Windows 10: M.2 PCIe drives may be in wrong slots

Version: 10.0.18363 build 18363
This is a very small issue, but because the boot disk is usually named “Disk 0” under the Disk Manager, I must pay extra attention to disk names when doing full-disk O/S backups. And since the contents of the cloned Backup disk are supposedly identical to that of the boot disk – how to tell which version is be used at start-up.

When Sager built this notebook, they may have installed the O/S M.2 PCIe disk in the wrong slot. Then after receiving notebook, I installed a second (and identical) M.2 drive in the other M.2 PCIe slot. When I checked the Disk Mgr screen, the factory installed M.2 showed up labeled as “Disk 1” while the one I later installed was labeled “Disk 0” – which led me to believe that M.2 slots may be hard-wired to specific addresses known to the POST, registry, et al protocols -- so that the physical slot location determines the assignment of the disk number: 0,1,2,3………

Since both M.2 drives are now populated, is there any risk of messing up the protocols (POST, Registry, BIOS, etc) by switching the M.2 drive slot positions? I fear that somehow upon factory initiation/activation, M.2 slot number “Disk-1” was designated to the system as the boot drive. So that maybe at start-up the system will boot from the clone Backup copy instead of the original boot disk, if I switch the drives slots.

Caveat: I know just enough about the technical aspects of system to be dangerous. Anybody with knowledge of this disk assignments? Although I am comfortable leaving them as is, but more comfortable if the boot drive was Disk-0.
See attachments for details.



:)

 

What does the X4 mean in an M.2 PCIe Gen 3.0 X4 NVME drive?

I'm not aware of any NVMe SSDs that are currently above the M.2 PCIe Gen 3.0 X4 standard. I'm not sure about PCIe adapters, but my motherboard is capable of running M.2 PCIe Gen 3.0 X4 drives in one of its two M.2 slots. I lose two of its six SATA slots when I do this though.

 

new m.2 pcie ssd

Yup. M.2 is enabled in the bios. It's a plextor card listed on Asus website. No informationabout booting

 

new m.2 pcie ssd


From the specs of your Motherboard at Asus

Z97-A | Motherboards | ASUS USA


You are going to have to enable it in BIOS and probably disable the PCIeX1_1 and 2 slots. I suspect there is an option in BIOS for boot from PCIe.