From owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Wed Oct 14 17:54:57 2015 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@mailman.ysv.freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) by mailman.ysv.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A8D1CA15BD6 for ; Wed, 14 Oct 2015 17:54:57 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from lists@midsummerdream.org) Received: from p3plsmtpa11-08.prod.phx3.secureserver.net (p3plsmtpa11-08.prod.phx3.secureserver.net [68.178.252.109]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA (128/128 bits)) (Client CN "Bizanga Labs SMTP Client Certificate", Issuer "Bizanga Labs CA" (not verified)) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 862D11F93 for ; Wed, 14 Oct 2015 17:54:56 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from lists@midsummerdream.org) Received: from titania.midsummerdream.org ([107.197.157.90]) by p3plsmtpa11-08.prod.phx3.secureserver.net with id V5tJ1r00C1xJNYB015tKNx; Wed, 14 Oct 2015 10:53:19 -0700 X-Sender: oberon@midsummerdream.org From: Rob Rati Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Subject: PCI-E SSD cards Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2015 13:53:26 -0400 Message-Id: To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v1283) X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.1283) X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.20 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2015 17:54:57 -0000 I was looking at adding an ssd for a zil and/or l2arc to my zfs pool but = all my hard drive bays are full. I have free pci-e slots, so I started = looking at using that instead of a physical drive. Does anyone have any = experience with these ssd pci-e cards in FreeBSD? Do they work without = issue, or are there specific ones I should [not] try to use? On a technical point, there are a lot of these ssd cards in the m.2 form = factor. Using that form factor would allow me to use multiple ssd cards = and get some zil mirroring for resiliency. What I haven't been able to = tell is what type of slot accepts an m.2 form factor card. I know there = is the sata-to-sata vs pcie-to-pcie type issue, but everything I have = found seems to imply that the m.2 form factor card would fit into a = pci-e 1x-16x slot. Is that correct? Does it matter how new the MB is = if it has pci-e slots? Rob=