Supermicro H11 Series Motherboard Series NVMe Functionality

[drdepasquale]

Does anybody here have any experience working with NVMe devices on Supermicro H11 Series of motherboards? After reading the manual I still have some questions about the support of NVMe storage devices. The particular board I have questions about is the H11DSi-NT.

Does the m.2 slot support booting drives in legacy mode? The m.2 slot is where I intend to have the operating system installed and booted from. The motherboard BIOS also provides options for using the AMI NVMe firmware or the Vendor Defined Firmware. Does the AMI NVMe firmware have legacy functionality for NVMe or are only SATA drives bootable in legacy mode? I would also like to know if the OCulink NVMe ports are usable as second storage drives when the operating system is booted in legacy mode. The OCulink drives do not have to be bootable for my use case.

Pages 71 and 72 of the manual show that there are Legacy and EFI OPROM options for the m.2 slot
Manual Link: https://www.supermicro.com/manuals/motherboard/EPYC7000/MNL-2027.pdf

Any information about others experiences and features of these motherboards would be greatly appreciated.

 

[alex_stief]

Most of your questions go way over my head, so sorry for not being concise.
I am using a Samsung 970 Evo NVMe SSD on this board. That's where the OS is installed. Never had any problems with that.

 

[RolloZ170]

booting NVME SSDs in Legacy Mode (CSM) is only possible if the NVME SSD has a Legacy Option ROM. This is only the case with some older NVME SSDs.
. Samsung 950 PRO Option ROM

 

[drdepasquale]

booting NVME SSDs in Legacy Mode (CSM) is only possible if the NVME SSD has a Legacy Option ROM. This is only the case with some older NVME SSDs.
. Samsung 950 PRO Option ROM

That's the SSD I already have. Does this mean that that the m.2 will only be able to boot SATA SSD's in legacy mode with the exception of the Samsung 950 Pro?

 

[RolloZ170]

Does this mean that that the m.2 will only be able to boot SATA SSD's in legacy mode with the exception of the Samsung 950 Pro?

M.2 PCIe with option ROM or AHCI. or M.2 SATA.
there was a SM951 AHCI (MZHPVxxx)which worked too. but this is not NVMe then but PCIe.

 

[RolloZ170]

the NVME driver is in the UEFI part, the (legay) BIOS has no clue how to access the NVME SSD.

 

[RolloZ170]

you can Boot from a SATA and place the OS on a NVME drive, only the Bootloader has to be on a drive with BIOS support.

I would also like to know if the OCulink NVMe ports are usable as second storage drives when the operating system is booted in legacy mode

if the OS supports NVME drivers yes.

 

[drdepasquale]

M.2 PCIe with option ROM or AHCI. or M.2 SATA.
there was a SM951 AHCI (MZHPVxxx)which worked too. but this is not NVMe then but PCIe.

Perhaps that could work... So these drives have the compatbility of SATA and the speeds of PCIe?

 

[RolloZ170]

So these drives have the compatbility of SATA and the speeds of PCIe?

yes, AHCI is not same than NVME but should not human noticeable.

 

[drdepasquale]

yes, AHCI is not same than NVME but should not human noticeable.

Will these AHCI PCIe drives show up in the BIOS like a typical SATA or IDE drive?

 

[RolloZ170]

Will these AHCI PCIe drives show up in the BIOS like a typical SATA or IDE drive?

no specs. depends on the BIOS programmer.

 

[i386]

What are you trying to do that you need "legacy mode"?

 

[RolloZ170]

What are you trying to do that you need "legacy mode"?

knowed well this question must come... LOL
software/OS without EFI support ?

 

[drdepasquale]

knowed well this question must come... LOL
software/OS without EFI support ?

What are you trying to do that you need "legacy mode"?

It's more about hardware compatibility with very old PCI Express cards. The operating system I intend to use is fully UEFI compatible. Some of my old PCIe cards do not work properly under UEFI. I have experienced many issues with these older cards on a Supermicro X10 board. Once I enabled CSM and used legacy OptionROMs everything worked properly.

 

[drdepasquale]

I eventually decided on purchasing the newer Supermicro H12DSi-NT6 motherboard. The BIOS and the AMI Firmware do in fact have the handler to boot NVMe drives in legacy mode, whether it be the m.2 slot or occulink headers. Case closed!