SuperMicro X11SSH-CTF and m.2 specifications

[mloiterman]

SuperMicro says that the X11SSH-CTF board only supports an m.2 with 2260 Form Factor:

https://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon/C236_C232/X11SSH-CTF.cfm

However, many of the other XX11SSH boards show support for 2280 Form Factor. The world seems full of 2280 boards with PCIe support, but it seems hard (if not impossible) to find an m.2 2260 with the PCIe 3.0 x4 interface. So far I don't think I've seen any, but look forward to being corrected.

I'm going to call SuperMicro tomorrow to see if a mistake has been made, but does anyone have any first hand experience with an X11SSH-CTF and a 2280 m.2 board?

Also, is the m.2 board a bootable device for the X11SSH-CTF? I'm having a hard time figuring that out from the manual which is...sparse on a lot of important details.

 

[Ericloewe]

Looking at the picture, there seems to be enough room for a longer card. They just didn't have the room for a standoff to screw them into.

Just improvise some solution if the card feels too loose.

As for booting from NVMe, all Skylake BIOSes should be able to boot from NVMe devices. Booting from AHCI is naturally supported as well.

 

[mloiterman]

Looking at the picture, there seems to be enough room for a longer card. They just didn't have the room for a standoff to screw them into.

Just improvise some solution if the card feels too loose.

As for booting from NVMe, all Skylake BIOSes should be able to boot from NVMe devices. Booting from AHCI is naturally supported as well.

I called SuperMicro today and they've indicated that the X11SSH-CTF board is compatible with 2260 m.2 cards ONLY - no 2280 cards.

I'm still having a hell of a time finding a compatible m.2 2260 PCIe card though. I welcome any tips.

 

[Ericloewe]

I called SuperMicro today and they've indicated that the X11SSH-CTF board is compatible with 2260 m.2 cards ONLY - no 2280 cards.

As I said, it's very umoikely that longer cards won't fit. The only problem is that the standoff you're supposed to screw them to didn't fit a sit would've ended up over the Lattice chip.

 

[mloiterman]

As I said, it's very umoikely that longer cards won't fit. The only problem is that the standoff you're supposed to screw them to didn't fit a sit would've ended up over the Lattice chip.

I guess it comes down to the amount of tension on the m connector - is it enough to hold it in place with securing it to the motherboard? This is my first experience with the m connector, so I have no idea. If it's anything like the tension on a DIMM, I guess it would be ok. Once I set up the server and put it in my rack, it's not going move, but is the weight of the card without the support of screwing it down to the motherboard be enough to slowly pull it form the connector? I wouldn't think so, but as I said, I have no experience with m.2.

The other question is if all this is even worth it for the boot device. I want to use the m device because I don't want to give up one of my SATA connections for an SSD boot drive. I also don't want to use a USB drive because of reliability and the SuperDOM will cause me to also lose a SATA connection.

Thoughts?

 

[Mugiwara]

Sorry to bring this up from a few months ago, but did you ever go ahead and give this a try? I was about to bite the bullet and buy the mobo, ram, and CPU, but then when I got to the ssd, I saw the form factor. At this point, there are very few high quality m.2 2260 SSDs, that Ive been able to find anyway. Did you try a 2280 or go with a 2260? Thanks.

 

[mloiterman]

Sorry to bring this up from a few months ago, but did you ever go ahead and give this a try? I was about to bite the bullet and buy the mobo, ram, and CPU, but then when I got to the ssd, I saw the form factor. At this point, there are very few high quality m.2 2260 SSDs, that Ive been able to find anyway. Did you try a 2280 or go with a 2260? Thanks.

Because the 2260's were so hard to find, I ended up using the 2280 and using some electronics heat tape to secure it to the motherboard. It works perfectly and I haven't had any problems.

 

[Mugiwara]

Because the 2260's were so hard to find, I ended up using the 2280 and using some electronics heat tape to secure it to the motherboard. It works perfectly and I haven't had any problems.

Perfect, thanks for letting me know, exactly what I needed to hear. Are you using a NvME or a SATA 3 M.2 drive?