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Does Area 51-R2 motherboard support NVMe SSD via PCIe?
Does Area 51-R2 motherboard support NVMe SSD such as Intel 750, Samsung SM951 NVMe, HP Turbo Z G2?
This post is more than 5 years old
9 Posts
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378428
Does Area 51-R2 motherboard support NVMe SSD such as Intel 750, Samsung SM951 NVMe, HP Turbo Z G2?
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zli82
9 Posts
0
June 11th, 2015 21:00
Thank you so much for the following up. I've tried the new BIOS update but unfortunately, it did not solve the problem with my PCIE SSD.
For the Area 51 R2 owners who are considering buying a PCIE SSD (or M.2 SSD with a PCIE adaptor), this is my experience with a Samsung SM951 AHCI 512GB SSD as an reference.
My system is the Area 51 R2 with 3 X GTX980, i7-5960X.
The SM951 itself requires a M.2 or PCIE X4 3.0 connecting, and is capable of performing sequential read-2150MB/s, write- 1500MB/s, BUT NO ON THIS MACHINE! Well, at least no with the PCIE X4 slot on it.
I used a PCIE X4 3.0 adaptor to connect my SM951 since there is no M.2 slot. And the test speed with ATTO Disk bench, AS SSD Benchmark and HDTune are all around:
sequential read-1550MB/s, write- 1200MB/s, which is about 75% of SM951's full speed.
My first thought was I got a bad SSD, but I was wrong.
I then took down one of the GTX980s, and connected the SSD via the PCIE X8 instead of X4 slot on the motherboard. Then the magic happened, the test speed is just write- 1500MB/s, the full speed of SM951.
After some internet research, my best guess for now is because the designer of Area 51 R2 did not thing of M.2 SSD or PCIE SSD as a big deal at the time (probably that's why the Area 2 X99 motherboard lacks M.2 slot while other brands doesn't), so they somehow configured the PCIE X4 slot as 2.0 version (to yield the bandwidth for the three GTX980s?) Thus it would NOT allow the PCIE X4 slot to provide enough bandwidth for the high speed SSD.
May I'm wrong with the guess. It would be appreciated if someone could provide any idea or solution as the PCIE X4 slot is not working properly.
CONCLUSION:
For those who own Alienware Area 51 R2 with 3 graphic cards, and considering buying a high speed PCIE SSD, I highly recommend waiting for a new BIOS fix the problem of the PCIE X4 slot. (the new A02 version did not solve it).
For those who own Alienware Area 51 R2 with 1 or 2 graphic cards, go ahead and buy the PCIE SSD if you want. Once you fail to achieve fall speed with the PCIE X4 connecting, try the PCIE X8 slot, this should be working fine.
PS: Thanks again for those who consider this as a problem. The age of PCIE SSD is coming. And the only way to make the Alienware better is to first admit it lacks something : )
gzt7d8gs
62 Posts
1
November 8th, 2015 13:00
i tried the SM951 on my Area 51 R2 but got the same results. I've ordered a Kingston Hyper X, and I've seen others have got it to work. So I'll tread water with this until Alienware updates the bios to recognize this technology.
Lexrouzee
41 Posts
1
April 10th, 2016 01:00
Hi, just picked up a R2 the other day and I too have moved from a classic Mac Pro that was using a SM951 on a Lycom PCIe adapter, ivr tried a number of things but after cloning my windows drive I just cannot boot off of it, I have checked BIOS and the steps mentioned here and other places but the system does not recognise the PCIe SSD until it boots into windows. Gutted, has anyone else managed it??
zli82
9 Posts
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April 19th, 2015 04:00
The Area 51 with X99 Mobo, 5960X, for example.
-Donovan-
62 Posts
1
April 21st, 2015 14:00
Yes, the Alienware Area 51 R2 Motherboard will run the Intel SSD 750 Series AIC PCIe 3.0 as a storage drive and you should be able to use it as a bootable drive too. To be bootable the UEFI needs to be at the version 2.3.1. One way to know if we have the UEFI 2.3.1 is to check in the BIOS A01 if the Secure Boot is available. In this case the Secure Boot is available with the BIOS A01 and the Intel SSD 750 Series AIC PCIe 3.0 should run as a boot drive with this motherboard.
Note: There's no option in the BIOS A01 to select the drive Mode: AHCI, RAID or NVMe. It switches automatically to the right mode.
zli82
9 Posts
0
April 21st, 2015 15:00
Thanks for the useful information.
I actually asked the same question to the Dell customer service, they replied me that the Alienware Area 51 R2 Motherboard does not support NVMe, and there might be a coming BIOS update fixing it.
Do you think it's a mistake, or, does it mean that this mobo runs NVMe SSD differently from other X99 mobo, such as ASUS or MSI ones? Maybe slower?
zli82
9 Posts
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April 21st, 2015 16:00
Thank you so much. That answers all my concerns. Hope the new BIOS comes soon.
-Donovan-
62 Posts
0
April 21st, 2015 16:00
The Alienware Area 51 R2 motherboard is manufactured by MSI. Most motherboard with the X99 Chipset support the NVMe by default and it doesn't need a BIOS update but some of them does need a new BIOS update to get the support of NVMe/ to recognize the new drive. Now the worst can happen is you can not boot or it can run slower as a bootable drive/ storage drive and you'll have to hope for new BIOS update that will unlock all the potential of NVMe.
mhawk1
4 Posts
0
May 15th, 2015 02:00
Has anyone bought an SSD 750 yet and confirmed whether the motherboard supports NVMe?
-Donovan-
62 Posts
0
June 10th, 2015 12:00
The New BIOS version A02 for Alienware Area 51 R2 is released today! Alienware/Dell did not take the time to detail all the features of this BIOS version. So we don't know what is activated or not. I think the best way to know if the Intel SSD 750 Series AIC PCIe 3.0 will boot is to give it a try. I would love to buy one to try, but where I live all the stores that sell this product, they don't give a refund for this item.
-Donovan-
62 Posts
0
June 11th, 2015 22:00
zli82, in your BIOS make sure your PCIE GEN3 is enabled.
Once your PCIE GEN3 is activated, try to reconnect your PCI card in the slot of the PCIe x4 and run your test again to see if the speed is at the maximum with 2 Geforce GTX 980 first then with 3 video cards. If you can't reach the maximum speed of your SM951 in the PCIe x4 slot, that mean the PCIe x4 is a GEN2 and not a GEN3.
saad11
8 Posts
0
June 11th, 2015 22:00
Hi, are you able to boot from the pci-e ssd? I want to buy the intel 750 card and use it as a boot drive.
zli82
9 Posts
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June 11th, 2015 23:00
Sorry, I didn't even try that since I get the non-NVMe version of the SM951 SSD. The relatively low 4K read/write of it does not worth exchanging my Samsung 850 pro as the boot drive. While I'm using it as a storage drive, it does not show up in the BIOS panel, but works well in Windows. This is probably because that it's an OEM SSD without any driver support.
The NVMe Intel 750, on the other hand, is claimed bootable. You may found some guides here:
download.intel.com/.../nvme_boot_guide_332098001us.pdf
www.youtube.com/watch
However, keep in mind the pcie X4 slot might be 2.0 on this motherboard. You might wanna connect the 750 via the PCIE X8 slot.
zli82
9 Posts
0
June 11th, 2015 23:00
Thanks for the very reasonable suggestion.
I did tried all the points you mention above: making sure PCIE 3.0 is enabled in BIOS; running the test with 3, 2 and even 1 video card; switching different M2 to PCIE adaptors; making sure the ssd is not overheat and throttling; and so on.
However, all the trial result the same, 75% of full speed with PCIe X4, 100% speed with PCIe X8.
So yes, you are right, the X4 slot in Area 51 R2 is probably gen 2.
Virtua4
69 Posts
0
September 27th, 2015 13:00
Do you mean use slot 5 which is a pcie x16? As opposed to slot 4 which is pcie x4? Being a half size, does it go in slot 5.
Anyone got the Intel pcie 750 working in the r2? I've got dual sli 980 it's and thinking to adding one of these Intel pcies.