Funtin SFF-8639: U.2 NVMe SSD To PCI-E Card Adapter

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Funtin SFF-8639: U.2 NVMe SSD To PCI-E Card Adapter

With our review this week of the Intel Optane SSD 900P 280GB U.2 SSD there was a discussion in the forums about using U.2 SSDs in desktop systems, etc. If your system doesn't have a U.2 slot, an adapter like the Funtin SFF-8639 makes it easy to pop the SSD into a PCI-E x4 slot...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=U2-NVMe-PCI-E-SSD-Adapter

[torsionbar28]

It's unfortunate that such an adapter is necessary. The industry needs to get it together and develop a standard consumer NVMe drive interface. M.2 is for laptops. We need a cabled interface to have 6 or 8 or 10 of these NVMe drive interfaces on a consumer motherboard, just like we have today with SATA.

[Zan Lynx]

It's unfortunate that such an adapter is necessary. The industry needs to get it together and develop a standard consumer NVMe drive interface. M.2 is for laptops. We need a cabled interface to have 6 or 8 or 10 of these NVMe drive interfaces on a consumer motherboard, just like we have today with SATA.

The U.2 cable interface is exactly why this adapter is necessary.

Intel also makes these P900 drives in a AIC, aka a PCIe add-in card. Then no adapter is needed.

[starshipeleven]

The U.2 cable interface is exactly why this adapter is necessary.

Intel also makes these P900 drives in a AIC, aka a PCIe add-in card. Then no adapter is needed.

You missed the point by a few hundred miles.

Hi point was to not having to use PCIe slots directly for this stuff. Adapter or native PCIe you're still using a PCIe slot.

[starshipeleven]

There are also M.2 to U.2 kits like this (just an example, other brands make same stuff) http://www.asrock.com/mb/spec/card.asp?Model=U.2%20Kit which work basically the same, still dumb adapter re-routing the same PCIe lines around as the one in the article.

It's unfortunate that such an adapter is necessary. The industry needs to get it together and develop a standard consumer NVMe drive interface. M.2 is for laptops. We need a cabled interface to have 6 or 8 or 10 of these NVMe drive interfaces on a consumer motherboard, just like we have today with SATA.

Main issue here is that the drive is technically using a x4 PCIe interface, so you still have a ton of lines to route around, and a bulky connector and all that.

You see the M.2 to U.2 adapter I linked above? It has to use a mini-SAS port to expose all connections to the wire for the hard drive.

Once PCIe catches up a little and SSDs will run fine with x2 or even x1 PCIe interfaces it will make sense to have a sata-like port on a consumer board.

[Ronshere]

If you use it x4 then you will get full benefit but if you run it x2 then its performance will drop significantly. You need to make sure you have an extra x4 PCIe slot available so you can use it x4.

[Zan Lynx]

Once PCIe catches up a little and SSDs will run fine with x2 or even x1 PCIe interfaces it will make sense to have a sata-like port on a consumer board.

That will not happen. NVMe drives will be getting faster in the future in step with PCIe. It's almost as if the manufacturers can plan ahead.

[RavFX]

The reason why we actually don't want wire is that the distance prevent the drive to get faster. it's why newer motherboard have 1 to 3 M.2 ports.

[starshipeleven]

If you use it x4 then you will get full benefit but if you run it x2 then its performance will drop significantly. You need to make sure you have an extra x4 PCIe slot available so you can use it x4.

I was talking of newer PCIe versions.
Each PCIe version doubles the bandwith per lane of the older revision.
A PCIe 5.0 (draft) x1 slot will provide the same bandwidth of a PCIe 4.0 x2 slot, which equals that of a PCIe 3.0 x4 slot, which equals a PCIe 2.0 x8 slot, which also equals a PCIe 1.0 x16 slot.

[zamadatix]

You missed the point by a few hundred miles.

Hi point was to not having to use PCIe slots directly for this stuff. Adapter or native PCIe you're still using a PCIe slot.

You missed his response by a few hundred miles, U.2 is the industry standard cabled non slot based solution torsionbar28 was looking for, no PCIe slots required. You only need to use PCIe slots/m.2 adapters if you have a board that doesn't come with native U.2 ports. If the complaint is about PCIe lanes you'll probably just want a better suited CPU but lanes are oversubscribable (in the same way having 24 SATA connectors on a consumer motherboard was done) but at that point why pay the performance premium of U.2?