the other.

Looks like a good idea if you can do it speedstep :)

I certainly wouldn't want to waste the money spent on 3 1TB m.2 cards for sure!! :D

You'd no doubt lose the interface speed ofc but no helping that.

To be fair, I've not seen many mobos (not just alienware) supporting 3 m.2 card slots, perhaps because there'd be lane sharing issues.

These are the drives i am referring to:

https://www.amazon.com/Black-High-Performance-NVMe-PCIe-WDS100T2X0C/dp/B07BRCLMTS/ref=sr_1_3?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1529506400&sr=1-3&keywords=wd+nvme+black+1tb

I'm kinda new to this are and haven't been researching it long, but I believe the key on M.2 is just a physical attribute and that  protocols and whatnot is the same on all NVME drives.

So to my understanding, as long as motherboard doesn't have limitations beyond physical attributes of connectors, I can ad more NVME drives using adapters.

This is why I am looking into ways of making use of my 3 NVME M.2 without losing the NVME speed. whether through PCIE or U.2, But I can't seem to find solid info on whether this is doable. 

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@pt3pt3 wrote:

has anyone been able to get the Asus Hyper to work in their Aurora R7? I can only see one nvme drive and only when its installed in the first slot.

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You'd probably need to set the slot for x4x4x4x4 bifurcation in bios, if supported.  

edit: Or x4x4 - note above, someone posted that the R8 slot #1 runs at x8, so that's probably the same for the r7. 

has anyone been able to get the Asus Hyper to work in their Aurora R7? I can only see one nvme drive and only when its installed in the first slot.