I have an SFF server as a kind of experimental box on my home lan. It's based on an ASRock Rack E3C236D2I mini-ITX mainboard (see ASRock Rack > E3C236D2I) and mounted in a M350 chassis (see M350 Universal Mini-ITX enclosure). It's pretty packed in there, with 2x 2.5" HDDs and a Pentium G4560 plus low profile cooler.
When I bought it, an M.2 PCI-e + SATA interface was advertised as a feature, which I was depending on using. However I didn't read the specs closely enough, assuming that I could install a Samsung 950 series SSD with no issues. I only discovered how tiny (30 mm length) the M.2 slot is when I went to use it. It's listed in the manual as a 2230 form factor, and the manual says that it supports both PCE-e and SATA.
So my question is this: Does anybody know how I can use it for an SSD? I've asked around in other forums, i.e., Reddit.com, and the answer was that I can put a WiFi adapter in there, but sticking a WiFi adapter in an otherwise useless interface to the PCI-e bus is the most common, shitty consolation prize that manufacturers tend to offer. You see this sort of thing a lot with laptops, which don't allow anything except for WiFi cards due to a whitelist in the BIOS. And besides, who ever heard of a SATA WiFi card?
Any suggestions for how I can use this for something useful, such as an SSD as I originally intended, would be really appreciated. Thanks!!
Kind regards,
ubk
When I bought it, an M.2 PCI-e + SATA interface was advertised as a feature, which I was depending on using. However I didn't read the specs closely enough, assuming that I could install a Samsung 950 series SSD with no issues. I only discovered how tiny (30 mm length) the M.2 slot is when I went to use it. It's listed in the manual as a 2230 form factor, and the manual says that it supports both PCE-e and SATA.
So my question is this: Does anybody know how I can use it for an SSD? I've asked around in other forums, i.e., Reddit.com, and the answer was that I can put a WiFi adapter in there, but sticking a WiFi adapter in an otherwise useless interface to the PCI-e bus is the most common, shitty consolation prize that manufacturers tend to offer. You see this sort of thing a lot with laptops, which don't allow anything except for WiFi cards due to a whitelist in the BIOS. And besides, who ever heard of a SATA WiFi card?
Any suggestions for how I can use this for something useful, such as an SSD as I originally intended, would be really appreciated. Thanks!!
Kind regards,
ubk
