Multi-NVMe (m.2, u.2) adapters that do not require bifurcation

[Stubble5018]

Hi,

I'm still a little confused about the ASM2812 / ASM1812. In the original post and further discussion, it was mentioned that ASM1812 would work without motherboard bifurcation, but the card that was linked was a ASM2812. Do both of those cards support dual nvme without motherboard bifurcation? Has anyone here tested them?

Ideally, I would like to go with the cheaper 1812 if it works. Any help would be greatly appreciated

 

[nexox]

I haven't read every post in this thread but the ASMedia description of their 1812 sounds not great:

ASMedia PCIe product ASM1812, a low latency, low cost and low power 12 lane , maximum 6 downstream ports packet switch. With upstream PCIe Gen2x4 bandwidth...

 

[Branko]

New PCI-E standards are coming out so fast that instead using these cards, its
better to just buy new stuff...unless staying with your old hardware brings
benefits that far outweigh going with new hardware...and that is usually
the cost in homelab environment

 

[Docop]

You do understand that you can find sound card that are in pci-e gen4 8x ! And the same as many graphic card of gen4x16 are do run internally - electrically : only at 8x and even at 4x. Like testing all those nvme drive.. skip the memory chip.. call <cache< and then you see all is about same speed as an usb3.1 10gb. Plx card switch at the key for quite a while. maybe in 4 yrs with the pcie7 link at optical cable.. But even then, the diff of speed is so low and having more pci slot is the key factor.

 

[Branko]

You do understand that you can find sound card that are in pci-e gen4 8x ! And the same as many graphic card of gen4x16 are do run internally - electrically : only at 8x and even at 4x. Like testing all those nvme drive.. skip the memory chip.. call <cache< and then you see all is about same speed as an usb3.1 10gb. Plx card switch at the key for quite a while. maybe in 4 yrs with the pcie7 link at optical cable.. But even then, the diff of speed is so low and having more pci slot is the key factor.

If speed is not a factor, then SATA card is cheaper and better solution, you can easily spend same amount money as for PLX card and get 8 or even more SATA ports, while not spending that much PCIE lines

 

[FlashBasedFox]

Ok so I'm extremely new here (just signed up) and I was curious if anyone knew of a 4-port NVMe SSD PCIe add-in card that self-bifurcates but is wired x4 electrically and each drive recieves x1 lane? I have an extra x16 slot on my motherboard but it is wired x4 electrically. Any answer is greatly appreciated.

 

[dxx-223]

Ok so I'm extremely new here (just signed up) and I was curious if anyone knew of a 4-port NVMe SSD PCIe add-in card that self-bifurcates but is wired x4 electrically and each drive recieves x1 lane? I have an extra x16 slot on my motherboard but it is wired x4 electrically. Any answer is greatly appreciated.

[Edit - mistakenly posted about Glotrends PA41 card which requires bifurcation]

I imagine the Glotrends PA40 Quad M.2 PCIe X8 3.0 NVMe adapter card would downgrade to x4 upstream (to CPU) and share the same across the the four drives. Quite expensive though. Based around an ASM2824.

 

[mattventura]

Ok so I'm extremely new here (just signed up) and I was curious if anyone knew of a 4-port NVMe SSD PCIe add-in card that self-bifurcates but is wired x4 electrically and each drive recieves x1 lane? I have an extra x16 slot on my motherboard but it is wired x4 electrically. Any answer is greatly appreciated.

It's very rare for a motherboard to support x1x1x1x1 bifurcation. Are you sure it supports that?

You'd probably need a switch in that setup, not bifurcation.

 

[NablaSquaredG]

It's very rare for a motherboard to support x1x1x1x1 bifurcation. Are you sure it supports that?

No, he's looking for a card that "self-bifurcates" aka has a PCIe switch on it.

You'd want something like the Linkreal LRNV9547LP-4I

 

[Branko]

Ok so I'm extremely new here (just signed up) and I was curious if anyone knew of a 4-port NVMe SSD PCIe add-in card that self-bifurcates but is wired x4 electrically and each drive recieves x1 lane? I have an extra x16 slot on my motherboard but it is wired x4 electrically. Any answer is greatly appreciated.

maybe this?

PCIe 3.0 x4 to 4x M.2 NVMe Adapter Card,IO-PCE2806-4M2 - PCIe - Storage Products - My web

Supports PCIe x4/8/16 slot,Support PCIe 4.0,3.1,3.0, PCIe 2.0 motherboard,Compliant with PCI Express M.2 specification 1.0,1.1, Supports 2230, 2242, 2260, 2280 size NGFF SSD,Supports four NGFF M.2 M Key socket available.

www.iocrest.com

 

[zachj]

maybe this?

PCIe 3.0 x4 to 4x M.2 NVMe Adapter Card,IO-PCE2806-4M2 - PCIe - Storage Products - My web

Supports PCIe x4/8/16 slot,Support PCIe 4.0,3.1,3.0, PCIe 2.0 motherboard,Compliant with PCI Express M.2 specification 1.0,1.1, Supports 2230, 2242, 2260, 2280 size NGFF SSD,Supports four NGFF M.2 M Key socket available.

www.iocrest.com

From the pictures that doesn’t have a pcie switch on it; it almost certainly requires x1x1x1x1 motherboard bifurcation support…

 

[nexox]

From the pictures that doesn’t have a pcie switch on it; it almost certainly requires x1x1x1x1 motherboard bifurcation support…

Actually if you go to the linked Alibaba page to get higher resolution photos, you can see the differential pair traces from the PCIe slot go to that medium size chip next to it, then from the chip out towards the m.2 slots, I didn't see any details about that chip when I skimmed the product description, but I would guess it's an 8 lane PCIe switch that's just somewhat smaller than the 20+ lane chips we're used to.

Edit: Of course I think the original request was a bit confused because you can use an x4 slot and a switch to run four x4 m.2 devices, no need to go to four x1.

 

[FlashBasedFox]

maybe this?

PCIe 3.0 x4 to 4x M.2 NVMe Adapter Card,IO-PCE2806-4M2 - PCIe - Storage Products - My web

Supports PCIe x4/8/16 slot,Support PCIe 4.0,3.1,3.0, PCIe 2.0 motherboard,Compliant with PCI Express M.2 specification 1.0,1.1, Supports 2230, 2242, 2260, 2280 size NGFF SSD,Supports four NGFF M.2 M Key socket available.

www.iocrest.com

That was one of the ones I was looking at. A tad pricey for my preferences, as I was hoping to spend around $200ish. I saw on amazon that Sabrent has one thats $179ish that is literally the same thing. (Though, I don't know which switch it uses off the top of my head)

 

[FlashBasedFox]

No, he's looking for a card that "self-bifurcates" aka has a PCIe switch on it.

You'd want something like the Linkreal LRNV9547LP-4I

This is what I'm looking for at exactly the right price point! Thanks!

 

[Dwarf2650]

Would something like this work?
NVMe M.2 Adapter

 

[flobert]

Whats the best PLX board for adding some more m2 or u2 drives with the lowest power consumption and best possible c-states?

 

[i386]

PLX and low power? I tried recently a 4x m.2 from supermicro with a plx switch and it heat up the raid controller next to it until the alarm went off. That was inside a rackmount chassis with 7k rpm midwall and rear fans
(2x optane 118GB m.2 ssds)

 

[flobert]

PLX and low power? I tried recently a 4x m.2 from supermicro with a plx switch and it heat up the raid controller next to it until the alarm went off. That was inside a rackmount chassis with 7k rpm midwall and rear fans
(2x optane 118GB m.2 ssds)

Sounds crazy.

Some sites earlier someone said that the ANM24PE16 takes round about 15-20 watts with 4x NVMe?
Is that right? Can someone confirm that?

 

[TRACKER]

Sounds crazy.

Some sites earlier someone said that the ANM24PE16 takes round about 15-20 watts with 4x NVMe?
Is that right? Can someone confirm that?

Yes, i confirm
it takes around 20W with 4x NVMe drives.

 

[unphased]

Is that 20W out of that PLX chip? or 20W total with the drives (each of which can go to say 6 watts or even higher), big difference there.

i have mine with the heatsink off and i havent found the ceramic cooling chip attached to the PLX chip to be very warm. HOWEVER, I have mine hooked up to x4 lanes as a pcie HBA since i'm lane-starved, and could never give more than one drive a full load with this thing as-is... the fan is somewhat annoying, but not too bad. and even with heatsink off, it still blows air in that vicinity so it's not doing nothing.