M.2. PCIe adapter with two M.2 SSDs only shows one

3

I have just finished my (first ever) server build. Everything seems to work ok. Except I only see one of the two NVMe M.2 SSDs that I installed via a PCIe adapter. (At least, it shows as 500 GB, rather than 1 TB.)

  • Are the NVMe SSDs faulty?
  • Or is the adapter automatically generating some sort of RAID array?
  • If so, how can I modify this?
  • Or am I missing some setting somewhere?

The hardware (amongst others):

The following image shows screenshot of BIOS - the highlighted drive is the one in the M.2 PCIe adapter Idem for dev/disks

Additional info:

  • The 250GB has EXSi installed - also there the SSD shows as 500GB, rather than 2x500GB
  • The status leds on the ASUS adapter on both slots with SSD are lit
  • The manual mentions “For Intel® motherboards, go to Advanced > CPU Storage Configuration, then set the PCIE slot(s) that you have installed the Hyper M.2 x16 card(s) to [Hyper M.2 X16].” But I cannot find this option..

3JL

Posted 2018-12-28T19:14:03.840

Reputation: 31

1The ASUS website (and a number of shop-websites that sell these) specifically list this card as only compatible with a small number of Asus main-boards. Are you sure it is supposed to work with your Fujitsu system ? – Tonny – 2018-12-28T19:34:43.503

@Tonny, according to my reseller it is. Let me double check with them. – 3JL – 2018-12-28T19:45:27.053

@K7AAY, thanks for the edits. Re configuring. Maybe that’s the issue: I do not know how/where to configure the device. There is nothing/not much about this in the manual. It does say: “For Intel® motherboards, go to Advanced > CPU Storage Configuration, then set the PCIE slot(s) that you have installed the Hyper M.2 x16 card(s) to [Hyper M.2 X16].” But I cannot find this option.. – 3JL – 2018-12-29T01:10:25.970

@KamilMaciorowski, [su] is not a discussion forum, but it is, by definition, a Q&A forum because anybody is allowed to ask or answer questions. – Ron Maupin – 2018-12-29T01:20:59.270

Answers

1

Check the manual for the PCIe card carefully - Some of the cheaper ones actually consist of 1x PCIe M2 slot and 1x SATA M2 slot but with the SATA slot needing to be connected in to the motherboard to work.

For example - this model: https://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=575&area=en

(I bought one of these and was disappointed to discover that limitation).

I'd check the link you've posted but the manual for the ASUS card you've linked deals exclusively with the RAID setup process (it doesn't discuss the hardware at all).

Adam Luchjenbroers

Posted 2018-12-28T19:14:03.840

Reputation: 181

Thanks @Adam, I have also seen the cards you mention. This one seems different. I have added more hardware info in the original post. – 3JL – 2018-12-29T12:49:21.057

1

A review of the ASUS HYPER M.2 X16 PCIe RAID card manual shows it cannot be configured except as RAID. If you want to have 1,000 GB of storage using the two 500 GB M.2 drives, you must configure it for RAID 0, which is a more fragile system than having each M.2 drive assigned to its own drive letter; if either drive fails, the content of both drives is lost.

The Fujitsu motherboard uses an Intel CPU, so you would follow Chapter One of the Asus instructions. You cannot use RAID 1, RAID 5, or RAID 10; you must use RAID 0.

Furthermore, section 1.1.3 Paragraph 2 notes

Due to chipset limitation, when SATA ports are set to RAID mode, all SATA ports run at RAID mode together.

If so, this may require you configure your SATA HDDs for RAID, which you may not want.

I would suggest you consider returning this to the vendor if you don't want that.

K7AAY

Posted 2018-12-28T19:14:03.840

Reputation: 6 962

0

After some back and forth with the retailer, they finally confirmed the MB and adapter are indeed not compatible.. Thanks!

3JL

Posted 2018-12-28T19:14:03.840

Reputation: 31

Asked: 2018-12-28T19:14:03.840

Viewed: 2 310 times

Active: 2019-03-16T12:28:40.787