Adding NVME drive to old desktops

[wizard]

Recently while working on grub2config issues I realized none of my old computers had a NVME drive. This slowed the analysis and debugging process way down since I needed others to test code changes.

Since buying a newer computer with a NVME drive was not in my computer budget, I opted to purchase a NVME to PCIe adapter. Plugging a NVME drive into the adapter, then plugging the adapter into a PCIe expansion slot gives you the advantages of NVME on older computers.

Purchased the adapter (about $2 US) on Ebay described as: 1*NVMe M.2 NGFF SSD to PCI-E PCI express 3.0 16x x4 adapter riser card conH4

EDIT 240421
Note: some bios will not recognize the NVME adapter as a boot device

The read/write speed increase will be most noticeable in MS Windows or big Linux distros that load from and do a lot of drive reads. Also note that computers with newer versions of PCIe will be considerably faster than the system tested.

Here are some read/write comparison test results. The NVME is many times faster than the HDD and even the SSD.
Hardware:
Intel dg31pr (2007)
cpu=Intel Q6600 2.4ghx 4 core
ram=4gb
PCIe=v1.0a

Harddrive 7200rpm

hitachi7200.jpg (42.45 KiB) Viewed 598 times

Samsung SSD

samsung850-128-sata.jpg (41.41 KiB) Viewed 598 times

NVME in PCIe

wd250-nvme-pcie.jpg (43.35 KiB) Viewed 598 times

wizard

[wizard]

Added note that some bios will not recognize the adapter as a boot device

wizard

[bigpup]

Does Puppy show desktop drive icons for the drive?
If yes.
Do they seem to mount and UN-mount OK?

What name on the icon is given for the drive?
NVME or sd something?

Rox can access them OK?

The latest versions of Puppy Linux has fixed the issues with accessing NVME drives.

Not sure how old a Puppy version you could get this to work with.

If seen as an sd something drive.
Probably all Puppy versions could see and use it.

[mikewalsh]

@wizard :-

Added note that some bios will not recognize the adapter as a boot device

wizard

Now that's what I was wondering about.

I had a similar issue, some years ago, before external USB 3.0 HDDs were fully recognised by adapters. I added a PCI-e to USB 3.0 adapter card into ye ancient Compaq desktop; it was ace for pure data transfer, but the BIOS would NOT recognise the external HDD as a boot device.....all down to lack of support by the card's controller chip. So this doesn't really surprise me, TBH.

Fast-forward to today. According to the specs - though I haven't actually opened the case and looked for it! - this HP desktop does have a single M2 slot. Technically, I guess I could add an nVME drive in here, but in all honesty the 500MB/s transfer speed of this 1 TB Crucial MX500 SSD primary drive is plenty fast enough for me.....

And even though what you describe would certainly work, older machines are still going to be limited to whatever speed their respective PCI-e architecture/generation actually supports & runs at. I doubt modern nVME drives would be able to reach their full potential in such an arrangement.

It's definitely "do-able", though!

(*shrug...*)

Mike.

[fredx181]

Does Puppy show desktop drive icons for the drive?

Yes, for me it does ok on FossaPup and BookwormPup. (but names are a bit truncated because of the name length, I guess. EDIT: on Fossapup only, but not truncated, just overlapping each other a bit))

Do they seem to mount and UN-mount OK?

Yes.

What name on the icon is given for the drive?

For me as "nvme0n1p1" "nvme0n1p2" etc.. (compared with sda1 sda2 ...)

Rox can access them OK?

Yes.

[mikewalsh]

Does Puppy show desktop drive icons for the drive?

Yes, for me it does ok on FossaPup and BookwormPup. (but names are a bit truncated because of the name length, I guess)

What name on the icon is given for the drive?

For me as "nvme0n1p1" "nvme0n1p2" etc.. (compared with sda1 sda2 ...)

If you've got the desktop space, rt-clk -> Desktop Drive Icon Manager.......and increase the 'Spacing' gap till they DO show clearly. No reason the drive icons HAVE to remain jammed into the bottom left corner, as they come OOTB.

Drive icon position and spacing is one of the first things I adjust when beginning to customize a new Puppy. Mine sit toward the centre bottom of the screen, slightly higher up than usual, and spaced out so that all drive labels show clearly. And then they get their own, dedicated "dock"..!

[Click to enlarge:-]

Mike.

[wizard]

@bigpup

Have tried the NVME adapter in 3 old computers, Intel, Dell & HP. BW64, F96, F95 and Bionic32, all of them:
-show desktop icons
-identify the drive as NVME
-mount/unmount
-Rox works normally

None of these identifiy the drive as bootable. Currently looking at workarounds for that.

Thanks
wizard

[wizard]

@mikewalsh

I doubt modern nVME drives would be able to reach their full potential in such an arrangement.

Yep, but looking at the test data, you can wind up with a really fast storage drive, a real plus if you're moving lots of data around or have a file server streaming content. Just another option to consider.

@fredx181

Does your installation show up as a boot drive?

Thanks
wizard

[fredx181]

Does your installation show up as a boot drive?

If you mean the partition where the puppy is frugal installed for me, yes (also the drive where the bootloader is installed btw (FAT32 grub2 EFI)
edit: perhaps you mean if it's labeled as boot drive? don't know. /mnt/home is pointing to the correct drive.

[mikewalsh]

@wizard :-

Aye, I agree. Your test results even trump my primary SATA SSD, which regularly hits 500MB/s on read speeds. I wouldn't mind doing something like this with the Lat, but I doubt any of the other components would 'play nice'. And I don't know of anyone that makes such adapters for laptops.....plus, I wouldn't even know where you could plug such a device in.

We can but dream!!

Mike.

[wizard]

@fredx181

Nope, just wondering if you are using a NVME drive installed in a PCIe adapter and if so can you boot from it?

Thanks
wizard

[fredx181]

@fredx181

Nope, just wondering if you are using a NVME drive installed in a PCIe adapter and if so can you boot from it?

Thanks
wizard

Ah sorry, didn't realize it's specific about when using the adapter, I just have nvme drive in my laptop.

[Jasper]

@wizard

Are you using a PCIe 3.0 motherboard?

You said that you tried it in 3 different PC's with successful results ie recognised the device/drivers installed and were able to use the NVME storage.

[Clarity]

Hello @wizard. Nice report showing your findings.

I am assuming your PCs must be 2011 or newer.

Few Questions

• Is your new card plugged into a X1 slot or an X16 slot?

• Did the card indicate its power needs and did that addition impact the power envelope of the PC(s) power supply?

• I am led to believe that it could be your NVME itself 'may' be the problem or a contributor to problem. Do you have any other NVMEs you could exchange where you know it can be seen as a boot drive; which could be swapped in temporarily? (yet, I fully recognize that it "might not" be the problem and the card, itself, may not be set to pass thru the ability that the NVME card might possess because some cards take liberties with the interface standards.

[bigpup]

None of these identifiy the drive as bootable. Currently looking at workarounds for that.

I setup all my drives with two or more partitions to allow booting from them.

1st small 300MB partition, formatted fat 32, flagged boot, esp
Boot loader is installed on it.

Most computer bios-es are looking to see a fat32 formatted 1st partition, with the boot loader files on it, and flagged boot.
To see it as a boot-able drive.

Drive may not show in bios boot devices, unless it does have a boot loader on it, in the 1st partition.

Rest of drive one or more partitions in different formats to do Puppy frugal installs on.

[wizard]

@Jasper

Per my first post, the test are on a Intel mb, PCIe v1.0a from 2007. It's MBR only, so that's the lowest spec board.
also tested:
Dell 7010, 2012, PCIe v2
HP 5810, 2015, PCIe v1.0a

@Clarity

adapter is in x16 slot. Power is not the issue since the drive can be accessed as storage without problems. Only have the one NVME.

@bigpup

Yep, the NVME is formatted for UEFI with all the standard partitions and boot flag set. Grub2 setup on first fat32 partition.

Thanks
wizard

[TerryH]

@Jasper

Per my first post, the test are on a Intel mb, PCIe v1.0a from 2007. It's MBR only, so that's the lowest spec board.
also tested:
Dell 7010, 2012, PCIe v2
HP 5810, 2015, PCIe v1.0a

@Clarity

adapter is in x16 slot. Power is not the issue since the drive can be accessed as storage without problems. Only have the one NVME.

@bigpup

Yep, the NVME is formatted for UEFI with all the standard partitions and boot flag set. Grub2 setup on first fat32 partition.

Thanks
wizard

I now only have UEFI PC's, so what I am suggesting may not be possible. Yesterday on my Asus laptop I had an SSD in an external enclosure, which I had done a full install of a distribution, which I had booted/rebooted several times a couple of days earlier. I plugged the SSD into a Type-C plug and it wasn't identified as a boot option when I pressed F2. I checked using the other 2 USB sockets (2x Type-C, 1x Type-A), still nothing. I also tried different cables. The boot partition had been set up correctly during the installation, I have no idea why it just stopped appearing as a boot option,
Then checking the UEFI, which in my laptop is fully open, it has an option to manually specify the boot option. I checked and the USB SSD was available, so after several clicks, I saw the bootx64.efi on the 1st partition of the SSD, so saved that setting. On boot the SSD now appears. So maybe worth looking to see if you can manually set it up to boot.