MSI M.2 Xpander (Rev 1.1)

[dava4444]

Hello

Few weeks ago I bought a MSI Expander from a seller on ebay.

It's a standard piece of kit.. it takes 16 lanes and splits them into 4 x 4 for M.2 drives.
People buy these cars so they can increase the count of PCIE cards, especially when you have blocked slots, which are a total pain in the..
My PC is a HP Z600, dual X5650, 24GB of DDR3, GTX 1070.

So again today, this morning.. I tried again to get this working thing working.

No go.

IF it is the case.. and I now STRONGLY suspect this to be true, that the Xpander card will not work with my setup, I am thoroughly dischufffed with the notion of this artificial block.
My PC will do, x16 and 16x, PCIE 2.0.. so not in the least providing a driver.. is what I would call bunk.

Going on MSI's page for the Xpander does not tell me that they are incompatible.
https://www.msi.com/PC-component/M.2-XPANDER-AERO/Specification

I am left having blown over ?100 on something that has wasted my money.
https://support.hp.com/ca-en/document/c01719695

Save graphics cards.. I don't see why I should buy another MSI gaming product again. 
This M.2 PCIE merely only needs a driver. The QNAP QM2 I will buy one when I can.. but the being cold way of doing business, for the sake of a driver.
This card does not come with a S/N.
Ms 4454 ver 1.1

 

[a4818857]

Hi,

It is frustrating that the M.2 XPANDER did not work as you expected.

There is a reason that the M.2 XPANDER card is bundled with a certain motherboard.
Only motherboards supporting PCIE bifurcation (the ability to split the x16 lanes into 4x4 lanes) can fully take advantage of the M.2 XPANDER card.

 

[dava4444]

Thanks for your reply  LBJistherealchamp

I understand what you are saying..  but again this could have been done with a simple driver.

I will put all the PCIE drives back into their adapter cards.. I will note though, when I had them in software raid, I was getting the same speeds are MSI stated they did on their instructional videos, even on PCIE 2.0.

For nothing more than interest.. have a look:

Here's another

Nothing fancy required, only the slots and cheap adapters.

I also had higher data amounts back then, but I switched some of my drives for higher capacities. I still have all four drives but only 3 slots.
Just chattin' LBJ.. but I have seen Drive Manuf. slow to a crawl over the last while, shocking we don't have multi layered cards on PCIE for much higher capacities, even 100 TB (at a slower data rate)
https://ftr-ceu.blogspot.com/2019/03/drive-capacities-return-or-drive-is.html

Anyhoo.. thanks for taking the time to answer.. even if to boost my morale slightly. You have a great day!

 

[rb_leroy]

Hello,
Unfortunately, this adapter can work only with motherboards supporting PCIe bifurcation: only those based on X299 and X399 can. Today, only the >>HighPoint SSD7101A-1<< adapter permit to use up to 4 NVMe drives with any system (having a 3.0 x16 PCIe slot available) because it includes the PLX8747 chip who does bifurcation (see >>AnandTech<<). But, this chipset is very expensive and explain the high final price: 400-450$ (see >>Here<<). As comparison, >>ASRock ULTRA QUAD M.2 CARD<< is an adapter without this chipset (so that it is limited to mobos able to do bifurcation) and its price is 100-150$ (see >>Here<<).
Have a good day,