The setup isn't feasible due to compatibility issues with the motherboard.
The setup isn't feasible due to compatibility issues with the motherboard.
The setup with 6 SATA ports plus 3 NVMe drives on the ROG STRIX Z690-E seems challenging. All NVMe M.2 slots are installed with WD drives, and SATA ports are used for HDDs. The newly installed NVMe drive in slot M.2_3 isn’t visible in Windows 10’s disk manager. You’re wondering if a Hyper M.2 card is necessary to manage all six SATA drives. There appears to be confusion about the M.2_3 port being disabled when using SATA 5 and 6, though it seems that’s not the case. Adding the Hyper M.2 card to the bottom G4 PCIe slot might be the solution. You also have additional PCIe cards for a GPU and an HBA for more HDDs. Let me know if you need further clarification!
It seems this information has been known for a while. I recall reading the caution in my Z170 manual about SSDs in M.2_1 Sata ports 5 and 6 not being compatible. From the Z690 guide, I also noticed details on the Hyper M.2 slot. The three-star rating reflects the fact that two PCIe 16 lanes plus M.2_1 and M.2_2 slots connect directly to the CPU, while other PCIe and M.2 connections go via the chipset.
The hyper card functions with every other drive, though I haven't installed the M.2_3 slot on the motherboard. I see the advertised speed of 4x from CystaldiskMark. It's a black model from WD.