Dual NVMe Expansion Card, PCIe Bifurcation Explained on a Supermicro Motherboard

[@HomeSysAdmin]

Dual NVMe Card... amzn.to/3xPjJbS SN570 1TB SSD... amzn.to/3CroA8S (affiliate links)

[@siliconsoundz]

Great video with a perfectly detailed explanation. Cheers!

[@walter_lesaulnier]

I repair PCs and once a week I get a call from someone that did not know to check their motherboard for bifurcation before buying one of those cards. Cards that cost closer to $100 or more usually have bifurcation built in and work with motherboards without that function, although ALWAYS double-check.

[@JamesTenniswood]

So true. Shame the cheaper pcs like dell optiplex doesn't support bifurcation

[@TechnoTim]

Great explanation!

[@СигналВнеземногоРазума]

I found this video EXTREMELY HELPFUL, thank you very much sir!

[@fernandoandradevfx]

It solved my life, I was already giving up on using nvme on my supermicro motherboard, thank you very much

[@davebing11]

from a technical viewpoint..excellent

[@lesumsi]

Well & concise explained!

[@makeitcloudy]

great explanation, just a side note, if the card for the nvme has the PLX chip, then the burification is not needed.

[@HomeSysAdmin]

Interesting, is that pretty much functioning as a PCIe switch then? Ie two NVMe on a single x4 slot?

[@Krashulka]

Good review. Also some people may not know that installing a new SSD you need to run "Disk Manager" to NTSF format the SDD so the system sees it. Cheers

[@sfsfsdfsdification]

NTFS... if u need windows installed.....

[@AceBoy2099]

At 3:56 ish, would the "auto" setting work, or is that just another way to say "max available"?

[@HomeSysAdmin]

I'm not sure how exactly auto works, but it only detected 1 of the 2 cards when I tried it.

[@Noobplayerplgames]

thanks, you solved the problem that I couldn't solve myself because there was no guide that could explain it from A to Z, I gave you a 😁 subscription and a like under the video

[@Chris.Brisson]

Well, that, right there, earned you a new subscriber.

[@robbazarchive]

The Asus Hyper cards usually need the main pci-e slot for 4x4x4x4 and only 4x4 in a secondary pcie on most motherboards. These adapters seems like the perfect middleground.

[@MyAmazingUsername]

Very helpful overview, great presentation! Thanks! :)

[@GuillermoPradoObando]

Very informative, thanks.

[@ciciedee5474]

Very informative and enjoy able video. Don't worry about talking to much. I followed you from lithium solar. Keep up the great work

[@squirrel6687]

What is under that heatsink adjacent to the NVMe slots? If that is a multiplexer, then bifurcation at the motherboard is not needed.

[@Auchenshuggle]

great video i learned a lot thank you kindly !

[@herauthon]

Splitting up a 16 zone into 2x 8 zones i was thinking.. recently.. after visiting the bios switched a setting and the network was gone another learner curve.. but where to find the splitters ?

[@Dxr1o]

Hey, was wondering if I could reach you about some inquiries for your railmount for the 1950 'shelf'. I have the same pair of rails but I am thinking I'm missing a piece. Thanks! (in short, could you let me know how you attached your rails to your rack?)

[@YannMetalhead]

Great information! Thank you!

[@norry77]

Very good explained🐧🐧😀😇 please continue with your awesome job😉

[@goodtimetraveler8261]

This vid is only helpful if you have that bangin mb 😲 jhc there’s so many bios control toggles on that mb. Great vid 👍

[@HomeSysAdmin]

The concepts apply pretty much anywhere, but yeah, Supermicro motherboards are pretty sweet!

[@albertchin-a-young2132]

Can you boot from these NVMe SSDs?

[@thenanook]

quiality video, many thanks...subcribed

[@chromerims]

Nice video 👍 I am testing out Asus Hyper m.2 currently with X570. Kindest regards, neighbours and friends.

[@JasonsLabVideos]

I have the Asus version of this, with 4 x m.2 slots. BUT it won't fit into a 2u.

[@viniciusmaffeialves]

I can make RAID uysing this DUAL NVME CARD ? I have DELL PWD T710

[@HomeSysAdmin]

Software-based RAID (like mdadm or similar). This does not have a hardware RAID chipset.

[@amentos1164]

I can see a 2 pin power connector on it. Is it unused?

[@HomeSysAdmin]

I don't know what that is for. It's not covered in any of the documentation or anything I can find online. I suspect it's just a 12V power connector if you need to connect an accessory of some kind (not a power input). I'm not sure but I do not have mine connected to anything.

[@takietofoto]

Great stuff! I have a problem with bifurcation with lga 2011-3 and xeon 2678v3. I have a chinese MB Jingsha d8 and bios it is a little bit different. Can you help with that? I have a Asus Hyper m.2 x16 v2 and it will be find a one drive on this card. Of corsę bifurcation is ON.

[@Ferruccio_Guicciardi]

Thanks for explanation.

[@clarencewiles963]

Thumbs up 👍 thanks for sharing!

[@kangwsix]

can i do it in x10dal? my x10dal not have IOU x4x4 like your video, it's only have pcie gen 3 (8gt/s)

[@HomeSysAdmin]

Please make sure you're running the latest BIOS from Supermicro. My understanding is some of the bifurcation features were introduced later and required updating. The block diagram for your board is in the manual on page 18 here www.supermicro.com/manuals/motherboard/C600/MNL-1701.pdf

[@ProcessedDigitally]

thanks for sharing!

[@buenosaires9211]

What if the MB BIOS not containing the IIO options such as MSI X99S Gaming 7? Now I have a MB with a spare pcie3.0*16, now wanna install 4 M.2 to work independently instead of being a RAID. What should I do? Thanks !

[@Nalianna]

I've watched literally dozens of videos explaining this, and close to zero of the people explaining it, tell us what motherboards support it. Are there ANY motherboards that support x4x4x4x4 bifurcation of 2 of their x16 slots? If so, which ones?

[@HomeSysAdmin]

I'm afraid I don't have an answer to this as I'm only familiar with a few particular Supermicro boards that I've worked with. I'm sure any Supermicro board with two x16 slots (wired for x16) will support x4x4x4x4 mode, but I can't list of models off the top of my head. The manuals are all readily-available online though and will indicate supported modes.

[@jirehla-ab1671]

Can u boot also into 1 of the nvme drives installed in the dual nvme expansion card?​@@HomeSysAdmin

[@tonykeltsflorida]

Can you put a pair of 4TB M.2 SSDs on that PCIe card? That would be really cool.

[@HomeSysAdmin]

Yes, any M.2 NVMe drive will work. There is no size limitation. Also, if you have an x16 slot that supports bifurcation, they make a 4-drive version of this card that puts 2 NVMe's on each side 🙂

[@tonykeltsflorida]

@@HomeSysAdmin Awesome

[@shephusted2714]

you see that the ASM1182e chip is a PCIE ver2 device. Not ver 3 - this has implications - please do an hdparm and crystal disk i/o for a followup

[@HomeSysAdmin]

Where are you seeing an ASM1182e chip?

[@shephusted2714]

@@HomeSysAdmin you should have at least done a raid0 hdparm no matter whether it is pci-e v3 or v2 - so a followup - this is a great piece of kit, also think about followup with a 4 banger on a x16 slot - that is what people and smb want - to be able to run like a z440 with 8tb nvme raid0 and just make an image of part md0 to a 10tb hd - no need to goto raid10 - people could run dual nas on bonded10g and get like 1gb/s but to really take advantage they would want 100g - the raid0 nvme matches up perfect to saturate the 100g w/o having to brid-utils bond0 or br0 - just suggestions - love your content and you are getting better - chia is important but also consider wider mkt and algo for smb mkt - huge

[@HomeSysAdmin]

I'll do some additional testing here soon and post back the results. Also "chia is important" I don't use this for Chia at all. This RAID1 of NVMe is a virtual machine image store - all kinds of fun things, MySQL databases, security system, etc.

[@shephusted2714]

@@HomeSysAdmin consider unleashing the beast ie use all the perf you can get - in lieu of raid1 opt for raid0 and just do an image after full install andthen do automated backups daily and consider going to 40g or 100g to fully match the io of the card - contrary to popular belief you do not need a switch - see electronics wizardry recent proxmox cluster setup - i think the ideal setup in addition to dual ports on cluster machines in a triangle would be adding in another dual port that goes to you nas and ws - you have basically two interlocking triangles - one triangle for the lo budget cluster and then your ws.nas and cluster on the other triangle and have a 2.5 management for out of band to all of them in addition - this would be great for home labbers but also smb allowing them to scale easy with network and upgrade nvme and then goto pentagram topology later - please address ceph performance by testing some other netfs like gluster on zfs or smb/nfs or ocfs2 - thanks for all the inspiring work!

[@OffGridAussiePrepper]

well i aint gonna buy one of them card co non of my pc's have them bios settings cos all of them is 9 years or older

[@tomnorman5461]

Algorithm booster!

[@OLDUSAFMedic]

It's too bad you used such an old motherboard because this is not how they do it anymore and this is not the way my B550 explains it. The new listings just say x16, x8x4x4, x4x4x4x4 and don't designate what slot they are talking about. It's very poor support. That M.2 card is excellent and I have 2 off them. It worked in one of my B550's. It worked in my Asrock Taichi but not my Steel Legend.

[@HomeSysAdmin]

This is specific to Supermicro. The board you noted is not a Supermicro motherboard.

[@abandonstrings]

I'm wondering, if you have a motherboard like yours which has a PCIe x16 slot that also supports x8x4x4, what does that mean for any NVME adapter and NVME drives you put in there? Say you have an adapter that supports a quad NVME raid array, can you only use 3 of those slots? In which case, what difference does the x8 slot make and how would it be different when the other two are x4?