Further details about carrier cards (Supermicro specifically and other manufacturers generally); Supermicro AOC-SLG3-2M2 2 x NVMe M.2 Carrier Card Low Profile PCIe x8 www.supermicro.com/en/products/accessories/addon/AOC-SLG3-2M2.php Supermicro AOC-SHG3-4M2P 4 x NVMe M.2 Carrier Card Normal Profile PCIe x8 www.supermicro.com/en/products/accessories/addon/AOC-SHG3-4M2P.php Both cards are quite low priced because they require PCIe bifurcation, and NVMe Firmware AMI Native Support. As far as I am aware, almost all Supermicro server motherboards suppport both PCIe bifurcation, and have NVMe Firmware AMI Native Support. CPU IOU settings set to x4x4x4x4 PCIe bifurcation. This option may be found under BIOS Setup -> Advanced -> Chipset Configuration -> North Bridge -> IIO Configuration -> CPU Configuration -> IOU Setting -> x4x4x4x4. NVMe Firmware Source set to AMI Native Support. This option may be found under BIOS Setup -> Advanced -> PCIe/PCI/PnP Configuration -> NVMe Firmware Source -> AMI Native Support Since the 4 x M.2 Card (AOC-SHG3-4M2P) is running in a x8 slot (rather than a x16 slot used by most competitive products) there will most probably be speed limitations on each drive if 4 x M.2 drives are used simultaneously. For those of you that need a card for motherboards that do not support PCIe bifurcation, or NVMe Firmware AMI Native, I have tried the Synology M2D20 2 x M.2 Low Profile Carrier which works well BUT; there are NVMe drives which will not be recognized after a softboot with the Synology M2D20. (e.g. Seagate Firecuda 520/530) At the moment I have 3 of these cards working with the Samsung 980 Pro 2TB M.2 NVMe which are recognized after a softboot (but I have not extensively tested yet). Also this card uses a heatsink for the drives, which keeps them cool.
Thats cool. But what happens when nvme m2 device just die with all stored metadata?
Further details about carrier cards (Supermicro specifically and other manufacturers generally);
Supermicro AOC-SLG3-2M2 2 x NVMe M.2 Carrier Card Low Profile PCIe x8
www.supermicro.com/en/products/accessories/addon/AOC-SLG3-2M2.php
Supermicro AOC-SHG3-4M2P 4 x NVMe M.2 Carrier Card Normal Profile PCIe x8
www.supermicro.com/en/products/accessories/addon/AOC-SHG3-4M2P.php
Both cards are quite low priced because they require PCIe bifurcation, and NVMe Firmware AMI Native Support.
As far as I am aware, almost all Supermicro server motherboards suppport both PCIe bifurcation, and have NVMe Firmware AMI Native Support.
CPU IOU settings set to x4x4x4x4 PCIe bifurcation. This option may be found under BIOS Setup -> Advanced -> Chipset Configuration -> North Bridge -> IIO Configuration -> CPU Configuration -> IOU Setting -> x4x4x4x4.
NVMe Firmware Source set to AMI Native Support. This option may be found under BIOS Setup -> Advanced -> PCIe/PCI/PnP Configuration -> NVMe Firmware Source -> AMI Native Support
Since the 4 x M.2 Card (AOC-SHG3-4M2P) is running in a x8 slot (rather than a x16 slot used by most competitive products) there will most probably be speed limitations on each drive if 4 x M.2 drives are used simultaneously.
For those of you that need a card for motherboards that do not support PCIe bifurcation, or NVMe Firmware AMI Native, I have tried the Synology M2D20 2 x M.2 Low Profile Carrier which works well BUT; there are NVMe drives which will not be recognized after a softboot with the Synology M2D20. (e.g. Seagate Firecuda 520/530) At the moment I have 3 of these cards working with the Samsung 980 Pro 2TB M.2 NVMe which are recognized after a softboot (but I have not extensively tested yet). Also this card uses a heatsink for the drives, which keeps them cool.
Would be useful to know the brand of the NVMe Carrier Cards, so that we can look up the specs?
Supermicro AOC-SHG3-4M2P Full Height, Quad-port M.2 NVMe SSD PCI-E 3.0 add-on card
What about cooling for the M.2 drives? No heatsinks?
I just hope in the near future, they mate NVMe and SSD storage a little more reliable and last a little longer.