NVMe: 2.5" SFF drives working in a normal desktop
- Thread starter Patrick
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I got the 2 cheaper cards literally minutes before you updated/posted.
We'll see if they work, if not I'll return and get the higher $$ ones. My motherboards are SM and the part is SM so I'm hoping it works
Just need to get a cable to test them, or cash in some amazon points for a 750 w/cable
We'll see if they work, if not I'll return and get the higher $$ ones. My motherboards are SM and the part is SM so I'm hoping it works
Just need to get a cable to test them, or cash in some amazon points for a 750 w/cable
Just to clarify, since my brain is failing me, the cheaper card has been working fine with one or two drives in some or most of your systems despite the fact that it does not have the plx chip on it? The plx version is needed if the motherboard does not already support bifurcation? Not sure if this will be easy to answer but is there a way to verify if the motherboard supports the bifurcation? I remember trying to figure this out a very long long time ago and struggled with finding an answer. Thank you for clarifying/walking me through the explanation.
I am not sure if you saw my post, but I posted a link in #13 - yet it's still expensive.
You can have a look at your motherboard's manual if there is any mention of a "PCIe switch" or a glance at your motherboard.
Here is a video that breaks it down to layman's terms: Configure PCI-Express* Lanes for Simultaneous Applications
So the Xeon D seemed to work. Other boards with PLX chips onboard seemed to have worked also. Note this is one drive so not 2.
I think the real answer is in many systems you need the PLX card.
I should have some of the differences between the two cards clearer tomorrow.
Any idea why we don't have access to a list of SuperMicro boards this will work with?
It's their item so I'd hope we can get definite answers from them.
I'm trying to recall, but I think some of their boards/chassis have this item listed as "OPTIONAL" at the very bottom, I however don't recall 100% or which board it was.
From SuperMicro
"Bifurcation in this case means to split up a PCIe port into multiple ports (i.e. make 2 PCIe x8 ports from 1 PCIe x16 port). We only support this on our UIO and WIO motherboards. Take a low at our X9SPU, X9DBU, X9SRW and X9DRW series motherboards."
Posted: 03/14/14 By SM on their Q&A site.
Question
Does motherboard X10SLV-Q support bifurcation?
Answer
Motherboard X10SLV-Q does not support bifurcation. You can only use 1 device on that PCIe slot.
Posted: 02/21/14
"Bifurcation in this case means to split up a PCIe port into multiple ports (i.e. make 2 PCIe x8 ports from 1 PCIe x16 port). We only support this on our UIO and WIO motherboards. Take a low at our X9SPU, X9DBU, X9SRW and X9DRW series motherboards."
Posted: 03/14/14 By SM on their Q&A site.
Question
Does motherboard X10SLV-Q support bifurcation?
Motherboard X10SLV-Q does not support bifurcation. You can only use 1 device on that PCIe slot.
Posted: 02/21/14
I HAVE MY FINGERS CROSSED THEN!
I really hope it works in my E5 v1/v2 builds, but am more thinking it will work in the E5 v3 builds.
My plan is to use 1 at home in my 2P 14C v3 and compare performance to a E5-1660 v3 then migrate it to home/dev/non-production analysis and then use 1 in production with a E5 v2 10C DB server.
I'm damn excited to test this, it will make my analysis soooo much faster Opening new doors here with these drives is a true reality.
I'm also excited to test 2 of them in RAID0 :-X
Now... to order the 2 cables for $70 each or order 1x750 to get me to July, LOL!! The 750 likely will go in ESXI home box.
I really hope it works in my E5 v1/v2 builds, but am more thinking it will work in the E5 v3 builds.
My plan is to use 1 at home in my 2P 14C v3 and compare performance to a E5-1660 v3 then migrate it to home/dev/non-production analysis and then use 1 in production with a E5 v2 10C DB server.
I'm damn excited to test this, it will make my analysis soooo much faster
Opening new doors here with these drives is a true reality.I'm also excited to test 2 of them in RAID0 :-X
Now... to order the 2 cables for $70 each or order 1x750 to get me to July, LOL!! The 750 likely will go in ESXI home box.
With $150 in amazon points and $80 for a cable I'm >50% of a 750 so I may just grab 1o f those from TigerDirect (I'm in CA, so, yay).
I just may have to take some points from my starwood hotel and tell the wife we can't stay in hawaii as long as we though... haha... that would go over well
I just may have to take some points from my starwood hotel and tell the wife we can't stay in hawaii as long as we though... haha... that would go over well
That ASUS workstation you have in FS is now a prime candidate for this. IIRC those mobos use PLX chips to get all those PCIe slots active right?
Hot off the press: here are the official/ unofficial AOC specs on the two cards.
This is what I think I am going to try next:
This is the one I have been using with some mixed results:
Will keep digging and will order one of the 2E4's for when I get back.
This is what I think I am going to try next:
This is the one I have been using with some mixed results:
Will keep digging and will order one of the 2E4's for when I get back.
Non-R has a PLX 1x8 -> 2x4 PCIe 3.0 switch on it. For most platforms this is going to be required to support 2x4 devices in a x8 slot. Its overall a somewhat complicated issue getting into actual chipset/processor support along with bios configuration support as well as what else is already configured in the system. The PCIe complex of the E5/7 processors support a limited number of PCIe masters/initiators. Generally this number is significantly less than #num_pcie_lanes/4.
For the most part, the R version should work if only 1 NVMe drive is connected as this is just like plugging a x4 card in a x8 slot. The complications with the R version will only start to show when you try to connect 2 NVMe drives and the combination of processor and bios aren't configured to support 2 devices at the root PCIe complex. And in general, this configuration isn't exactly dynamic on the CPU/bios side. It generally needs to be statically configured at boot time to allocate the various PCIe masters on the CPU to the various PCIe lanes.
As to why we don't have a qual list from Supermicro, probably because its a bit complicated. When in doubt, get the PLX version (and why of why didn't they use a x8->4x4 version of the PLX chip?????) and it will always work.
Still annoyed they didn't allow for over-subscription in the PLX card. There's very few workloads nor very few NVMe drives that can hit peak performance in linear streams and over-subscription would allow much better performance in real world workloads with less PCIe host lanes. Hopefully someone is coming out with a x8->4x4 or x16->8/12x4.
I'd want to see a PCIe x16 card with 4-6 connectors.
@ATS I actually think if you look at the post right above yours some information is already there.
@ATS I actually think if you look at the post right above yours some information is already there.