Ultra speed drives

Have a look at the following data sheet for the 5810. I believe it addresses your question.

https://i.dell.com/sites/doccontent/shared-content/data-sheets/es/Documents/Dell_Precision_Tower_5000_Series_5810_SpecSheet.pdf

@andygav wrote:

Anybody fitted 2x Ultra Speed drive quads in a 5810 workstation and does it work?

I have one fitted already with 4x 512Gb NVMe's (so it has the bios/mb support) but I need to increase the storage. I'm going to upgrade these to 1Tb 970 pro's but I don't want the old ones lying about unused.

I'm wondering about the way it divides up the PCIe lanes and whether fitting two of these cards causes complications.

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The 5810 has (2) x16 and (1) x8 (physically x16) PCIe slots.  I'm assuming you have a graphic card in one of the x16 slots and your existing Ultra Speed quad drive in the other x16 slot, with x8 slot being free. 

PCIe bifurcation on the motherboard dedicates lanes in a motherboard slot to certain devices on a card.  So, (4) x4 devices require a x16 slot - if you plug the Ultra Speed into the x8 slot it will "clip" 8 lanes and, if it works, you'll only see (2) x4 devices.  You could test this yourself.

So, the only way I see using all M.2 slots in (2) Ultra Speed cards is to put the graphics card in the x8 slot to free up the (2) x16 slots for the Ultra Speed cards.  Not sure this would work.

On the other hand, PCIe bifurcation on a card is a different animal and has no such restrictions - the multiple devices on such a card have their lane activity load balanced among all lanes in the motherboard slot.  (It's sufficiently flexible that a quad M.2 card with bifurcation should theoretically work even in the 5810's x4 slot, of course at much reduced performance.  I'm not recommending this, especially since the x4 slot only provides 25W of power which isn't sufficient for all the SSDs under load.)

Quad M.2 NVMe cards with PCIe bifurcation on card that are available:

If PCIe 3.0 with ~3,400 MB/s per M.2 device and ~6,800 MB/s total performance across devices on the card is sufficient and you don't need hardware RAID then QNAP's QM2-4P-384 has bifurcation on the card and has been shown to work with PC's (see Amazon's reviews) and would fully take advantage of the 5810's x8 slot.  It's like $270. 

If PCIe 2.0 with ~1,700 MB/s per M.2 device and ~3,400 MB/s total performance across the card is sufficient, their model QM2-4P-284 (note Amazon's description in bold at top is incorrect for this model) would also work and is less expensive at ~$180.  I'm currently using it in different Dell system (a Studio XPS 435T/9000) with 4 different Samsung SSDs. 

QNAP's full M.2 card lineup here.  Although the above cards are designed to work in QNAP's NAS servers, they work in PC's as well.  Not sure about support, but they require no drivers, so there's not a whole lot to need support for.

There are other quad PCIe M.2 NVMe cards with bifurcation on the card.  There's the Aplicata Quad M.2 NVMe SSD PCIe x8 Adapter, but it's much more expensive (over $400).  High Point's SSD7102 and SSD7103 4X M.2 NVMe RAID Controllers or SSD7101A-1 would probably also work.  According to High Point's NVMe RAID Controller FAQ, the SD7100 Series works in x8 or x16 slots.  Although electrically x16, they should work fine in 5810's x8 slot, just with halved total performance of ~6,800 MB/s - individual M.2 device performance should be same at ~3,400 MB/s.  But again, expensive at over $400.  At ~$300, there's also A ADWITS Quad M.2 NVMe SSD PCIe X16 Adapter and RIITOP Quad M.2 NVMe SSD PCIe x16 Adapter - both are based on ASMedia’s ASM2824 chipset.  I have no experience with any of these.  

There exist Ultra speed drive card in version for 2 M.2 SSD. It is Dell Ultra speed drive Duo. But this duo card is hard to find. To purchase additional quad card is relatively easy on eBay. But I never seen Duo card for sale.
Exist also AOC-SLG3-2M2 dual M.2 host card made by Supermicro. I don't know its functionality on T5810. This is without any heatsink and fan. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Supermicro-AOC-SLG3-2M2-PCIe-Add-On-Card-for-up-to-Two-NVMe-SSDs/143402758089?epid=872632611&hash=item2163786fc9:g:8voAAOSwOXBdmChc
Also how you can see on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaB_6xUnh_s in this video he has T7810 with some M.2 SSD host card in x8 slot. Maybe this can be potential source for host card working in T5810.

Regarding GPU in x8 slot.
I own T7810 which motherboard looks very similar to T5810. Or generally T7810 looks very similar like T5810. I think that only main difference is that T7810 is for 2 CPUs with 4 memory slot per CPU.
I tested how it will work to move Quadro M2000 card from x16 slot to x8 slot (x16 wired as x8). It was functional, but you should have on mind one important thing. Both full x16 slots are 75W, but x8 is only 25W. Generally all other slots are only 25W. I looked on photo of T5810 motherboard and PCIe slots are same.
M2000 is 75W and don't uses auxiliary PCIe power cable. Its minimum power is just 25W. How I measured 25W is power consumed in standard imaging when you are not using 3D graphic. In any case for long term operation in x8 slot will be necessary to limit power to 25W by nvidia-smi.
How it will works with cards that requires more than 75W I don't know. Such card uses for this reason auxiliary power PCIe cable and can has bigger minimum power than 25W. In this case it will not be able to work in x8 slot. I think that in any case by nvidia-smi you are able to limit only overall power. So, this means you are not able to limit how much will be maximum delivery for PCIe slot a how much for auxiliary PCIe cable.
So, this means that in practice is GPU operation in x8 slot problematic.

I thought about to move GPU to x8 slot for relative similar reason. I want to purchase more powerfull GPU that I'm intent to use for rendering and scientific computations. Problem is that in situation when same GPU is also used for imaging (this means simply that monitor cables are connected to it) this will slow down computing power. By current operation of M2000 I also learned that during heavy load this very slowing down imaging. For this reason I have idea to use M2000 with new GPU together and M2000 to use only for imaging. But problem is, that currently M2000 is placed on one x16 slot and in 2nd is Ultra speed drive quad card. So, only solution for me how to use both GPUs together is to move one of this to x8 slot.

Hi Andy,

Did you have to do anything in the bios or with drivers to get your Dell Ultra-Speed Drive Quad NVMe M.2 PCIe x16 Card to work in the 5820? Was it plug and play?  I can not get my system to see it.

Thanks,

Arthur

Thank you; You seem to have researched the subject thoroughly, did you ever come across an NVME adapter that supports RAID1 and is supported under vSphere 6+ hypervisor? 

having same problem with dell Precision Tower 5810 the computer don't see it in bios  Ultra-Speed Drive Quad-NVMe M.2 PCIe x16 Card

Did they solve your problem with dell precision t5810 

Did u solve your problem? 
i have the same problem with t5820, bios didn’t see card.

It's working fine in my T7910. The installation was plug and play, without the need for bios tweaks or drivers.

AARoberts, phoenix6721, NVM-Team, are you trying to boot from your M2? This may be the reason your computers cannot see it!

I understand that only the Samsung 950 and 960 Pro M2 drives will boot when using this card, however any other brand should work as a storage drive.

I’m only instal card in PC without any SSD, just for check. But bios don’t see this card.May be this card not for my T5820 with I9, this reason why I didn’t buy SSD. How to see that card in bios? 

You should see the M2 drive in the bios, not the card. If it does not show, there must be a compatibility issue with the T5820.

The T5820 does support M2. See the hard drive customisation at:

https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/cty/pdp/spd/precision-5820-workstation/xctopt5820us_2?configurationid=262c83c9-844f-4ca0-a0b5-7bfcc0c23c9e

You may need a special controller however. My T7910 didn't have any of these hassles.