Sonnet McFiver Multifunction PCIe Card

Sonnet McFiver Multifunction PCIe Add in Card. That's what We're going to be taking a look at today. For those of You that are not familiar with Sonnet, those of You on MAC are probably the most familiar. The company has been a round for quite a while. They make Multifunction Cards. They also make Thunderbolt Device Bay Chassis. And that is relevant to the card We're going to look at. There are 5 different aspects to this card. 1. Specs; 2. Requirements; 3. Chipsets for 5 Functions; 4. FAQs; 5. Motherboards We want to go over. Because of the Requirements.
Links:
1. McFiver PCIe Card - Sonnet Online Store
www.sonnetstore.com/products/...
2. McFiver PCIe Card - Sonnet
www.sonnettech.com/product/mc...
3. B&H - Sonnet McFiver 10GBASE-T 2-Port USB-C & Dual M.2 G10E-USBC-M2-E
bhpho.to/3z2oEqb
4. Sonnet Support
www.sonnettech.com/support/kb...
5. Sonnet Technology Packs M.2, USB-C and 10 Gb Ethernet into a PCIe Add-in Card - Tom's Hardware
www.tomshardware.com/news/son...
6. McFiver PCIe Card - Tech Specs - Sonnet
www.sonnettech.com/product/mc...
7. ASM3142-ASMedia Technology Inc-
www.asmedia.com.tw/product/55...
8. AQC113S Ethernet Network Adapters and Controllers - Boosting Server and Edge Connectivity - Marvell
www.marvell.com/products/ethe...
9. ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Extreme X570 Motherboard
rog.asus.com/motherboards/rog...
amzn.to/3PzjmcR
10. Gigabyte Z690 AERO D Motherboard
www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/...
amzn.to/3PUP5oS
11. ASUS ProArt X570-CREATOR WIFI Motherboard
www.asus.com/Motherboards-Com...
amzn.to/3S07DFO
12. ASUS ROG STRIX X299-E GAMING - ROG - Republic Of Gamers - Motherboard
rog.asus.com/us/motherboards/...
amzn.to/3J3kvae
13. Gigabyte TRX40 Designare Motherboard
www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/...
amzn.to/3BiCxmX
14. ASUS Pro WS WRX80E-SAGE SE WIFI Motherboard
www.asus.com/Motherboards-Com...
amzn.to/3Bf4xI5
15. Samsung 980 Pro 2TB
amzn.to/3Pt9SQm
16. Sabrent 4TB Rocket Q4
amzn.to/3zwvSo6
17. WD Black SN 850
amzn.to/3RRQIp3
18. Sabrent Rocket Q 8TB
amzn.to/3RWAoTY
19. Corsair MP400 8TB
amzn.to/3J3sOTh
20. Teamgroup MP34Q 8TB
amzn.to/3veZlAd
Support BuildOrBuy... www.buymeacoffee.com/gillboyd
www.amazon.com/shop/buildorbuy
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
As B&H Affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Subscribe, Thumbs Up, Comment! Appreciate Your Support! Thank You for Watching!

[@sashalexander7750]

Content is good - no questions about it. But I watch for the shirts)

[@BuildOrBuy]

Hello sash alexander, Welcome! Very astute observations!

[@blackmoonco]

Love this channel. Glad you do what you do. Style points.

[@BuildOrBuy]

Hi Blackmoon, Welcome! I'm honored! Glad You noticed! Appreciate Your Comments! Keep it Simple and Make it Work!

[@hcjkruse]

Enjoyed this one. Interesting for upgrading my Haswell era homelab sever. Not cheap but justifiable. I have a passively cooled 4770T on a ??? board with 32 GB memory, 3 single slot NVMe adapters and a bunch of sata disks. Passivity cooled PSU Running Proxmox. Have to check whether I can free up one x16 slot, then I can add a video card too. Not sure if I have 2 real x16 slots🤣 Not something to upgrade any bargain buys, unless I can get one of these for less. Would be a nice joke to see this working in my €45 new old stock Biostar a68n-2100E, just to see it works.🤣 Interesting for many older ITX boards as storage solution.

[@BuildOrBuy]

Hi Hans Kruse, Welcome! You have managed well to keep that System running. Knowing the Motherboard and Chipset will identify what's What. Install and run Belarc Advisor Free. That will interrogate Your System and tell Us everything and more about what You have. To run a Multifunction card like this Requires PCIe 3.0 or above. www.belarc.com/products/belarc-advisor Let Us know what You have and We can tell You if this works or not. Appreciate Your Comments! Thanks for Sharing!

[@johnhancock6951]

Great video, thanks. As an aside, I bought a McFiver for my Threadripper HEDT "workstation", because it's the only thing out there that does what I want: PCIe storage, gigabit-or-greater Ethernet and USB C on a single card. This is especially important for me, since the system is exclusively a QEMU/KVM VFIO setup. Passing through an RTX 3080 and the McFiver to a Windows VM is a LOT easier than passing through a heap of onboard devices, GPU and PCIe storage, which are all over the place on a multi-NUMA node system. The McFiver makes it dead simple. For anyone who depends heavily on QEMU/KVM GPU passthrough, the McFiver is a one-of-a-kind godsend. For anyone in the market, it's also on Amazon for 25% off.

[@BuildOrBuy]

Hello John Hancock, Welcome! Just now seeing Your message! Excellent! Appreciate Your Comments and You Sharing Your experiences! Thanks for Watching!

[@johnniearnold8476]

Thanks for the vid on this , I am considering this card as away of adding m2 drives and usb 3 to my HED which I built 10years ago, and has been used ever since as a CAD workstation ,when working as Architectural designer and Artist . I spent a great deal of research time to put this system together. I think this card may be able to give a few more years life, it took over a year to get this gear together, its so great to hear and see yourvids , Explain this ws hed stuff , I had to it all myself, here in Tasmania we were sofar away, I used to quiz PC builders around the state asking for advice on building a WS. All i got was blank stares' and no one had a clue , couldnt access anything for me, The system I put together was based on Gigabyte GA x79s up5 mobo , Xeon E5- 1650, (40 pci express 3.0 lanes 6 core 12thread 512gb oct vertex ssd + 16gb ram ) still runs at 3.2 -3.6 on all cores, with a the first ever in Aus. AMD W 7000 Firepro graphics card, in fractal design xl full towercase ,Seasonic 1000 w platinum PS , noctua d14 cooler it has served me well, I am assuming as per your description of the mcfiver card that i t will work in the pcie 16 x 8 lane slot thats vacant on my board, the main use will be fore music production , playing virtual instruments, I use my Yamaha ModX 88 synthesizer as keyboard in DAW , requires lowest latency, connect, Thankyou again,, kind regards Johnnie A .from Down under PS ifyou ever need a great DAC for audio thru usb ,I can thoroughly recomend Beresford Caiman Seg british built great value for money stunning sound.

[@BuildOrBuy]

Hi johnnie arnold, Welcome! Appreciate Your Comments! This is perfect! And should Add another 3 years of longevity to Your Computer Build! Using any Native Instruments Virtual Libraries? You'll love this! MCFiver is suppose to be available in August 2022! Ideal for a Purpose Built, Content Creation Computer Upgrade! This will get You past PCIe 5.0 and maybe ready by then for PCIe 6.0. Good timing! Thanks for Sharing! This info helps Us to make better Videos Viewers want! Keep Us Posted on this Upgrade! We'd like to know how well this works with Your X79 Motherboard! Should be just Plug and Play. Expect Drivers to be required for the Marvell and ASMedia chipsets.

[@johnniearnold8476]

@@BuildOrBuy Thanks will update 👍

[@BuildOrBuy]

Hi@@johnniearnold8476, Outstanding! Much Appreciated!

[@richardahlquist5839]

Great info Gill! I have a machine I put together about a year ago that was just going to be for IT based lab work/experimentation. Now I want to convert it to a NAS. unfortunately its only got 4 SATA. One x16 slot, an x4 and an x1. So since its run headless 99.99% of the time I got a x1 PCIe gpu for it. If I got one of these McFivers, and put one M.2 drive in it and in the second M.2 slot one of the M.2 to SATA boards with 5 interfaces(and if it works right). I could have a decent NAS with 10Gbps connection.

[@BuildOrBuy]

Hi Richard. Welcome! Appreciate Your Comments! Requirements 1st! All about PCIe Lanes for Slots and Storage! SATA is faster on the Bus. Slower on an Add in card especially with Shared PCIe Lanes! Here's a card with 8 SATA, all on 1 PCIe Lane! 1. SupaHub SATA Card 8 Port, Non Raid SATA Expansion Card for SATA III 6G Hard Drives for Desktop, Includes 8 SATA Cables and 2 SATA Splitter Cables amzn.to/3EvLRp6 Or 6 SATA on 4 PCIe Lanes. 2. BEYIMEI PCIe 4X SATA Card 6 Ports, SATA III 6 Gbps Controller Expansion Card, ASM1166/SATA 3.0 Non-Raid,with 6 SATA Cables, (Support 6 SATA 3.0 Devices) amzn.to/3erqkmR As an Amazon Affiliate I earn from qualifying purchases! Both are Software RAID only! We know nothing about either Brand! Hope that helps anyway! Server Uptime! Happy NAS!

[@Diro_Nikhil]

Love the deep dive Gill. Easily the most comprehensive analysis .... Would you have time for U.2 expansion cards which are becoming necessary for 6k/8k editing workstations in modern web series world

[@BuildOrBuy]

Hello Diro, Welcome. Just now seeing Your question. Anything is possible. Very good point. We've been busy taking care of Clients. Thanks for Watching.

[@user-hn5ww1pl4e]

Tell me did you get an answer for bootable on windows on thee Sonnet McFiver? I would get it if it did. I have a Mac Pro 5.1 where I would use one M.2 for Booting OSX the other for Windows ?

[@BuildOrBuy]

Hi user-hn5ww, Welcome. Just now seeing Your question. According to Sonnet, they talk about creating a Boot Volume on a MAC therefore the Boot Volume on a PC should be possible. We do not know definitively. An amazing product.

[@Justin-vq9co]

Hey Gill! Unrelated question to the video but, lets say we had a u.2 nvme drive directly connected to 4 lanes to the cpu. Lets say there is no bios support on this motherboard but in windows we can see a samsung pm1733 using the windows nvme default driver. Lets say on that same system, we plug in a micron 9300 u.2 nvme however, we do not get anything at all in windows, even after installing its official driver and restarting. Whats the first thing to come to mind? (also, both work just fine using windows default driver on a newer system. Cant get the micron 9300 u.2 drives to work on an older setup.)

[@Justin-vq9co]

Have you messed with nvme u.2 drives? They are technically the same right? Maybe just different controller support?

[@Justin-vq9co]

also sonnet actually has a dual u.2 card with plx. The thing is awesome and would love to see your take on it! :)

[@BuildOrBuy]

Hi Justin, Welcome! Great Question! Not enough Information. Need to know the Motherboards. Without that, no basis for examination to understand possible implementation. That's like asking, why does my System not Support a X16 M.2 NVMe Quad card. Need more Data for Research Analysis!

[@BuildOrBuy]

Hi@@Justin-vq9co, Another great Question! No! Why? M.2 NVMe is easier to implement than U.2 NVMe. However, due to the U.2 package, that's better suited to Hot Swap RAID! U.2 NVMe is designed with ESD in mind vs M.2 NVMe is more susceptible to ESD due to the packaging! All depends upon use. Look at the Broadcom RAID Controllers. Those are designed for U.2 NVMe but can be utilized with M.2 NVMe when using the extra Components to make that change possible! We have a Video on that about Broadcom Hardware RAID. Besides, M.2 NVMe is cost-effective for speed and capacity!

[@BuildOrBuy]

Hi@@Justin-vq9co, Another great idea! You're right! Sonnet has several interesting I/O cards to allow extending Functionality to a Computer! Those PLX Chips are amazing and pricey! We'll keep that in mind for a future Video!

[@davidwhite2011]

Seems like it might be cheaper to just get a higher-end motherboard at 400$?

[@BuildOrBuy]

Hi David White, Very good point! Glad You've brought that up! Depends upon an Upgrade vs a new Computer. Usually a Motherboard Upgrade consists of RAM, Motherboard and CPU at the very least. This McFiver add in card could breath new life, newer technology into a 7 to 10 year old Computer adding another 3 to 5 years to the longevity of an existing Computer. All about Options! Thanks for Watching!

[@johnhancock6951]

Depends on what you're doing. I have the most expensive X399 motherboard ever made (Zenith Extreme Alpha) and this McFiver is the only thing out there that accomplishes my goals for my QEMU/KVM setup.

[@maxhughes5687]

I'm needing more and more of my SS check for groceries every month. Buy me a coffee's web site won't work to cancel the service. CS refers me to a tiny 240P fuzzy video I can't read. CS flat out refuses to cancel the deduction for me. This isn't a "cancel anytime service". IDK SPLC, National Association of retired people, American's with disabilities, got any suggestions. I'm running 4K at 2,75X scaling on 43" screen and 170% magnification on my browser to read the internet.

[@BuildOrBuy]

Hi Max, Just now seeing this! Are You pulling my leg? Hope so! Some KZbin messages do not go to an email. We have to periodically double check by going into Managing Channel Comments section. Appreciate Your Support!

[@maxhughes5687]

@@BuildOrBuy I won't lie to you. Try it yourself. If can figure it out make us a video. There isn't a click one button anywhere to be found.

[@BuildOrBuy]

Hi@@maxhughes5687, Got it. In same boat. Running on fumes. Sorry I did not understand this sooner. Appreciate Your Support! "How Do I Cancel My Membership to a Creator? | Knowledge Base | Buy Me a Coffee" help.buymeacoffee.com/en/articles/3364732-how-do-i-cancel-my-membership-to-a-creator Hope that helps! Thank You!

[@OLDUSAFMedic]

This won't work on "Just" anything. HAHAHA

[@BuildOrBuy]

Hello OLDUSAMedic, Knowing what You now know, You'll never look at a Motherboard the same way ever again! Appreciate Your Comments!