[AtP Striker]

Anyone know if a Dual M.2 port PCIe card exists?

I know a couple of PCI cards exist as adapters from M.2->SATA, but I am looking for a 8x PCIe card that can have 2 M.2 SSDs in it so that each M.2 SSD can get x4 speed (32Gb/s).

something like this - http://www.scan.co.uk/products/lycom-dt-120-m2-ngff-ssd-pcie-30-x4-%2880mm-60mm-42mm%29-to-pcie-x4-host-adapter-board-pc-mac-linux but with 2 slots rather than one.

Is it possible? anything similar exist? or are there technical reasons to why this doesn't exist.

 

[xioros]

Quote:

Originally Posted by AtP Striker

Anyone know if a Dual M.2 port PCIe card exists?

I know a couple of PCI cards exist as adapters from M.2->SATA, but I am looking for a 8x PCIe card that can have 2 M.2 SSDs in it so that each M.2 SSD can get x4 speed (32Gb/s).

something like this - http://www.scan.co.uk/products/lycom-dt-120-m2-ngff-ssd-pcie-30-x4-%2880mm-60mm-42mm%29-to-pcie-x4-host-adapter-board-pc-mac-linux but with 2 slots rather than one.

Is it possible? anything similar exist? or are there technical reasons to why this doesn't exist.

I recall that you can't just split a PCI x16 or x8 in smaller slots (let's say 2 or 4 times x4) without a controller. Why you ask might exist, but it wouldn't offer native support. It could work if the card has a controller on board that handles the requests for both cards and then forwards the data.

^As far as I understand. Some one should confirm.

 

[ComGuards]

Quote:

Originally Posted by AtP Striker

Anyone know if a Dual M.2 port PCIe card exists?

I know a couple of PCI cards exist as adapters from M.2->SATA, but I am looking for a 8x PCIe card that can have 2 M.2 SSDs in it so that each M.2 SSD can get x4 speed (32Gb/s).

something like this - http://www.scan.co.uk/products/lycom-dt-120-m2-ngff-ssd-pcie-30-x4-%2880mm-60mm-42mm%29-to-pcie-x4-host-adapter-board-pc-mac-linux but with 2 slots rather than one.

Is it possible? anything similar exist? or are there technical reasons to why this doesn't exist.

Something like this, probably?

 

[sethk]

Sorry to necro this thread, but with the increased availability of M.2 PCIe NVME drives like the 950 pro, I expect more people will be looking for this information, like I was.

From what I can see, no one has a real working solution to dual m.2 PCIe drives ("M key") in a single 8x slot. As someone else pointed out, this would require a PCIe switch or some other active controller, I believe.

You can get dual SATA m.2 to PCIe 4x adapters like the link above ("B Key") , but that is not very useful unless you have some older sata m.2 drives kicking around, and they wil be no faster than a regular SATA adapter, and probably worse than the onboard intel controller. There is also a dual m.2 card that lets you do either SATA or PCIe, but not dual PCIe.

If you're buying a new motherboard, and you plan on going big on high speed storage, look for one with the flexibility to populate lots of slots running at 4x, rather than getting 8x to dual m.2 PCIe adapters, is what I've learned so far. Please update if you find anything different. Some of the 'workstation' boards based on consumer chipsets (Z170, etc.) use a 3rd party PCIe switch to increase the number of slots, but for really big bandwidth without leeching into your GPU's bandwidth, you'd need a X99-E or a C610 chipset (or it's newer equivalents in the future).

 

[Masika]

I really doubt any of RAM/MB manufacturers will invest in adapters for pcie ssds... not in their interest to sell new stuff and they have not shown any support for updating MB bios for chipsets that can support the tech and by removing orom from ssds and placing onto mb roms... kinda forces upgrades but... there are adapters out there like you linked... all green but two newer ones in black like the HYPER M.2 X4 MINI CARD and Silverstone ECM20. While the ASUS is single pcie the Silverstone has room for two m.2 - one pcie and the other sata with a b key connection.
You can run two of these cards and have two separate drives or software raid or if you motherboard has the intel support bios raid. With that much speed.. no need to raid imo... no noticable speed improvement.

 

[Masika]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ComGuards

Something like this, probably?

Wont work to give max output of 950pros... the m.2 will share the x4 and you basically will be bottlenecks to sata express... I hazard to guess

 

[turbangs]

Right,There is also a dual m.2 card that lets you do either SATA or PCIe, but not dual PCIe. thanks

 

[slacksci]

It's possible and I'd like to buy one but there aren't any on the market to my knowledge, yet.

You'd need a 3+ channel PLX PCIe switch chip, 8x to the CPU and 2 of 4x to the m.2 slots. ~8.5GB/s would be fun.

For that expense it may make more sense to use a PLX bridge chip (as used on a 295x2 card) at 16x to the CPU and with 4x full-bandwidth m.2 slots.

 

[cmoney408]

i am just commenting to keep this alive. i am still on a z87 board. but i told myself i wouldnt buy a new drive unless it was nvme. since i dont have a port on my motherboard i would need a pcie adapter.

if i am going to add a pcie card, i would prefer to add only 1 card with dual m.2 x4 ports. but i doubt this will ever be possible.

i will most likely just have to get 2 adapters (or by the time i can actually afford a 2nd nvme drive it might be time to get a new motherboard that has at least 1 port built in).

 

[GeneO]

You won't be able to boot from it with z87. Also each adapter will take up 5 pci-e lanes.

 

[cmoney408]

yeah, i was watching a youtube video with JJ (the asus rep). he was stating that Asus may make a bios update for z87 boards that would allow nvme as boot drives.

BUT..... in further research (i wish i could find it again), a user stated that he was able to get a nvme drive to boot on a z87-pro board with the currently released drivers. having a z87-deluxe, i would think it would work as well.

and if all else fails, i would use it as my game install drive, which is also my working folder/temp drive when editing go pro videos. i think i would get a better benefit from that then just having my OS boot up quicker, but not sure.

im not really sure the pcie lanes will hold me back? i only have a single gpu and nothing else?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rctaLgK5stA

 

[GeneO]

I believe you can mod the UEFI/BIOS to add the needed nvme drivers.

 

[NBrock]

Doesn't HP have something like you are looking for? I remember reading about it. I think it was the HP Z Turbo Drive?

 

[JanFroh]

Seems like there is something coming:

'Phison teamed up with Kingston and Liqid to demonstrate an add-in card that puts four M.2 drives under a heatsink and provides power loss protection capacitors. This can allow for better density and utilization of PCIe slots than a single-controller PCIe x4 add-in card'

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9982/ces-2016-phison-previews-upcoming-ssd-controllers

Jan

 

[sethk]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JanFroh

Seems like there is something coming:

'Phison teamed up with Kingston and Liqid to demonstrate an add-in card that puts four M.2 drives under a heatsink and provides power loss protection capacitors. This can allow for better density and utilization of PCIe slots than a single-controller PCIe x4 add-in card'

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9982/ces-2016-phison-previews-upcoming-ssd-controllers

Jan

Great find - thank you. A card like this would most likely have a PCIe switch on it. My guess is $100+ for a bare card or it comes with the m.2 drives pre-populated. Still would totally go for the former if it became available.

 

[Roxxas049]

I don't know about dual m.2 cards but i'm able to boot from my Samsung 950 pro and an Addonics adm2px4 adapter on an Asus maximus vi hero. All I had to do was follow this http://www.win-raid.com/t871f16-Guide-How-to-get-full-NVMe-support-for-Intel-Chipset-systems-from-Series-up.html?utm_campaign=website&utm_source=sendgrid.com&utm_medium=email flash the newly created bios to my motherboard and it works perfectly.

 

[seross69]

Intel already has this it is Intel® SSD DC P3608 this is raid 0 on a card but you will pay for it and it uses 8 lanes of PciE 3.0

you really have to dig to find this info. but you can not use this drives in older M/B's because it is a raid 0 on boot and the older chipsets will not see this. only works on a Z170 chipset

 

[patrickpoet]

This does it but it wants to put the two M.2 in a 5 1/4" bay instead of on the card directly, I don't know why. PCI Express (PCIe) x8 to two PCIe M.2 sockets Docking

 

[atomicdog]

Quote:

Originally Posted by seross69

Intel already has this it is Intel® SSD DC P3608 this is raid 0 on a card but you will pay for it and it uses 8 lanes of PciE 3.0

you really have to dig to find this info. but you can not use this drives in older M/B's because it is a raid 0 on boot and the older chipsets will not see this. only works on a Z170 chipset

I have the DC P3608 (1.6TB version) running with an x99 motherboard. It's not raid 0, it shows up as 2 separate 800GB devices (in linux). I benchmarked a single (800gb) drive vs a 950 pro 512gb, and the 950 pro was much faster (1.1 GB/s vs 1.7 GB/s in a file copying test). I'm also waiting/looking for a dual m.2 pcie3.0 x8 adapter to come out, because 2 950s will blow the intel out of the water both in terms of speed and price.

 

[seross69]

Quote:

Originally Posted by atomicdog

I have the DC P3608 (1.6TB version) running with an x99 motherboard. It's not raid 0, it shows up as 2 separate 800GB devices (in linux). I benchmarked a single (800gb) drive vs a 950 pro 512gb, and the 950 pro was much faster (1.1 GB/s vs 1.7 GB/s in a file copying test). I'm also waiting/looking for a dual m.2 pcie3.0 x8 adapter to come out, because 2 950s will blow the intel out of the water both in terms of speed and price.

But I thought I had read on a Z170 board you can use it as a 1.6 tb device as 2 800gb in raid 0????