Question Need MB w/5 nvme slots; cant fnd one in the consumer market. Where else can I look?

[jhayat]

Hi everyone

I am looking to build a new W7 machine. I currently have two nvme SSDs that work just fine (I found the controllers online). I would like the new machine to have 5 nvme slots. An OS SSD, a projects SSD, and a TON of data to be spread across the other three SSDs

I have emailed ASUS, GBYTE, ASROCK and MSI. The max nvme slots is 3.

Does anyone know where else I can look? Be it on the server side of things, or... ?

Thanks in advance.

 

[GarrettL]

You’ll have to use PCIe slots for additional NVME, I’m not aware of a board with 5 slots.

 

[rgd1101]

adapter card

 

[drea.drechsler]

Just at a guess, I'm going to say you've probably run out of PCIe lanes to feed 5 NVME's in most any consumer board unless you slot-in an AIC into a 16-lane secondary GPU slot. Shouldn't be a problem as the NVME on the motherboard itself would hold the boot partition and be natively supported by the BIOS.

 

[jhayat]

Thanks guys

adapter card

This will greatly reduce the speed of the drives; not what I am looking to do.

Same with a GPU adapter.

Cheers.

---edit--- the SSDs are m.2; apologies that I failed to mention that earlier.

 

[Theresa N]

Actually, there are many adapter cards that offer a full speed interface for nvme drives.

 

[SkyNetRising]

This will greatly reduce the speed of the drives; not what I am looking to do.

Depends on system and if PCIE 3.0 slots are available.
If you have only PCIE 2.0 slots available, then obviously PCIE 3.0 nvme drive will not be able to run at full speed (with adapter).

Please list full technical specs of your pc (including model names of motherboard and M.2 drives).

 

[drea.drechsler]

...
This will greatly reduce the speed of the drives; not what I am looking to do.
...

I'm not sure you understand that NVME drives simply interface directly to the PCIe bus...each drive consuming (up to) 4x PCIe lanes. All the 'GPU' card does is provide 4 of the 16 PCie lanes available at the x16 slot to each of the 4 NVME's attached to the card. There's no 'slow down' as each NVME is directly attached to the bus exactly as it would be in an M.2 socket on the motherboard.

And if you're concerned that it's attached via the chipset, Ryzen x570 motherboards have pcie Gen4 to all PCIe lanes. And if you're worried about latency, you can use the GPU's x16 PCIe slot that connects directly to the CPU (speaking for Ryzen motherboards) and leave the chipset-attached slot for the GPU with virtually no impact to gaming.

 

[rgd1101]

you can get a pcie 3.0 x16 card. https://www.amazon.com/ASUS-M-2-X16...07NQBQB6Z/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

 

[USAFRet]

A PCIe slot adapter does NOT cause the drive to be slower.

But, I wonder if you've actually analyzed your speed/space needs, and truly determined the other NVMe drives are needed over regular SATA III SSD's.

 

[jhayat]

Thanks again.

I'm not sure you understand....

Perhaps not.

My impression is that an m.2 SSD plugged into an m.2 slot has faster r/w than an m.2 SSD plugged into a PCIe slot with an adapter card. Is this not the case?

 

[rgd1101]

My impression is that an m.2 SSD plugged into an m.2 slot has faster r/w than an m.2 SSD plugged into a PCIe slot with an adapter card. Is this not the case?

nope. it depend on the spec. m.2 is just a connection type.

like usb, there are 2.0, 3.0(3.1 gen 1), 3.1 gen 2, etc

 

[drea.drechsler]

Thanks again.



Perhaps not.

My impression is that an m.2 SSD plugged into an m.2 slot has faster r/w than an m.2 SSD plugged into a PCIe slot with an adapter card. Is this not the case?

Be careful of what type SSD is being talked about since a Solid State Disk may use either the PCIe interface, as do NVME's, or the much slower SATA interface even while plugged into an M.2 sockets. You can tell by the 'keying' present in the M.2 socket whether that socket supports M.2 NVME or M.2 SATA.

You do find M.2 sockets on motherboards that support M.2 SATA only which would not be as fast as m.2 NVME but you'd also need an m.2 SATA SSD to go into it also.

Once that's understood, and speaking of an NVME, whether it is attached to an M.2 socket directly on the motherboard or an M.2 socket being interfaced through an interface adapter attached to a PCIe socket...speed will be the same.

 

[SkyNetRising]

speaking of an NVME, whether it is attached to an M.2 socket directly on the motherboard or an M.2 socket being interfaced through an interface adapter attached to a PCIe socket...speed will be the same.

Well .. not exactly.
There are different M.2 slots available.
Some support PCIE 3.0 x4,
some support PCIE 2.0 x4,
some support PCIE 2.0 x2.

If you put PCIE 3.0 x4 M.2 drive in them, each situation will give different max bandwidth.

Same thing for PCIE slots with M.2 adapters.
The slot may support PCIE 3.0 or PCIE 2.0 (some support PCIE 4.0). And again max bandwidth available to M.2 drive will be different.

 

[drea.drechsler]

Well .. not exactly.
There are different M.2 slots available.
Some support PCIE 3.0 x4,
some support PCIE 2.0 x4,
some support PCIE 2.0 x2.

If you put PCIE 3.0 x4 M.2 drive in them, each situation will give different max bandwidth.

Same thing for PCIE slots with M.2 adapters.
The slot may support PCIE 3.0 or PCIE 2.0 (some support PCIE 4.0). And again max bandwidth available to M.2 drive will be different.

AHH...you're right! so many variables to consider; PCIe generation and bandwidth indeed are also relevant. I just didn't want to introduce that one since since it's usually pretty well constrained by the motherboard...no Intel boards support Gen4, for instance, while only AMD X570 boards currently do and they do it everywhere.

But with AMD, if you get an X470 or B450 board you always have access to one x16 gen 3 socket; that first attached to the CPU (not so with APU's). Yes, you'll have to move the GPU to a gen 2, possibly x4 in case of B450, but that won't matter much at all for gaming performance.

And whether an M.2 socket is 2 lanes or 4 full lanes is dependent entirely on how the motherboard provisions the socket. I'm not aware of any AM4 board where the first M.2 is not fully provisioned (all 4 lanes), attached to the CPU and therefore gen 3 at least for Zen CPU's. An x16 adapter plugged into an x16 socket with all lanes fully provisioned you'll get 4 lanes available to each NVME.

There are a lot of variables to keep in mind. Once you've got it sorted, you'll find that you can fit 5 NVME's at full speed but you'll still need a PCIe slot adapter to do so.

 

[jhayat]

UPDATE

So, turns out you guys are correct.

Top dude is the SSD plugged dir. into the board
Bottom dude is the SSD plugged into the adapter card.

https://www.amazon.com/ASUS-M-2-X16...07NQBQB6Z/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

Not sure why I was thinking there would be a performance hit, but....

If I throw three more SSDs in there, for a total of five, am I going to run out of lanes? Someone made mention of this earlier.

 

[falcon291]

Thanks again.



Perhaps not.

My impression is that an m.2 SSD plugged into an m.2 slot has faster r/w than an m.2 SSD plugged into a PCIe slot with an adapter card. Is this not the case?

No

UPDATE

So, turns out you guys are correct.

Top dude is the SSD plugged dir. into the board
Bottom dude is the SSD plugged into the adapter card.

https://www.amazon.com/ASUS-M-2-X16...07NQBQB6Z/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

Not sure why I was thinking there would be a performance hit, but....

If I throw three more SSDs in there, for a total of five, am I going to run out of lanes? Someone made mention of this earlier.

It is x4 PCI-X speed. So it would be OK to use a x16 connection for 4 M2 drives. But please be sure that you are actually using it at x16 mode. Many mainboards only allow 1 x16 connection. And if the mainboard will also be used in gaming you may be using it in x8 mode.

 

[jhayat]

"No"

Already answered

 

[drea.drechsler]

....

If I throw three more SSDs in there, for a total of five, am I going to run out of lanes? Someone made mention of this earlier.

What motherboard are you working on? And which slot will it be inserted into?

 

[jhayat]

What motherboard are you working on?

ASUS TUF Mark1 x299

TUF X299 MARK 1 | Motherboards | ASUS USA

The TUF X299 Mark 1 possesses the looks, overclocking durability and optimized cooling The Ultimate Force (TUF) motherboards are famous for. Thermal Armor and SafeSlot provide ducted airflow and PCIe rigidity, while Thermal Radar 3 and TUF Detective 2 provide superior cooling and system...

www.asus.com

And which slot will it be inserted into?

The 2nd PCIex slot, that , according to the manual, does not share bandwidth with anything else.