Does GT80 SLI have 3 SSD M2 slots or 4?

Everything I've seen indicates GT80 SLI should have 4 M2 SSD slots. One next to the 1TB HDD and 3 on the left hand side (looking at it upside down).

However, mine has only 2 slots on the left hand side and 1 next to the HDD, for the 3 total.

Strangely, there is a diagram that shows there are 3 SSD in the left area cluster (named #1, #2 and #3) and #4 is immediately to the left of the HDD on the right hand side.

There is no place to insert SSD #1 anywhere, it does not plug in.
Every youtube video I've seen suggests there is a way to plug in SSD #1.

The original configuration.



#1 does not get bolted down and even if it did, nowhere to plug it in:



can someone shed some light on that?

 

GT80 has 2x NVMe M.2 slots + 1x SATA slot. Where did you see that it has 4 slots?

 

I saw it here and on many videos on youtube.

It has 3xM.2 SATA slots in the upper left quadrant and 1xM.2 SATA slot by the HDD in the upper right quadrant, they are all labeled.

Are there different versions of GT80 machine, with some being able to take 4 SSDs and some only 3, like mine?

 

I remember seeing it somewhere before too but not able to find it now.

 

The Skylake refresh has 2 PCIe capable M.2 slots and one SATA only M.2 slot. The older models have 4 SATA only M.2 slots.

 

You've got it, the older GT80 supports 4x SSD.
https://www.msi.com/Laptop/gt80-2qe-titan-sli.html#hero-specification

--> Exclusive Super RAID 3 with 4 SSD RAID0

 

My model is: GT80S 6QE

9S7-181412-002

Are you saying that my model can only support this? Why would they decrease the number of slots with the Skylake refresh? Doesn't make any sense.

The Skylake refresh has 2 PCIe capable M.2 slots and one SATA only M.2 slot

 

Yes, 6QE is Skylake and 2QE is the older Broadwell.

 

Why in the world did they go from 4 SSDs to 3?

Why the downgrade?

 

Not sure, but I remember the performance is nearly the same for both Super RAID 3 (4x SSD) & Super RAID 4 (3x SSD).

 

I dropped the RAID feature completely.


I installed 1x512GB SanDisk, then used Macrium Reflect to image the RAID-0 disk cluster (256GB in size) to the bigger 512GB disk. That went fine. Except the end result put that 800MB recovery partition in the wrong place, not at the very end of the disk but in the middle, meaning that I could not expand the volume beyond the 237GB that was the size of the original.

I ended up getting a partition resize tool that moved the 800MB recovery segment to the end, and then resized the disk to the full capacity.

I went into BIOS and pointed the boot device to the new 512GB disk instead of the RAID-0 configuration.

Then I removed the 2x128GB disks.

Then I installed the second 512GB disk, and again, used Macrium Reflect to clone it to the first 512GB. That went fine and now I have 2 bootable devices.

I installed 1x128GB back and went into Rapid Storage Technology and just deleted the RAID-0 volume. I thought some data loss might occur but all was backed up.

So now I have one 512GB that's a boot disk, the second 512GB a snapshot of that first boot disk - I did not want a true RAID-1 mirror configuration for these reasons: Say a virus destroyes the disk, I have an untouched version, with a true mirror, data is gone on both disks. Or I install something that hoses the system. I've used snapshots feature of the Macrium Reflect for years and find them very userful. I sync the disks about once a week. Since the SSD device cloning process is very fast, only about 25 minutes for the 512GB configuration, it can be done more often than once a week.

One point, in the BIOS, the SATA config is still RAID. if I reset it to the other choice, the machine does not boot up and cycles infinitely and does not beyond the MSI screen, occasionally asking me to repair it. I asked the MSI person why that is and he just said to leave it alone. He said I needed a driver.

 

Performance is the same but you lose disk space when you have fewer drives in the RAID cluster. Thus, the decision to drop disk space in the upgraded GT80 version is highly questionable and inexplicable.

 

That's true, but since such feature isn't available so you can only accept and adapt to what you have. Perhaps either using a larger capacity of SSD or HDD on the secondary bay can solve this issue.

 

It takes a lot more lanes to the chipset to support NVMe. Another likely reason is that NVMe drives put out a ton of heat and they can't mount three drives in that tiny space without thermal issues. The original design even had them overlapping to some degree.

 

I see, interesting point. I did notice that the new SL design has thermal paste on both sides of each SSD. Top and bottom. The older design apparently had none, though it's hard to tell from the pics.

 

What SSD is a direct replacement of the 2.5" 1TB HDD that's installed all the way on the right (Looking it with the cover removed).

Looking for the largest capacity available, at least 2TB.

 

Thinking about this:

http://www.samsung.com/us/business/computing/solid-state-drives/MZ-75E2T0B/AM

Or this:

4TB Samsung EVO 850 2.5" Solid State Drive SATA III MZ-75E4T0B/AM Internal SSD

 

That's definitely doable, but the price is ...

 

Yes, thats what I thought.
Hopefully it will come down in price in the next year.