"I'm just wondering if anyone has used the ASUS Hyper M.2 card in their Aurora, certainly if you have an R11."

That card requires bifurcation support on the motherboard which the R11 does not have.  So it will not work with the Aurora.  Or, it will work, but you will only be able to see 1 drive max, not 4.  

If you want an adapter that supports more than one drive in one pcie slot, you'd need to get something like the QNAP with the switch chip on the adapter.  Those run minimum over $100 for the adapter. 

I was looking to do the same in an R10 but am seeing mixed results in the forums. Some have had it work and others have not. If you do a search for RIITOP you should see all of those threads. 

Check this out it was posted yesterday I believe, I may go this route when my R11 comes in. I'm also gonna try that M.2 out he's using too. I'm not sure if thats the best way of adding another M.2 NVMe or not. I know theres another option using the 2.5 SSD with the right adaptors.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtS5L21Dfag&t=4s

Here's a good write up on bifurcation, on how it applies to a PCIe slot: https://shuttletitan.com/miscellaneous/pcie-bifurcation-what-is-it-how-to-enable-optimal-configurations-and-use-cases-for-nvme-sdds-gpus/

If your MB does not support it, you will need a controller that has an onboard chip that allows interfacing between your PCIe slot and your Nvme drives in the enclosure. You would also have to take in mind how that in turn is setup to work with your PCIe slot (What link speed it will sync at).

• PCIe 3.0 4x : 31.52Gb/s x 125 = 3,940MB/s
• PCIe 3.0 8x : 63.04Gb/s x 125 = 7,880MB/s
• PCIe 3.0 16x : 126.4Gb/s x 125 = 15,800MB/s

• PCIe 4.0 1x : 15.76Gb/s x 125 = 1,970MB/s
• PCIe 4.0 2x : 31.52Gb/s x 125 = 3,940MB/s
• PCIe 4.0 4x : 63.04Gb/s x 125 = 7,880MB/s
• PCIe 4.0 8x : 126.4Gb/s x 125 = 15,800MB/s
• PCIe 4.0 16x : 252Gb/s x 125 = 31,500MB/s

So pending on your situation, and how many lanes the PCIe slot allows, the speed of your drives will not be optimal.

The card you listed supports up to:

• Support for up to four PCIe® 3.0 M.2 drives with transfer bandwidth up to 128Gbps
• *Maximum number of M.2 SSD support will vary, it depends on different CPU specs and PCIe bifurcation settings in different ASUS motherboards.

Going by the specs it needs a motherboard that supports bifurcation. Plugging that into an R11 or R10 will only allow 1 drive to be used at X4.

It would need a PCIe link speed of 16X since it is a PCIe 3.0 card. So each drive will link at x4, with a maximum speed of 31.52 Gbps. (Bifurcation bios support required at 4x4x4x4 in a PCIe slot 3 x 16)

Double check the manual for your alienware, because I am pretty sure most cannot run the PCIe slot at a linkspeed of X16, using x8 instead, regardless of bifurcation support or not.

If you get a card with a chip in it, and it supports up to 4 drives, it will still need to have access to a PCI 3 x 16 link speed slot to be able to do 4x4x4x4. That's why having your PCIe linkspeed cut in half matters, since you will only be able to use 2 out of the 4 drive slot maximum (4x4)

I know my R10 supports PCI 4 x 8 maximum and not PCI 4 x 16 as you would expect from a premium brand board.

I went through all of this research and debate recently and ended up just putting an SSD into the 2.5" bay at the bottom of the R11 and it was like a 10 minute easy thing.  The power cord is already there, just had to get a SATA cable when I bought the Samsung Evo drive.   As far as getting an m.2 NVME drive, I found a variety of Pcie adapters that would work from posts here and on reddit and on youtube.  The thing I didn't like about that route is that it puts the drive very close to the graphics card and adds more heat that flows right up onto the GPU.  The R11 already has a tight case and only 2 fans so I didn't want to add more heat from an NVME that close.  And the sata speed SSDs are fast enough for what I need.  I've seen various posts and youtube videos directly comparing things like load time and FPS measurements when gaming on both sata SSD and m.2 pcie SSD and there is no difference.   The case for the m.2 pcie style SSDs is better when you have long sustained need for read/write at highest speeds like in video editing.   I know that the prices are nearly identical and everyone wants the fastest thing they can get, but the m.2 pcie style drives do run hot from what I have seen thus all the options for cooling them and I just didn't want that right next to the GPU inside the poor airflow R11 case.

Here's a great solution and for under $70. It's a:

Dual NVMe PCIe Adapter,M.2 NVMe SSD to PCI-E 3.1 X8/X16 Card Support M.2 (M KeH5

https://www.ebay.com/itm/195753051966