Choosing a compatible M.2?

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jac

Member
Oct 21, 2012
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0
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Bellevue, WA
I'm trying to make heads or tails out of available M.2 ssd's for the Supermicro A2Di-4C-HLN4F.cfm board. I basically don't want to buy a feature that will never be utilized because the ssd I choose will live and die with the board.

A2SDi-4C-HLN4F | Motherboards | Products - Super Micro Computer, Inc.

Supermicro lists
  • M.2 Interface: PCI-E 3.0 x2 and SATA
    M.2 Form Factor: 2242, 2280
    M.2 Key: M-Key

but no mention of 'nvme' in the bullet point.

On their 'Tested M.2 List' they list a whole bunch of nvme models. Is nvme support implied due to the technology?
 

BlueLineSwinger

Active Member
Mar 11, 2013
176
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28
With the exception of early PCIe slot cards that required their own special drivers, PCIe SSDs are NVMe. Also, I'm pretty sure I've never seen a non-NVMe PCIe SSD in the m.2 form-factor.

Future mainboards will surely feature increased capabilities (e.g., PCIe 4), but it's unlikely that a SSD out today wouldn't work.
 

amalurk

Active Member
Dec 16, 2016
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Buy an NVME one and not an SATA m2. Sata in m.2 format is dead, no one has it in their future roadmap. Their are very few enterprise drives in m.2. format. Intel P4501 comes to mind in m.2, you could also do a Samsung 960pro. It appears your slot is only x2 pci-e and these drivers are faster than x2 and can use x4 if available so, it will still be able to do double or more the speed of an sata drive but you won't get the top end of sequential the drives are capable of with that board.
 

ivan1355

New Member
Mar 28, 2017
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Definitely NVME; I use a 32GB optane M2 in my A2SDi-8C+-HLN4F as a cache drive.
Just like to ask you, is it showing you in bios that the system recognized m.2 drive , or it coming available when you start installing os ? I just got an A2SDi-4c -HLN4F and try to use Samsung sm961 but not recognize nowhere in the bios.
 

EffrafaxOfWug

Radioactive Member
Feb 12, 2015
1,394
511
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I've not looked in the BIOS but it's perfectly visible as an NVME device in the OS:
Code:
        *-pci:2
             description: PCI bridge
             product: Intel Corporation
             vendor: Intel Corporation
             physical id: 10
             bus info: pci@0000:00:10.0
             version: 11
             width: 64 bits
             clock: 33MHz
             capabilities: pci pciexpress pm msi normal_decode bus_master cap_list
             configuration: driver=pcieport
             resources: irq:27 memory:df520000-df53ffff memory:df300000-df3fffff
           *-storage
                description: Non-Volatile memory controller
                product: Intel Corporation
                vendor: Intel Corporation
                physical id: 0
                bus info: pci@0000:03:00.0
                version: 00
                width: 64 bits
                clock: 33MHz
                capabilities: storage pm msix pciexpress msi nvm_express bus_master cap_list
                configuration: driver=nvme latency=0
                resources: irq:22 memory:df310000-df313fff memory:df300000-df30ffff
Does your SM951 show up in any other devices?
 

trumee

Member
Jan 31, 2016
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I have a Samsung 128GB CM871a Sata Ssd (not NVME) and it works in A2SDi-4c -HLN4F.