Is there a way to use a lot of m.2s in a desktop

[oynaz]

Hi guys,

I will probably be building a desktop soon. I can get my hands on a number of small m.2 SSDs quite cheaply (a local business has replaced the drives in their laptops and now has a number of m.2s they do not know what to do with.)

I could save quite a bit of cash by getting 4 250 GB m.2 SSDs instead of a single 1 GB SSD. Is this possible?

 

[Insert_Nickname]

I could save quite a bit of cash by getting 4 250 GB m.2 SSDs instead of a single 1 GB SSD. Is this possible?

Technically you could use M.2-to-PCIe x4 adaptor cards, but unless you're on the HEDT platform you'll quickly run out of PCIe slots. I don't think there is any LGA-115x boards with 4x PCIe x4 or larger slots available, outside speciality workstation boards using PCIe splitters. Buying one of those will likely wipe out any savings on the SSDs themselves.

Then there is the question of performance. 4x PCIe SSDs in RAID would have decent performance of course, but there are the usual caveats with RAID to consider.

 

[UsandThem]

Additionally, using multiple m.2 drives generally does one (or several of the following):

1. Disables SATA ports.
2. Disables (or reduces bandwidth) of cerain PCIe slots.
3. Reduces overall bandwidth (speed)

Each board is different, so you would have to look in your motherboard manual to see what it would do if installing on board m.2 slots.

 

[mnewsham]

If you have an HEDT system you probably could get away with it, but as noted by others, the normal consumer level motherboards and chipsets just wont offer enough PCI lanes.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I once saw a card, from HP I think, that had four PCI-E M.2 sockets on it, and plugged into a PCI-E x16 slot on the mobo. Might look for that. Might work for you.

 

[oynaz]

Whoops, I just learned that m.2 come in both PCIe and SATA variants. The ones I can get is the SATA variety. That was important information, I guess.

Thanks for your replies so far, though.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

The ones I can get is the SATA variety.

You could use something like this if they're SATA:

http://www.hwtools.net/Adapter/M2S4C.html

But again, I don't think its worth bothering with considering the price of such an adaptor. Larger SSDs also perform better then smaller ones, and a single 1TB 960EVO would likely outperform such a SATA RAID array.

But it is technically possible at least.

 

[Rubycon]

A full length PCI-E 16X card with 8 M.2 slots and an embedded firmware to allow striping would be nice. Option for 144 hours of battery backup and a few SODIMM sockets to allow up to 32GB DDR4-2400 for cache. 8 2TB 960 pro drives striped would provide 16TB of inexpensive flash storage with transfer rates in excessive of 15GB/second.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

A full length PCI-E 16X card with 8 M.2 slots and an embedded firmware to allow striping would be nice. Option for 144 hours of battery backup and a few SODIMM sockets to allow up to 32GB DDR4-2400 for cache. 8 2TB 960 pro drives striped would provide 16TB of inexpensive flash storage with transfer rates in excessive of 15GB/second.

Yup. But that's a lot of "ifs and maybes." Anyone who imagined using M.2 NVMe beyond a single or double M.2 slots would have to plan their system for a motherboard that provided enough slots. But M.2 wasn't at the top of my list for features when I planned the system. I get a single m.2 NVMe port on the motherboard.

At those speeds -- 3,200 MB/s sequential read speed spec -- you could do more than just use the M.2 for direct storage. My plan is to pick the right size M.2, put a small 100GB partition on it, and cache my SATA SSDs and HDDs to the M.2. I'm only guessing that I'll see performance for those SATA devices move closer to the M.2 spec. Even if the overall performance puts those devices half-way between their spec and the M.2 spec performance, I'm eager to see it work.

The plus side for that: a "caching SSD" with the 3,200 MB/s spec would mean I wouldn't need to cache anything to RAM. It also means that my caching volume needn't be a full 100GB: 30 to 60 GB might be all that's required. IF I can pick up a 250GB 960 EVO for just the purpose I described, it would cost me $130 to $150 right now. But doubling my RAM from 16GB to 32GB will cost me about the same to buy a second kit, or around $240 to simply replace the 16GB kit.