4x NVMe drives on single PCI-e expansion card..... (UPDATE, IT WORKS!)

[kron]

3 hours ago, jonathanm said:

That wasn't the question.

 

Please verify that you have enabled UEFI boot mode on the USB stick, and you have legacy boot disabled in the BIOS.

Ok, yes I set 1st Boot Device is set to UEFI. [UEFI: SanDisk]. Also, server boot mode on the flash drive is set to UEFI (Permit UEFI mode enabled).  Both slot 4 and 5 are open so I went ahead and set both of them to x4x4x4x4 and tried the card in both slots. No change, still no drives. 

[Alphahelix]

Just out of curiosity. What BIOS version do you use? Also where do you see the bifurcationoption? I am hoping to enable this on my board.

/Alphahelix

Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk

[kron]

Bios V3.3 - The server shipped with v3.2 and these bifurcation option wasn't present so I updated.

 

https://imgur.com/a/a6sVvuK

 

[Alphahelix]

5 hours ago, kron said:

Bios V3.3 - The server shipped with v3.2 and these bifurcation option wasn't present so I updated.

 

https://imgur.com/a/a6sVvuK

 

Thanks for your assistance. 

[Alphahelix]

@kron I found this site, maybe it can help. Yet I will warn against modding the BIOS. But maybe it can help you.

https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/nvme-boot-with-supermicro-x9da7-x9dri-f.13245/

I know it is not 100% the same board you and I have, but I believe it is very close. It looks like it is short 2 LAN ports and 8 DIMM sockets and a different PCIe socket configuration. 

[kron]

@Alphahelix I'm not comfortable with flashing a non official bios just yet.  From that thread they are attempting to boot from the drive, I just want it for data/cache.  Maybe I should reset the bios to default and start from there but flash 3.3 from 3.2 may have done that already?

 

Bios Settings

Build Ver 3.3 - Latest and it looks correct.

CPU Configuration - Standard stuff here..

North Bridge Config  - The card is on Slot 1 now IIO 1 IO3 @ x4x4x4x4. Feels like I've tried every combination of slot xMode here. I've read Gen3 is correct but haven't tried pulling that down to 1 or 2.

PCIe/PCI/PnP Configuration - Legacy Only and UEFI only - Tried both options here with no change.  Is there another setting I have wrong here?

Boot Options

 

Unraid Details

Flash Drive - The server boot mode is set to UEFI on the flash drive.

PCI Devices and IOMMU Groups - No nvme devices here as expected.

 

I just don't know where to go, hahaha.

 

Edited November 14, 2018 by kron

[Madhu]

Question relating to NVMe on the Asrock EP2C602 board, great to hear unraid picks up the x4 cards but does the board support boot from nvme? Not much info out there and this is the only forum I noticed NVMe and the board was being talked about.  Thanks!

Edited April 26, 2019 by Madhu

[JonathanM]

6 hours ago, Madhu said:

great to hear unraid picks up the x4 cards but does the board support boot from nvme?

Unraid always boots from the licensed USB stick, so no need for nvme boot.

[steve1977]

I'm considering to buy the card. Am I limited by the number of lanes? My setup below:

 

https://forums.unraid.net/topic/83122-running-out-of-lanes/?tab=comments#comment-770691

[CRoman247]

On 5/26/2018 at 12:15 PM, billington.mark said:

I get the option to change the lane layout for my x16 slots (x16 or x8x8 or x4x4x4x4), so im hoping its supported.... 

Ive ordered the part and i'll report back once ive fitted it. 

 

For anyone curious this is the setup im using:

 

ASRock - EP2C602-4L/D16

2x E5-2670

Hi! I have an ASRock - EP2C602 very similar model to yours (They share a manual) I'm on bios version 1.8 (Saw there is a 1.9 from 6/19 i might need to upgrade to) but I do not see the PCI-E settings option to change from x16 to other layouts. Any advice on where to look or if 1.9 might be needed? Its possible that was a feature of your board but not mine from the same family maybe? Any suggestions appreciated. 

[glennv]

@kron
Did you ever figure this out for your supermicro ?

[kron]

On 10/27/2019 at 5:35 PM, glennv said:

@kron
Did you ever figure this out for your supermicro ?

No, just settled for a regular SSD and forgot about this. But it's been a year and I'm going to see if I can make this work somehow. I'd like to have only HDD's in the drive bays and the ssd inside, we'll see where it goes this time. 

[SeeGee]

I have personally verified that both the Asus Hyper M.2 X16 (V2) and (Gen4) cards work on a Supermicro X10DRU-i Motherboard. Just be aware that the Gen 4 version is 2.6 cm taller, and thus wouldn't fit in my chassis using the slot I wanted. 

[computerrider]

On 6/1/2018 at 12:12 PM, billington.mark said:

 

What model board do you have?

 I have X9DAE and X9DAi and the AOC-SHG3-4M2P 4x NVME is working perfect on this boards but the AOC-SLG3-2M2 2x NVME no way just one drive visible.

[Vitalsignser]

On 8/25/2020 at 6:59 AM, computerrider said:

 I have X9DAE and X9DAi and the AOC-SHG3-4M2P 4x NVME is working perfect on this boards but the AOC-SLG3-2M2 2x NVME no way just one drive visible.

Sorry to refresh this - I have the AOC-SLG3-2M2 and only one drive is visible as well. Is this a known issue?

[orlando500]

hi, im hijacking this thread for a question. I have https://download.asrock.com/Manual/X299 OC Formula.pdf MB and got my self a 4 slot card im thinking of using 3 m.2 drives in, but i can only see 2 in unraid. I have set the pcie7 to 4x4x4x4x And the card is in pce7

Anyone have any idea why im only seeing 2 drives?

[KingfisherUK]

@orlando500 Based on the manual, whilst PCIE 1, 3, 4, 5 and 7 are all mechanically PCIEx16, they don't all support 16 lanes electrically:

Assuming you are using the i9-9820X listed in your signature that has 44 lanes, PCIE7 would only ever be x8, so 8 PCIE lanes. Based on the above snippet, for the full 16 lanes (i.e. x4x4x4x4 that you want) you would need to use slots PCIE1 or PCIE5.

[orlando500]

On 5/13/2023 at 12:24 AM, KingfisherUK said:

@orlando500 Based on the manual, whilst PCIE 1, 3, 4, 5 and 7 are all mechanically PCIEx16, they don't all support 16 lanes electrically:

Assuming you are using the i9-9820X listed in your signature that has 44 lanes, PCIE7 would only ever be x8, so 8 PCIE lanes. Based on the above snippet, for the full 16 lanes (i.e. x4x4x4x4 that you want) you would need to use slots PCIE1 or PCIE5.

im using all pci slots at the moment, so im guessing i then only get x8/x8/x8/x8/x8 out of the slots?

 

[KingfisherUK]

On 6/27/2023 at 1:51 PM, orlando500 said:

im using all pci slots at the moment, so im guessing i then only get x8/x8/x8/x8/x8 out of the slots?

 

If all the devices are working then yes, based on that manual snippet, each slot will be working at x8. I'm assuming there will be an option in the BIOS to change it from x8/x8/x8/x8/x8 to x16/x0/x0/x16/x8, but obviously using that mode would effectively "disable" PCIE3 and PCIE4 as they would have no lanes allocated.