Ugh! If I can't boot off it, I can't really use it. My use case is one non-spinning drive to host /, while other, spinning drives hold my huge partitions like /home, /d, /s, and /scratch. Having all executables and /etc based config come off a non-spinning drive speeds things up immensely, but I have to boot off that drive. Unless I did some weird stuff like putting /boot on a spinning drive and ubertweaking grub or UEFI. I assume the new mobos with built in NVIe can easily boot NVIe. Perhaps I'll wait til the next mobo purchase. SteveT On Tue, 22 May 2018 15:29:46 -0700 Brian Cluff wrote: > On an older system while you can add a PCI card to the system, in a > lot of cases you won't be able to boot off of it without motherboard > support.  You can get around that by keeping a spinning drive or a > small ssd or USB crive that actually boots the system and then > immediately hands over to the root partition on the NVMe letting you > have your cake and eat it too. > > While a pure PCIe based card  is quite expensive, you can get a PCI > card that will give you an M.2 slot for around $13 and up.  The nice > thing about getting the adapter, other than saving some money, is > that most new motherboards are shipping with one or more NVMe m.2 > slots, so you will be able to carry your drive over to a new computer > when you decide to upgrade. > > Brian Cluff > > On 05/22/2018 02:50 PM, Stephen Partington wrote: > > there are a few ways to get an NVMe drive in your system. M.2 PCIe > > based drive. you can also buy a PCIe card to mount one as well as a > > PCIe card that is integrated. There is also a U.2 which was aimed > > more towards Server architecture. > > > > a x1 slot has a single direction BW of 2.5 Gbps/200MBps and x4 slot > > can move 1 Gbps/800MBps > > > > so most NVMe based m.2 drives are wired to 2 or 4 lanes. In your > > case a 4x PCIe slot would be a great deal of performance even over > > the normal SATA bandwidth. > > > > the PCIe cards do have a fair amount of cost added to them. > > > > On Tue, May 22, 2018 at 2:30 PM, Steve Litt > > > > > wrote: > > > > On Tue, 22 May 2018 13:57:29 -0700 > > Brian Cluff > > > wrote: > > > For me, I would get a system that can use a NVMe.  They are > > about the > > > same price as an SSD, but make and SSD look extremely slow. > > > > This is the first I've heard of NVMe. I just read > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NVM_Express > > , and now have some > > questions: > > > > 1) Can I replace the spinning platter 2.5" hard disk in my 5 > > year old laptop with an NVMe device? My research tells me an NVMe > > must plug into a PCIe slot rather than a SATA slot. > > > > 2) Do you fstrim NVMe-hosted partitions the same way you do for > > SSD? > > > > 3) When you install an NVMe card in a PCIe slot, what device > > name shows > >    up? Is it sd-whatever, or something else? > > > > 4) If my desktop has a free PCIe slot, does that mean I can > > plug in an NVIe drive and use it? > > > > Thanks, > > > > SteveT > > > > Steve Litt > > June 2018 featured book: Twenty Eight Tales of Troubleshooting SteveT Steve Litt June 2018 featured book: Twenty Eight Tales of Troubleshooting http://www.troubleshooters.com/28 --------------------------------------------------- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss