Quad M.2 Adapters?

Technical Support
1

Hello…

Are there any quad M.2 adapters that support 4 MX3 devices?

Are there any devices that will support 4 MX3 devices with a Raspberry Pi 5?

For my particular application, even something connected with USB3/USB4 would work.

Thanks!

Jamie

2

Hi Jamie,

For 4x M.2 carriers on desktops

Cards for hosts with bifurcation:

These work for systems that support x4x4x4x4 PCIe bifurcation. Nearly all AMD Ryzen/Threadripper/Epyc support this, while for Intel it can vary: some desktop motherboard+CPU combos only do x8/x8, not the needed x4/x4/x4/x4. Their workstation and server CPUs all have x4x4x4x4, though.

  • ASUS Hyper M.2 Gen5 (ASUS, Amazon)
    • Big, but keeps the accelerators cool on its own
  • ASUS Hyper M.2 PCIe 3.0 (ASUS, Amazon)
    • Much smaller, but its fan doesn’t do a great job so you’ll need additional airflow around it

Cards for hosts without bifurcation support:

These have PCIe switches on-board, so the host doesn’t need bifurcation. However they do tend to be much more expensive.

We’ve used some by HighPoint before, namely their SSD7104 and SSD7105.

For Raspberry Pi

PCIe HATs:

Unfortunately here the situation is different – you’ll need to find a card with a true PCIe switch (not an NVMe-only controller or USB) like this 2x M.2 hat from SeeedStudio. On paper should work with MX3, but I haven’t tested it myself… it’s probably a good idea to try this out, so I’ve ordered it today and will keep you updated with the result!

USB:

The MX3 M.2 is PCIe protocol only, so USB 2/3 adapters won’t work with it. We do have a native USB card with MX3 coming later this year, but our M.2 is PCIe only.

Let me know if you have questions here, and I’ll update this thread with the RPi 2x M.2 HAT result soon.

Thanks,

Tim