Need NVMe PCIe Adapter Recommendation

[Toddh]

I am new to NVMe drives. I bought 6x Samsung MZ-1LW9600 drives and the plan is to test them as cache drives for Storage Spaces Direct.

Because these are the 1st NVMe drives I have ever used I dont know what I need to connect them to my Supermicro X9DRi-ln4f+ MB.

The first thing I need to do is test them with S2D to see if they work. It seems I need a PCIe adapter. I need something
2U height
takes 1 or 2 NVMe drives
4x - 16x PCIe
Prefer somethings sourced from Amazon for quick turn around.

I have been reading and understand there are different NVMe types and connectors so I need recommendations for compatibility and durability. If the drives work with S2D then they will be used in production.

Thanks,

Todd

 

[Rand__]

http://www.supermicro.com/products/accessories/addon/AOC-SLG3-2M2.cfm
Not sure it runs single or dual devices on a X9 board though

 

[Toddh]

That looks like a good option. Base on the thread here it would only support 1 drive.

I am wondering if there are any that will support 2x or more drives on this Supermicro MB?

 

[Rand__]

Any with a plx chip builtin, but i know none with m.2 slots.
Check asus hypercard maybe

 

[mixmansc]

Yes..... to use one of the plain cheaper cards your motherboard must support PCIe bifurcation either through a PLX chip on the board or through a couple of the very newest chipsets. Otherwise you need a multi-port M.2 PCIe card with a PLX chip on the card. Those are not very common yet. Aplicata makes one but its not cheap. I think one company that makes mining hardware is also going to be coming out with one.

Supposedly your mobo does have a bifurcation feature in its bios but I'd do a search for your mobo model number and bifurcation to see what might be involved or if it really works at all. My Dell T7910 workstation has it built in and it came with a 4 port card but the PLX chip is on the mobo and not the PCIe card.

I know at least on this Dell the BIOS must be in pure UEFI mode for it to work and boot from the first NVMe SSD. Once the OS is booted you can then access the other 3 of them. You could optionally boot from a standalone drive and then use Store Spaces and RAID all 4 SSD's if you wanted (or 3 of them if you are booting from the first one) or use them as SS cache.