Question 1

Can I use this in raid 0 to combine 4 pcie3 nvme ssds as 1 giant pcie(4 or 5) nvme ssd? It says 128Gbps bandwidth, so theoretically, it should allow this, right?

Accepted Answer

As long as your motherboard and CPU supports PCIe bifurcation, and has an available 16x PCIe slot, you should be able to run raid-0. I'm running raid-10 on mine.

An important thing to remember is that this card "speaks" PCIe 3.0, the fastest it can run is at PCIe 3.0 speeds in PCIe slots supporting PCIe 3.0, 4.0, or 5.0. If you want to run at PCIe 4.0 speeds you'll need a PCIe 4.0 card in a 4.0 or 5.0 slot and using 4.0 or 5.0 NVMe M.2 drives.

Question 2

Can this be used as extra storage without putting the drives in a RAID? I want to run all M.2 - no SATA

Accepted Answer

Depending on your MOBO, you might be able to get BIOS raid set up. If you boot from a M.2 on your MOBO then setting this up for RAID is easy. Once booted into windows, right click computer, select manage, then click drives. From here, you can set up "windows" RAIDs. Right click a drive on the bottom of the screen and select the type of RAID you want.

On my old MOBO (AsRock) it would see all 14 of my M.2 drives and I could RAID any of them from the BIOS. My new MOBO, a garbage gigibit, doesn't see the M.2's in the BIOS. I do however have 10 M.2's in 5 RAID 1's.

Question 3

Would this be compatible with ASUS MAXIMUS VI EXTREME with Intel  Core i7-4770K CPU, GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER in 1st slot, and 32 RAM?

Accepted Answer

Its in and so far working good. Its not a bad price for it neither. But it doesn't hurt to make sure there isn't a better one and lower price. but yes its good.

Question 4

Will this suppert X570 motherboards?

Accepted Answer

It is difficult for me to provide you with certainty without doing additional research.

To get the full features of this card it is recommended you put it in a main board with an available PCI-e x16 slot, that supports bifurcation ( mode can be changed in bios to x4 x4 x4 x4 ).

X570 motherboards may read some or all of the NVMe but you may not be able to use any RAID functions, so I recommend AMD Thread ripper or Intel X chipset mainboards.

It will see all 4 NVMe SSD provided your x16 PCI-e slot is set to x4,x4,x4x4 any other setting will result in less the all 4 NVMe being detected by your main board.

I can't manage to get it to bechmark above 2GBps, I read this may be a limitation of the DMI, not sure about that though.

All RAID functions come from the CPU you decide to use with this card, some AMD processors offer basic RAID features for free, I hear you have to purchase an additional license when used with certain Intel CPU.

I have 2 of these RAID cards with 8x 2TB NVMe SSD running RAID 10 works fine when it comes to stability, I wish the performance was much faster.

This Asus RAID card is not holding  my speeds back.

I tested a High Point SSD7103, cost me $479, this Asus was actually faster in most benchmark test areas.

Good luck.

Below is a summary of the system I have this ASUS Hyper M.2 x16 PCIe 3.0 x4 Expansion Card installed in.

PassMark Rating: 5568
Disk Mark
11281 MBps

Disk Sequential Read
1356 MBps

Disk Sequential Write
1044 MBps

Disk Random Seek + RW
720 MBps
Operating System: Windows 10 Professional Edition build 17763 (64-bit)
CPU Type: AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2920X 12-Core 
Number of CPUs: 1
Cores per CPU: 12
Hyperthreading: Not capable
Motherboard: X399 AORUS XTREME-CF
Memory: 64GB Crucial Technology Unknown
Videocard: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080
Hard Drive: AMD-RAID Array 1 SCSI Disk Device (4TB)
Hard Drive: AMD-RAID Array 3 SCSI Disk Device (4TB)
Hard Drive: AMD-RAID ST4000LM024-2AN1 SCSI Disk Device (4TB)

Question 5

Will this work with i9 9900K on an EVGA Z390 Dark?

Accepted Answer

You need a CPU+MB that supports PCIe bifurcation and you need to have enough PCIe lanes available (a function of the CPU and the slot the card is in.)  The i9 9900K has 16 total lanes total.  This card will use 4 for each M.2 you put into it.  So to use 2 M.2 drives you need to put this in a x8 or x16 slot and have 8 free PCIe lanes.  If you want your GPU to use all 16, then you can't use this.  If your GPU is using 8, then you could potentially use this in the 2nd slot with 2 M.2. If you're not using any other PCIe devices, you could use this to its full.  It does look like the M.2 slots on your MB use non-CPU PCIe lanes, so at least you're not competing with them.

You may need a bios update to use this card, according to a post I found on reddit.

Question 6

Does this only combine drives into a single raid array? Or can it be used to expose them as separate drives as well? I am looking to free up my pci slots.

Accepted Answer

It may depend on your motherboard set up, I'm not sure.  I have an ASUS Prime Z390 motherboard and use the Hyper M.2 to give me additional SSD capacity/drives.

Question 7

Where can I tell if the CPU and MB  have  PCIe bifurcation? I've never seen that on most pages (like say if I get a Xeon W). Also, does this support JBOD?

Accepted Answer

This device doesn't come with software or it's own firmware so jbod support will likely come with your mother board software. PCIe bifurcation is usually supported by the bios so look there for it, if you see an option to change your pci express 16x slot to 8x, 8x or 4x, 4x, 4x, 4x then PCIe bifurcation is likely support. Unlike AMD which fully supports PCIe bifurcation with no additional cost, some Intel CPU will charge you for the additional license to run full raid function with PCIe bifurcation. Hope this answers your questions

Question 8

How much m.2 storage can the card handle?

Accepted Answer

The card can handle up to four NVMe M.2 drives.

Question 9

Does this card translate the PCIe lanes or utilize the full bus? More specifically, generally a single M.2 will utilize 4 PCI lanes, so if I place two M.2 drives it will utilize 8 lanes (x8) or will it try to utilize the full bandwidth of an x16 slot?

Accepted Answer

This card will use 4 lanes for each m.2 drive, as though each m.2 socket on the board is it's own 4 lane PCIe slot.  In order for this to work, your processor and motherboard must support PCIe bifurcation and the bios settings will have to be set correctly for the slot you put the ASUS Hyper m.2 into.  This also means that this card will only support two drives in an 8x-electrical slot, even though it may be a 16 lane mechanical slot.  This also applies to an 8/16 lane slot which shares lanes with another slot - if that other slot is used.

Question 10

Can I use this in my PCI Express 2.0 x16 slot?

Accepted Answer

Yes you can...works well for me.

Questions & Answers