RAID/NVME/PICe/SATA/MICO Assistance with SuperMicro H13SSL-NT build

[another_tech_guy]

Hi Everyone,

I'm building my first server (workstation) and hoping for some pointers from anyone else with a SuperMicro H13SSL-NT or similar. I've been building desktops for 20 years, but this is my first supermicro board /BIOS and some items are not so obvious / user friendly.

The issues I'm facing at the moment are:

1. I have qty.1 of PCIE5 NVME I'd like to get working in PCIe slot 5 with a Gen5 PCIe x16 to 4x4 NVMe card.
   (and grow to up to 4 similar drives later).
   - Asus AC Hyper M.2 X16 GEN5 Card (PCIE power connector is hooked up to the PSU)
   - Crucial T700 4TB PCIe 5 NVMe
   
   
2. I have qty.3 of PCIE4 NVME I'd like to get working in PCIe slot 3 with a Gen4 PCIe x16 to 4x4 NVMe card.
   (and grow to up to 4 similar drives later)
   - Asus AC Hyper M.2 X16 GEN4 Card
   - 3X Crucial P3 Plus 4TB PCIe 4 NVMe
   
   
3. Set up Qty.2 of the Gen4 NVMe drives (item 2 above) for RAID 1 and be a bootable windows drive (Windows 11 Pro for Workstations)
   
   
4. Set up Qty.2 SATA drives in RAID 1 (don't need not be bootable)

Questions (/What I've tried so far):

1. Does the MB / BIOS support SATA RAID? If yes where do the options appear?
   (I only have one working SATA drive at this time, the other was DOA so setting up RAID 1 will need to wait.)
   
   
2. Does the MB/BIOS support NVMe RAID? If yes where do the options appear?
   
   
3. Is x16 PCIe to (1-4) x4 NVMe set-up possible/supported by this MB/BIOS?
   (I have turned on 4x4x4x4 bifurcation for CPU groups G2 and P3 (slot 3 and 5 respectively) but see none of the qty.4 total NVMe drives (across the 2 PCIe slots) in the BIOS menus.)
   1. Are there other BIOS settings to change from defaults to make it work?
   2. Where should detected NVMe drives be listed in the BIOS? - The manual indicates in the advanced section listed between RAM disk configuration and Drive Health - I see no items on screen between those two list entries.
   3. Will a $10 PCIE x4 to NVME adaptor card work with this MB/BIOS to enable 1x NVME per PCIe slot?
      
4. Failing the PCIe to NVME expansions cards working does anyone sell a MICO to (2x) NVMe break out cable / PCB?
   (My searches are not turning up any)

Many thanks to everyone in advance for insight / pointers.


Background:


The base build is:

• H13SSL-NT
• AMD 9384X
• 12x sticks of SuperMicro DDR5 ECC 32GB: MEM-DR532L-HL01-ER48
• Nvidia A4000 in PCIe slot 1 (working to display BIOS and MemTest UI)
• Fractal Meshify XL Case
• SeaSonic 1000W Power Supply

The good news:

• It POSTS and boots memtest off USB stick.
  • MemTest is happy with all the RAM sticks (yay!).
• I had the problem with fan cycling of the 140mm Nocterna fans I purchased but solved that by putting them as secondaries on the Fractal Meshify XL cases fan controller and that seemed to sort things out.
• BMC and BIOS updated to the latest versions (v1.01.08 and v1.6 respectively)
• Configured IP4 network settings for the BMC in the BIOS and have BMC interfacing working from a laptop web browser.

 

[ano]

very very nice motherboard, supports all your bifurcation, and probably the sata raid (I just used zfs raid or dmraid) cant see any pitfalls with with you want ( did read post fast)

you will see nvme in bios at bottom of pcie

MCIO breakout cables exist, I got mine 6? months ago or so, $$$ then, butworks well

there are some performance tuning ioptions in bios

 

[Kizune]

AFAIK the SATA ports on this motherboard are handled by the SoC of the EPYC processor and there is no support for SATA RAID. Same goes to NVMe - I do not believe that there is an analog of VROC for AMD EPYC. Looking at the motherboard manual I do not see any configuration options for SATA RAID - controllers are either enabled or disabled and that’s it.

 

[vvkvvk]

Yeah, there's no firmware RAID for these, your operating system should have better filesystem and features for that. The fan issue you were having is due to Noctua fans being too slow: Making Noctua fans work (quietly) with a Supermicro motherboard | Jeff Geerling

 

[ano]

jeff geerling! great guy.

 

[PREEVES-HALL@NKTPHOTONICS]

Questions (/What I've tried so far):

1. Does the MB / BIOS support SATA RAID? If yes where do the options appear?
   (I only have one working SATA drive at this time, the other was DOA so setting up RAID 1 will need to wait.)
   
   
2. Does the MB/BIOS support NVMe RAID? If yes where do the options appear?
   
   
3. Is x16 PCIe to (1-4) x4 NVMe set-up possible/supported by this MB/BIOS?
   (I have turned on 4x4x4x4 bifurcation for CPU groups G2 and P3 (slot 3 and 5 respectively) but see none of the qty.4 total NVMe drives (across the 2 PCIe slots) in the BIOS menus.)
   1. Are there other BIOS settings to change from defaults to make it work?
   2. Where should detected NVMe drives be listed in the BIOS? - The manual indicates in the advanced section listed between RAM disk configuration and Drive Health - I see no items on screen between those two list entries.
   3. Will a $10 PCIE x4 to NVME adaptor card work with this MB/BIOS to enable 1x NVME per PCIe slot?
4. Failing the PCIe to NVME expansions cards working does anyone sell a MICO to (2x) NVMe break out cable / PCB?
   (My searches are not turning up any)

Many thanks to everyone in advance for insight / pointers.

So it's up and working, here are the answers of they are helpful to anyone else

1. No
2. No
3.1. doesn't seem to be, setting 4x4x4x4 makes the NVME pcie cards work fine in windows.
3.2. compatible* NVME drives are shown in the bios where hinted at in the manual. NVME drives not on the super micro approved compatibility list are not shows in the bios BUT are detected from Windows and work perfectly fine.
3.3. yes from windows, no from bios if the drive is. Not on the bios approved list (see 3.2)
4. I didn't find one yet.


*So once I inatalled an approved NVME drive from the supermicro list for the motherboard it was detected fine in the bios and I used that for the Windows insall. Once in windows all the other NVMEs I've installed were detected without issue.

Using Windows storage spaces for RAID 1 on the SATA HDs and NVMEs and it works well with sequential transfer read speeds x2 that of a single drive ( writes stay x1 of course) and other benchmarks seeming very competitive.

Windows 11 pro USB media creator refuses to install as the PC doesn't meet minimum requirements (lol). Using Rufus to make a windows 11 pro for workstations installer USB worked great. That copy of windows activated with no issues.

As mentioned above putting all the large, low rpm case fans on the fractal case fan controller as secondaries to the CPU cooler fixes the fan speed oscillation issue .