Dear
Trailblazers Billsey and Egydiocoelho,
Thanks
for the info before I decided to get the PCICe x4 adapter card. Since
I think other users may be interested in the topic too, I am posting
it as a new one here.
Hardware
Involved:
Shinedisk
VME PCIe 3 x4 Adapter (the x4 adapter)
Silicon
Power 512GB NVMeM.2 PCIe Gen 3x4 2280 TLC A80 SSD (the x4 SSD)
WD 512 GB SN 520 M.2 NVMe SSD PCIe 3x2 SSD (the x2 SSD)
ZTC
M.2 NVMe PCIe to USB3.1 10Gbps Type-C/Type-A Enclosure (the
enclosure)
Here
are my findings:
1)
The x4 adapter has 11+21=32 pins, not enough to occupy all the PCIe
3.0 x16 slot pins
2)
Put the adapter in the x16 slot, Windows 10 took no actions,
nothing showed up in “This PC”, of course!
3)
Blank x4 SSD put
in
the adapter uninitialized, nothing showed up under “This PC”.
However, Disk Management saw the
x4
SSD.
Initialized to NTFS format with
Disk Management.
X4 SSD appeared under “This PC”, WIN 10 has
reported
476GB
capacity.
4)
Used CrystalDiskMark to test speed of x4 SSD. Sequential read was
3,168 MB/s, sequential write was 2,380 MB/s.
x4
SSD specifications
for sequential
read is 3,400 MB/s, sequential write is 2,300 MB/s. It is strange
that the 2,380 MB/s
exceeded
the spec. The x4 SSD without heat sink briefly in the red zone at 60
degree for a couple seconds while
testing
with
CrystalDiskInfo
program, but
the condition was still “Good”.
5)
The speed of the x2 SSD where Windows 10 was residing was tested too.
Read=1,700 Mb/s, Write=1,399 MB/s
6)
Copied 56GB of test data from the x2 SSD to the x4 SSD (without heat
sink) in one chunk. Initial transfer rate reported
by
WIN
10
was around 1,200 MB/s, lasted a few seconds, then dropped to around
530 MB/s. Did not time the process,
probably
finished in half minute.
7)
Tried to install LinuxMint 20 “Cinnamon” to the x4 SSD
First
installation failed, as LinuxMint requested to turnoff RST With
Optane under Integrated Peripherals of the
Advanced
Tab in BIOS
Changed
setting to ACHI at the second attempt, the 56GB test data
automatically erased under new installation
SUCCESS!
Shutdown the computer.
8)
With both x2 SSD and x4 SSD in the computer, boot up to “BOOTMENU”,
selected to boot from Linux there
9)
Booted
to LinuxMint, checked VGA+ 2 HDMI ports all turned on and three
displays were working
Checked
printer was working. Installed some programs with LinuxMint.
Shut
Down.
Cold
boot again to this Linux in the adapter, plugged to the x16 slot. It
proved that it is able to boot from the PCIe 3
x16
slot with the adapter.
10)
Used a ZTC M.2 NVMe PCIe to USB3.1 10Gbps Type-C/Type-A
Enclosure to test out the performance of the front panel
USB
3.1 Gen 2 Type-C port. Results: Seq. Read=1,048 MB/s; Seq. Write=986
MB/s, this helped me to determined that