Hi.  I'm using Supermicro X11SSZ-F board.  This board has 1 PCIE 3.0 x16, and 2 PCIE 3.0 x4.  I used the x16 for a GPU passthrough.  I have a Dell Perc H310 installed to my board.  I have 1 PCIE 3.0 x4 slot left.  My motherboard only has 4 SATA 3 slopts.  What are my best options?  Looking to get NVME performance to be able to store my VMs.  Currently, I have 1 EVO 850 SSD as cache, and storage for VMs.

Something like this:

 

what kind of PCIE speeds are needed?  Hope I can get more than 1.  Though I know NVME SSDs are verrrryyy expensive.  Planning to get from ebay.  

It can be used in any x4 or larger slot, and since your board is PCIe 3.0 it will have max performance.

 

7 minutes ago, jang430 said:

Hope I can get more than 1. 

There are dual device adapters but require a board with PCIe bifurcation support, your does support it, but it requires a x8 slot.

 

No. Mine doesn't. That's what I am afraid of. So I am basically limited to single nvme drive, correct?


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12 minutes ago, jang430 said:

No. Mine doesn't.

Your does support bifurcation according to Supermicro, but like I said you need a free x8 or x16 slot.

Hi @johnnie.black,  I'm referring to this article.

 

https://www.supermicro.com/support/faqs/faq.cfm?faq=26859

 

 

The bios was likely updated since that to support it, at least it appears in the supported boards:

 

http://www.supermicro.com/products/accessories/addon/AOC-SLG3-2M2.cfm

 

But it would be best to contact Supermicro's support to confirm.

And more boards also got bios update to support it, despite not being on the list, for example the X11SSM-F added bifurcation support in one of the last bios updates.

Since I only have 1 x4 slot free, can I only use 1 NVME, and get it to perform at a max performance?  Not yet ready to give up my GTX 1070 on the PCIE x16 slot.

 

I have the latest bios installed.  Thanks for pointing out the card instead.  It have more information relevant to my board.  Will other brands, generic ones do as well?

Edited September 15, 20187 yr by jang430

Yes, using an adapter like the first one I posted.

Btw, with bifurcation, are they seen as 1 in Unraid?  Or are they seen as separate drives?

They are seen and work as two separate devices, what happens if for example a x8 slot is split in two independent x4 links.

Noted.  Thank you very much!

BTW, any inexpensive m.2 PCIE card you can recommend?  For single NVME only.

Any cheap one should work fine, not many components on these, I use the one I pictured:

 

https://www.amazon.com/Lycom-DT-120-PCIe-Adapter-Support/dp/B00MYCQP38

Thank you!