Hello Vinhus!

You can find a list of M.2 NVME drives that will work with our X299 Dark here https://www.evga.com/support/manuals/files/151-SX-E299.pdf just go over to page 46! The NVME drive has to be Key M, if you are unsure about what that means go here http://www.atpinc.com/Memory-insider/what-is-m.2-M-B-BM-key-socket-3
 
If you want to run NVME's in RAID 0, you will need to use purchase an Intel Vroc key in order to enable M.2 NVME RAID 0. You can find a guide on how to setup VROC on our X299 motherboards here https://www.evga.com/support/faq/afmviewfaq.aspx?faqid=59720
 
-Jose C.

mmuthiah
I bought a M.2 2TB NVME drive yesterday as the price dropped below $600?  Will that work with X299 and i have a I9 cpu.

Yes a single NVME drive will work.

I looked for the NVME as the evga listed but couldn’t find NVME from Intel ( plan for raid0 2 x 512g ) the list shows only Samsung but that is old NVME 950 pro . But I maybe pick new model NVME 970 pro 2x 512g , I hope it will work . Any suggestion ? Thanks!

Did you guys Google supported nvme drives for vroc to see what Intel says will work as Intel pretty much dictates how it works

I knew it was risky to get 2x512 M2 970 pro to Raid0 on X299 dark , yes it is it does not work even with intel Vroc key VROCISSDMOD-1725 (just got it today and tried out - don't know this is the right key ? ). It shows in bios incompatible.. I don't know in the near future evga will have something to make it work ...or update new bios and test more on ssd brands...???  do I need to have new firmware from Samsung ...to try ??? anyone advice ! thanks !
Note: I installed 2 SSDs  in the 2 M2 slots not using U2 cable ( don't have this cable to try ).
 
EVGA techs please helppppp !!!

vinhus
I knew it was risky to get 2x512 M2 970 pro to Raid0 on X299 dark , yes it is it does not work even with intel Vroc key VROCISSDMOD-1725 

The VROCISSDMOD key is for Intel SSD's only. The clue was in the name 'VROC-I-SSD-MOD' the 'I' stands for 'Intel' so VROC-Intel-SSD-Mod. Looks like you bought the wrong key, my friend.
 
The key that is supposed to work with non-intel SSD's is the 'VROCSTANMOD' key 'VROC-Standard-Mod.' 
 
I also have 2 Samsung 970 EVO NVMe SSD's and i have a EVGA Dark Mobo being shipped to me which should arrive on the 12 December. I bought the VROCSTANMOD key so i will be testing to see if i can make a bootable RAID 0 array with them soon. I will let you know if it works.

Ravenmaster

vinhus
I knew it was risky to get 2x512 M2 970 pro to Raid0 on X299 dark , yes it is it does not work even with intel Vroc key VROCISSDMOD-1725 

The VROCISSDMOD key is for Intel SSD's only. The clue was in the name 'VROC-I-SSD-MOD' the 'I' stands for 'Intel' so VROC-Intel-SSD-Mod. Looks like you bought the wrong key, my friend.
 
The key that is supposed to work with non-intel SSD's is the 'VROCSTANMOD' key 'VROC-Standard-Mod.' 
 
I also have 2 Samsung 970 EVO NVMe SSD's and i have a EVGA Dark Mobo being shipped to me which should arrive on the 12 December. I bought the VROCSTANMOD key so i will be testing to see if i can make a bootable RAID 0 array with them soon. I will let you know if it works.

Nice find on the difference between the 2 keys
Will be interesting to see how things go with your testing

jzmijewski
Why is a key required? 

Because Intel were being douchebags and tried to monopolize PCI-E RAID over CPU by forcing people to buy only their NVMe SSD's. They're avoiding anti-trust lawsuits by making a super tiny list of 3rd party NVMe SSD vendors and saying 'these are the 3rd party SSD's we've tested that work.' But at the same time they also say things like 'we haven't tested any other NVMe SSD's so those won't work, possibly, maybe, we dunno. You can try but don't expect anything. Buy ours, we've tested those and they do work.' Shady AF if you ask me. 
 
Then of course, Intel totally shot themselves in both feet when AMD announced that PCI-E RAID over CPU would be completely free on their Ryzen Threadripper X399 chipsets. 
 
I actually had a Threadripper 2920X for a short time with a Asrock Taichi mobo and i managed to put both my Samsung 970's in bootable RAID 0 over CPU with no issue at all. The benchmark speeds read/write were insane (was getting around 6000 read 4000 right on crystaldisk). The only trouble was, the 2920X ran at around 65 degrees idle and 85 degrees during gaming and that caused throttling in games so i got some micro-stutter. I also had a high DPC latency with that Asrock motherboard which caused my audio to snap/crackle/pop. I tried the onboard sound card, tried my Sound Blaster ZXR sound card but both would distort. So after a week i RMA'd both the mobo and the CPU. The overheating was strange because I was running a Corsair H115i Platinum water cooler on it. I'm using the same water cooler now, after re-installing my i7 6850K on the old X99 FTW-K mobo. The i7 6850K runs at 32 degrees idle and hits around 45-50 degrees max when gaming. In hindsight I think the mobo was faulty. I tried various different settings as suggested by the Asrock team and even a few different BIOS but nothing seemed to stop the audio distortion/DPC latency/overheating. I even tried re-seating the heastink and cleaning it and applying new TIM but no dice. So now i'm team blue again. Have a EVGA X299 Dark on the way and will buy a i7 9800X to go with it next week.

it still won't work even with the different key with non-Intel drives.  I tried it :/ X299 is locked to Intel drives only

GGTV-Jon
advidwriter you have the 'VROCSTANMOD' key?

Yup i can confirm. Can't RAID 0 two Samsung 970's using VROCSTANMOD key either. Intel really screwed their customers trying to monopolize the M2 SSD business. 

ok, welp with this last round of attempts it is still Intel 1, the rest of us 0