How can I tell if M.2 drive is compatible with motherboard?

Question

I have GA-A320M-S2H which says:

• 1 x M.2 connector (Socket 3, M key, type 2242/2260/2280/22110 SATA and PCIe x4/x2* SSD support)
• Actual support may vary by CPU.
• Supports only M.2 SATA SSDs when using an AMD Athlon™-series/ 7th Gen. A-series or Athlon™ X4 APU.
• Ultra-Fast PCIe Gen3 x4 M.2 with PCIe NVMe & SATA mode support

SSD: Patriot VPN100 M.2 2280 256GB PCIe Gen3 x4, NVMe 1.3

CPU: A-series A10-9700

But it does not see my M.2 drive? Everything is matching. What is missing?

Answer 1

The SSD has an M-keyed M.2 connector and the motherboard has an M-keyed M.2 slot. So all is good there.

However, your CPU, an AMD A10-9700 appears to be a 7th-generation A-series APU and as such cannot support M.2 PCIe SSDs according to the specs. It probably does not have enough PCIe lanes.

The manual even has a table:

tl;dr: No, unless you buy a different CPU you cannot use any PCIe SSD in the M.2 slot. They’re probably still usable with an adapter in the regular PCIe slots, at potentially reduced bandwidth.

Additionally, I suggest you not buy a SSD with a useless heat sink. If you have a very big graphics card, it may conflict with the SSD’s heat sink.