Minisforum MS-01 PCIe Card and RAM Compatibility Thread

[dokterdok]

There's a working option to add one more M.2 slot to the MS-01 without using the PCIe slot or the Wi-Fi M.2 slot.
I installed the QNAP QDA-U2MP using the M.2 to U.2 adapter that comes with the MS-01. The QNAP enclosure needs to be removed for the card to fit. It's a tight fit, but is easy to do. It works well: you can put the original fan/plate back and close the case normally, no clearance issues. While there’s not enough space for individual SSD heatsinks, the original MS-01 fan/plate acts as one.

With an external fan blowing on the side of the MS-01, the two SSDs in the QNAP adapter idle at around 55°C, which is actually cooler than the SSDs in slot 2 and 3 (those have heatsinks and idle at around 60C).
EDIT : I ended up removing the heatsink on the 3rd SSD (the one closest to the WiFi card), to prevent it from obstructing the fan. I hadn't noticed it at first, but realized the 2nd and 3rd SSDs were getting unusually hot. Doing this lowered the idle SSD temp by 10°C vs before. Thank you @randman for the tip.

Downsides:

• The controller in the QNAP downgrades the link to PCIe 3.0 x4 (instead of PCIe 4.0 x4).
• It’s still relatively expensive compared to using an M.2 riser on the Wi-Fi slot or a PCIe M.2 expansion card.

But if you want to keep the PCIe slot free and avoid being limited to PCIe 3.0 x1 via the Wi-Fi slot, this is a solid hack option.

 

[sacy80]

Hi. anyone manage to get LSI9300-8e to work? i try, but the card wont boot. MS-01 able to boot to window2022, device manage able to detect the card, but it show disable (I/O error ). but i place the card on my Amd b350 mobo, the card boot , and able to access the LSI gui.

 

[randman]

I got the barebones Misinforum MS-0119-12900H (i..e no disk & no memory). I added 64GB of memory (2 x 32GB of Kingston DDR5).
I added a 1TB Crucial NVMe and a 500GB Crucial NVMe. The UEFI says that I have 64GB of memory, as expected.

I got Intel AMT and Meshcommander to work. They both report wrong disk and memory information. I haven't installed an OS yet.

Intel AMT/MeshCommander says that my MS-01 has:
- 2 x 16GB of Micron Technology memory (with part number CT16G56C46S5, which is the part number for a Crucial 16GB memory)
- One disk, a Kingston 500GB disk (part number: CT16G56C46S5)

Well, what Intel AMT/MeshCommander are obviously wrong. It seems to me the memory and disk information might be some static information saved somewhere in the UEFI (but is not actually visible in the UEFI itself)?

In the UEFI, I ran "Load Optimized Defaults", and Intel AMT/MeshCommander still report the wrong info.

Is this something to be concerned about? Or it's just some bug that won't affect actual usage? Do other people have this condition?

Below are screen shots from Intel AMT with the wrong information:

 

[randman]

My MS-01 has shipped so now time to select the components. I’m looking at Crucial T500 2TB which can be had with or without a heat sink.

Which should I get? Will heat sink fit?

Thx

I also used Crucial T500. I compared it to one of the more popular NVMe's that others are using (a Samsung Pro, don't recall the model name exactly). The Crucial T500 is much cooler running. Various online reviews also mention that the Crucial T500 is one of the the coolest running NVMEs.

I installed 3 of the Crucial T500:

1. For the NVMe in the PCIe 4.0 x4 slot (the one closest to the U.2/M.2 toggle switch, I used the black heatsink that shipped with my barebones MS-01.

2. For the PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe slot (the middle NVMe slot) - The NVMe in this slot is NOT under the fan (barely), but space is limited. I was able to use a 1mm copper heatsink with a 0.5mm gel. This is the heatsink that I used: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07YC1HTFR?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title

3. For the PCIe 3.0 x2 NVMe slot (the one closest to the Wi-Fi card): At first, I also used the aforementioned copper heatsink (with 0.5mm gel) in this slot. The fan assembly seemed to fit just fine and I screwed it in. However, when I powered up the MS-01, I noticed that the fan was not moving.
The UEFI's "Setup > Advanced > M.2 Fan 1 Speed" had a value of "N/A". It turns out that the copper heatsink was obstructing the fan. It sure looked and felt like it fit, but it was just thick enough to block the fan from moving. So, I removed the heatsink. Since it's under the fan, I hope not using a heat sink would be fine.

 

[mtlcpu]

If it can help, I have two lexar nm790 well recognized by proxmox installed in : qm2-2p-344a

 

[Arjestin]

If it can help, I have two lexar nm790 well recognized by proxmox installed in : qm2-2p-344a

Thanks, but qm2-2p-344a length is 170.5 mm. Quad NVMe adapters like LRNV9547L-4I are 175 mm in length.
How hard was it to fit qm2-2p-344a inside the MS-01?
Is there at least 5 mm of clearance between your PCIe card and the MS-01 chassis?

 

[mtlcpu]

Thanks, but qm2-2p-344a length is 170.5 mm. Quad NVMe adapters like LRNV9547L-4I are 175 mm in length.
How hard was it to fit qm2-2p-344a inside the MS-01?
Is there at least 5 mm of clearance between your PCIe card and the MS-01 chassis?

Went in very easily. The faceplate can be removed, which I did. Left the plastic connector in. Getting indeed to 3x4 combined for both drive. I'll try the 384a to see if I can get at least 3.0 x 8 (so x4 for each drive, which in zfs would yield something interesting).

 

[mtlcpu]

I can also confirm that it will boot and recognize the QM2-2P10G1TB 10g copper link. This one fits a tiny bit tighter to get the bracket in, but it is in fact shorter than the 344a.

Please note that it tends tot run fairly hot. It is in fact a x12 card (4 lanes for the 10g and 4 lanes for each ssd) bifurcated on card to 8 lanes

 

[dokterdok]

The Shinreal PE3162-4IL 4x M.2 expansion card doesn't fit. 175mm long, I believe the limit should be around 170mm.

 

[BlueChris]

Can an M.2 SSD be used in the Wi-Fi slot?
If so what would be the recommendation?
Thank you

This question is replied multiple times in the thread. Yes you can with an m2 A+E key to M2 M Key converter.
See here. There are cheaper ones in Amazon and in Ali also but this works fine for me 1 year now. On it i have the System Disk.

The first one you listed won't fit since it's a full sized pcie card, while the ms-01 only supports small-form factor ones.
The second one is interesting. Curious if you found an answer to your question? I found a similar one (PE3162-4IL) from Shinreal, it seems to be 175mm long. So far I do know that a 168mm card fits (RTX 4000), and that a 185mm card won't (Sonnet FUS-SSD-2X4-E3S).

EDIT: Below are the schematics that Shinreal sent me. They mentioned being unsure if it can be installed in a MS-01.

View attachment 42556

I don't know how it will work. MS-01 has a PCI X8 slot with x16 physical so if you put there 4 disks they will be 4 x PCIx2? i don't know if the card supports that. Sent an email to them asking them exactly this, how the card will behave in a PCIeX8 slot.
Also keep in mind that the below M2 disks will have high temperatures if you dont implement a fun to blow under the MS-01 like many times we discussed in this thread.

 

[pimposh]

There's a working option to add one more M.2 slot to the MS-01 without using the PCIe slot or the Wi-Fi M.2 slot.
I installed the QNAP QDA-U2MP using the M.2 to U.2 adapter that comes with the MS-01.

If anyone would like to get one, i just put one spare i had on local secret stash for sale in my sales thread.

 

[dokterdok]

I don't know how it will work. MS-01 has a PCI X8 slot with x16 physical so if you put there 4 disks they will be 4 x PCIx2? i don't know if the card supports that. Sent an email to them asking them exactly this, how the card will behave in a PCIeX8 slot.
Also keep in mind that the below M2 disks will have high temperatures if you dont implement a fun to blow under the MS-01 like many times we discussed in this thread.

I attempted a little experiment: I trimmed the edges of a PE3162-4IL card to fit it into the MS-01 and installed three SSDs: 2x SN850X 4TB and 1x SN850P 8TB, all configured in a Btrfs RAID0 pool.

Despite the x8 electrical limitation, performance was solid. Using fio, I measured sustained sequential read speeds of ~6.5 GiB/s (~6842 MB/s), which is close to the theoretical maximum for PCIe Gen3 x8 (~7.8 GiB/s). Each drive negotiated correctly at PCIe 3.0 x4, confirming that the PLX switch on the adapter was doing its job. The only real bottleneck was the uplink to the CPU.

However, after leaving the system idle (Unraid 7.1) for 2–3 hours, I encountered an issue where the 8TB SN850P disappeared. There were no SMART errors, thermal warnings, or data loss, but nvme no longer reported the device, and a reboot was required to recover it.

I moved the 8TB drive to another slot on the adapter, but the same issue occurred after a few hours. Since then, I’ve been running the system for several days using just the two 4TB drives on the adapter, with the 8TB SN850P moved to the MS-01’s native PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 slot, and it’s been stable. This points to a possible firmware issue with the SN850P, a power delivery or compatibility problem, or maybe PLX/drivers instability (even though I have a fan blowing on the side of the case and another on the back, and SSD temps stayed below 55°C). Shinreal suggested resetting the PLX EEPROM config using the Broadcom SDK, but wasn’t sure whether that would resolve the issue.

So in short: yes, it works — and it’s fast — but it hasn’t been fully reliable with the SN850P (or perhaps with more than two SSDs), and it’s obviously an extremely hacky setup. Still, there’s room for further experimentation.

EDIT 15 April 2025: Setting PCIe ASPM to L1 in the BIOS seems to have solved the stability issue (was disabled before). Now running smoothly for a couple of days with 3 drives on the expansion card.

 

[mtlcpu]

Went in very easily. The faceplate can be removed, which I did. Left the plastic connector in. Getting indeed to 3x4 combined for both drive. I'll try the 384a to see if I can get at least 3.0 x 8 (so x4 for each drive, which in zfs would yield something interesting).

I can confirm the 384a works very well. Stays relatively cool (comes with a fan) and gets... as expected twice the bandwith

 

[JaxJiang]

I attempted a little experiment: I trimmed the edges of a PE3162-4IL card to fit it into the MS-01 and installed three SSDs: 2x SN850X 4TB and 1x SN850P 8TB, all configured in a Btrfs RAID0 pool.

Despite the x8 electrical limitation, performance was solid. Using fio, I measured sustained sequential read speeds of ~6.5 GiB/s (~6842 MB/s), which is close to the theoretical maximum for PCIe Gen3 x8 (~7.8 GiB/s). Each drive negotiated correctly at PCIe 3.0 x4, confirming that the PLX switch on the adapter was doing its job. The only real bottleneck was the uplink to the CPU.

However, after leaving the system idle (Unraid 7) for 2–3 hours, I encountered an issue where the 8TB SN850P disappeared. There were no SMART errors, thermal warnings, or data loss, but nvme no longer reported the device, and a reboot was required to recover it.

I moved the 8TB drive to another slot on the adapter, but the same issue occurred after a few hours. Since then, I’ve been running the system for several days using just the two 4TB drives on the adapter, with the 8TB SN850P moved to the MS-01’s native PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 slot, and it’s been stable. This points to a possible firmware issue with the SN850P, a power delivery or compatibility problem, or maybe PLX/drivers instability (even though I have a fan blowing on the side of the case and another on the back, and SSD temps stayed below 55°C). Shinreal suggested resetting the PLX EEPROM config using the Broadcom SDK, but wasn’t sure whether that would resolve the issue.

So in short: yes, it works — and it’s fast — but it hasn’t been fully reliable with the SN850P (or perhaps with more than two SSDs), and it’s obviously an extremely hacky setup. Still, there’s room for further experimentation.

Hi. We recently found there maybe have some compatibility issues with MS-01 and PLX PCIE SWITCH Chipset.
The same manifestation with you, and pcie devices may loss.
Downgrade PCIE Slot to PCIE Gen2 may better, and we may release a new BIOS for show select of PCIE SPEED.

Using asmedia's pcie switch looks no problem.

 

[dokterdok]

Hi. We recently found there maybe have some compatibility issues with MS-01 and PLX PCIE SWITCH Chipset.
The same manifestation with you, and pcie devices may loss.
Downgrade PCIE Slot to PCIE Gen2 may better, and we may release a new BIOS for show select of PCIE SPEED.

Using asmedia's pcie switch looks no problem.

Thanks for the update, that lines up with what I was seeing. I’d be glad to test an early BIOS with PCIe speed selection and share results. Let me know if logs or config details would help troubleshoot the issue long-term.
Do you think there’s a path to solving this without dropping to Gen2, or is that looking like the only workaround for now?

 

[Stanthewizzard]

Hello

Am I the only not able to change fan speed ?
When in the bios everything is fine except when getting to bios temp & fan

The bios becoms unresponsive.

Thanks

 

[JaxJiang]

Hello

Am I the only not able to change fan speed ?
When in the bios everything is fine except when getting to bios temp & fan

The bios becoms unresponsive.

Thanks

Are U MS-01?
Try upgrade lastest BIOS.
If still try temp remove fan cable?
There is not any HM monitor & Smart fan Menu hang problem reported before.

 

[Stanthewizzard]

yes ms-01
Latest bios 26
Remove it when bios is up ?
I know (I’m a black cat)

 

[goodt]

Got the kit and have it installed in one of my MS-01's that keeps freezing/locking up randomly. Anyway after installing it took about 1-2mins for they system to boot into the BIOS, this seems to be a one time thing due to memory training. Other than that the MS-01 recognized the ram and Proxmox booted without issue. I'll keep an eye on it and report back if I have any problems.

View attachment 42060View attachment 42062View attachment 42061

G.SKILL Ripjaws DDR5 SO-DIMM Series DDR5 RAM 96GB (2x48GB) 5600MT/s CL46-45-45-89 1.10V Unbuffered Non-ECC Notebook/Laptop Memory SODIMM (F5-5600S4645A48GX2-RS)

These work for me but the CT2K64G56C46S5 module mentioned does not boot in my MS-01 13900H bios v1.26.

Could it be due to motherboard revisions or settings in the BIOS prior to installation?

 

[Stanthewizzard]

Are U MS-01?
Try upgrade lastest BIOS.
If still try temp remove fan cable?
There is not any HM monitor & Smart fan Menu hang problem reported before.

Tried on an other MS-01
Exact same behavior
These are my first and second ms-01