M.2 SSDs and X10SDV motherboard

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JJT211

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I just discovered my mobo (Supermicro X10SDV-4C-TLN2F w/ Intel Xeon D-1521) supports M.2 cards and I'd like to use one as my boot drive as im tired of replacing thumb drives every year.

I did some research and stumbled upon this thread that goes into some m.2 compatibility issues on the X11SSH mobo. From my Mobo manual, this is the only info I could find regarding the m.2 slot

M.2 Socket
M.2 is formerly known as Next Generation Form Factor (NGFF). The J21 connector is designed for internal mounting devices. The X10SDV series deploy an M key only dedicated for SSD devices with the ultimate performance capability in a PCI Express 3.0 X4 interface for native PCIe SSD support. The X10SDV M.2 is mux with the I-SATA0 port for legacy SATA SSD devices



Im really not sure im grasping all of this correctly, but sounds to me like its saying the m.2 needs to be PCIe but has legacy support for SATA. Does that mean I can use one of these m.2 SataIII cards I found on amazon?

https://www.amazon.com/s/gp/search/ref=sr_nr_p_n_feature_three_br_6?fst=as:off&rh=n:172282,n:541966,n:1292110011,n:1292116011,k:m.2,p_n_feature_three_browse-bin:14027456011&keywords=m.2&ie=UTF8&qid=1545392541&rnid=6797515011

If not, can anyone point me in the right direction as to which m.2 cards would work on my mobo?
 
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Chris Moore

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JJT211

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So I installed m.2 card and installed FreeNAS on the m.2 card but after installation, my system will not boot from the m.2 card. IT does not recognize the device at all. Strange cuz the FreeNAS install recognizes it as a drive, but I do not have the option to boot from it afterwards. Any ideas?

First pic is Intel m.2 drive recognized by FreeNAS

Second pic is boot menu with only my NAS disk and no boot drive.

EDIT: I started a new thread in installation forum
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...-will-not-boot-or-show-in-boot-options.72402/
 

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pschatz100

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FreeNAS loads a driver that allows the system to see the m.2 drive - which means it can be used as a data drive. This happens during the boot process. Whether or not you can actually boot from an m.2 drive is dependent on your motherboard and bios settings - it has nothing to do with the operating system. I am not familiar with your motherboard, so I can't comment specifically, but I would check the manual to see whether or not it can be configured to use an m.2 drive as a boot device. I would imagine that you could go into the bios setup and see whether or not the motherboard recognizes the m.2 drive as an available boot device.

I tried the same thing on an older X9-SCM motherboard, but I was not able to configure my system to boot from the m.2 drive. The board does not support it. I ended up using the m.2 drive for jails.
 

JJT211

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In the BIOS, im seeing the same thing, well actually the absence of, the m.2. I looked all over the BIOS and the manual and didnt see anything relating to m.2 being bootable. So yea, I think you're right. Im probably going to just use it as a caching drive then.
 

Stux

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Did you install for BIOS or UEFI booting?
 

JJT211

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BIOS
 

Stux

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JJT211

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It worked! Thanks!
 
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