Hello list, My instinct says the vast majority will "just work" but I'll ask anyway. I need a low profile PCI-E card that allows for up to 2 M.2 SSD drives that is known to work with the stock kernel in CentOS 7. Can anyone recommend one? Thanks
Once upon a time, Alice Wonder <alice at domblogger.net> said:> I need a low profile PCI-E card that allows for up to 2 M.2 SSD > drives that is known to work with the stock kernel in CentOS 7. > > Can anyone recommend one?I can't recommend a specific one, but any adapter card should work. However, note that M.2 is not a single "thing" to the computer; the drive interface can be SATA, PCI-E AHCI, or PCI-E NVMe. The first two would look the same as a traditional SATA device to the OS, so should be fine. The third is a different interface; I haven't looked to see if the CentOS 7 kernel supports NVMe (I suspect it does, but you should check before buying an NVMe device). I know that NVMe works fine with recent Fedora. Also note when choosing an adapter; the M.2 slot is keyed different for the different device types, so make sure you get an adapter that matches your device. -- Chris Adams <linux at cmadams.net>
On 04/03/2017 06:17 PM, Chris Adams wrote:> Once upon a time, Alice Wonder <alice at domblogger.net> said: >> I need a low profile PCI-E card that allows for up to 2 M.2 SSD >> drives that is known to work with the stock kernel in CentOS 7. >> >> Can anyone recommend one? > > I can't recommend a specific one, but any adapter card should work. > However, note that M.2 is not a single "thing" to the computer; the > drive interface can be SATA, PCI-E AHCI, or PCI-E NVMe. The first two > would look the same as a traditional SATA device to the OS, so should be > fine. The third is a different interface; I haven't looked to see if > the CentOS 7 kernel supports NVMe (I suspect it does, but you should > check before buying an NVMe device). I know that NVMe works fine with > recent Fedora. > > Also note when choosing an adapter; the M.2 slot is keyed different for > the different device types, so make sure you get an adapter that matches > your device. >Thanks! I ordered a 2.5" SATA drive and they screwed up and sent me M.2 - I'll be sure to look at the booklet (Intel SSD 5 but there may be more than one variant?)
On 4/3/2017 6:17 PM, Chris Adams wrote:> Once upon a time, Alice Wonder <alice at domblogger.net> said: >> I need a low profile PCI-E card that allows for up to 2 M.2 SSD >> drives that is known to work with the stock kernel in CentOS 7. >> >> Can anyone recommend one? > I can't recommend a specific one, but any adapter card should work. > However, note that M.2 is not a single "thing" to the computer; the > drive interface can be SATA, PCI-E AHCI, or PCI-E NVMe. The first two > would look the same as a traditional SATA device to the OS, so should be > fine. The third is a different interface; I haven't looked to see if > the CentOS 7 kernel supports NVMe (I suspect it does, but you should > check before buying an NVMe device). I know that NVMe works fine with > recent Fedora.To add a data point, I built a stock CentOS 7.3 VM in ESXi 6.5 with hardware version 13 to include NVMe support. The VM boots and runs great on the virtual NVMe controller. Jack
On Mon, 2017-04-03 at 20:17 -0500, Chris Adams wrote:> Once upon a time, Alice Wonder <alice at domblogger.net> said: > > I need a low profile PCI-E card that allows for up to 2 M.2 SSD > > drives that is known to work with the stock kernel in CentOS 7. > > > > Can anyone recommend one? > > I can't recommend a specific one, but any adapter card should work. > However, note that M.2 is not a single "thing" to the computer; the > drive interface can be SATA, PCI-E AHCI, or PCI-E NVMe. The first two > would look the same as a traditional SATA device to the OS, so should be > fine. The third is a different interface; I haven't looked to see if > the CentOS 7 kernel supports NVMe (I suspect it does, but you should > check before buying an NVMe device). I know that NVMe works fine with > recent Fedora. >Not perhaps absolutely definitive, but the Dell configurator allows you to specify RHEL7.2 with the Dell branded NVMe PCIe M.2 drives - it doesn't allow the Intel PCIe NVMe SSD cards though. It's happy with non-NVMe M.2 drives. P.