Add NVMe slots to your Proxmox Server with Hardware and Bifurcation Mods!
So I have been doing all kinds of modding and strategizing on my Proxmox server and trying different things on my second Proxmox server build. Since I am using the Minisforum BD795i SE, this is a great board, but limited on connectivity in terms of storage options. Unlike the BD795M, it doesn’t have SATA ports and only 2 NVMe ports. Is there a way to add NVMe slots to your Proxmox server build? It turns out there are quite a few interesting hardware devices.
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Hardware devices and bifurcation
There are extremely interesting hardware devices out there if you just take a quick peek on Amazon or other online retailer selling components. Just search for “pcie bifurcation” and you will see all kinds of interesting options displayed for splitting up a PCIe slot into different “lanes. I wrote a recent blog covering the ins and outs of bifurcation and why you need this feature for your home server.
Bifurcation is the feature that allows taking advantage of the hardware components. Without the feature built into your motherboard, even with the hardware, it won’t work. The motherboard has to “know” that it is splitting up the PCIe lanes into different lanes of traffic for different devices.
The cards I have purchased and using
There are two cards that I have purchased and testing out in my latest home server build. I ran into a challenge with my case that I will detail, but as far as the hardware components, the bifurcation capabilities of the BD795i SE, it is working perfectly.
If you want to have more details on the Proxmox Server build option two that I did recently, check out my post here:
RIITOP Dual NVMe PCIe Adapter, PCIe 4.0 X16 to Dual NVMe and 1x More PCIe x16 (x8 Signal) Adapter for 22110/2280/2260/2242/2230 M.2 NVMe SSD
This is the riser card that allows you to add NVMe slots to your Proxmox Server by having 2 NVMe drives in addition to opening the slot back up for use. As you can see, the NVMe drives mount on each side of the riser card. Then you can plug in a PCIe card into the top just like you would otherwise. However, with bifurcation, this opens this as a possibility.
So this card plugs into your motherboard. Check out the Amazon link below (affiliate link that I earn a small commission on):
PCI-E 16X Riser Card Adapter – Flexible 90° Right Angle GPU Mount, 16X to 16X Gen 4.0 Extension
The PCI-E 16X riser card adapter turns your slot into a 90 degree angle. So for my rackchoice 2U server case, it allowed me to plug in the adapter and then have my network card flipped the other way. This did present a challenge though with the design of my current case.
This card plugs into the card above switching the direction to 90 degress right-angle for the network card. I needed this for my 2U case.
Check out the Amazon link below (affiliate link that I earn a small commission on):
Enabling bifurcation
Now that I have the hardware components installed, I needed to enable bifurcation. I selected the 4x4x4x4 option on my BIOS settings:
Your case needs to support these hardware components
As a PSA when you start using these kinds of add-in cards, you may need to modify things to get this to work in your case, if like me, you are using a 2U server case. I had to modify my case with some pretty drastic mods (cutting out the spines between the slots and screwing a brace in for my Intel 10 GbE card).
If you want to do this, you need to be aware of the design differences between a vertical orientation of your add-in cards vs a horizontal add-in orientation that is usually described as compatibility with a riser card. Riser cards normally flip the orientation 90 degrees so that your cards are horizontal rather than vertical.
Where you see the arrows are screws and nuts on the other side where I have secured the card for support and used one of the inserts as a support bracket for the other side of the 10 GbE card. If you have a different case, this may not be an issue. However, just note that you need to do your homework ahead of time to know what mods you may need to make.
The results of the bifurcation cards and case mods
What are the results of making these mods to the case and adding the bifurcation cards to my Minisforum BD795i SE motherboard? Now I am able to have multiple NVMe drives attached to this motherboard and also have 10 GbE connections to the server.
Below you can see (3) M.2 drives that are attached, these break down as the following:
- 1 drive is on one of the M.2 slots on the motherboard
- 2 drives are housed on the new RIITOP card
Then I have 1 U.2 drive that is running from the other M.2 slot on the motherboard.
You can see below I have (2) 10 GbE connections which shows the PCIe card is recognized and used in conjunction with the (2) NVMe drives you see in the above screenshot. It tells us that we are making full use of the PCIe slot with a card plugged in and 2 NVMe drives running with bifurcation enabled.
Wrapping up
This has been a fun exercise in seeing just what is possible to add NVMe slots to your Proxmox Server with the Minisforum BD795i SE motherboard since it supports bifurcation. The two hardware cards that I used here are not the only options and there are probably options out there that keep you from having to mod your case like I did, but it just shows what is possible if you want to do something like I have done here. It allows fully making use of a PCIe card slot and allows you to make up for limitations on a motherboard like the BD795i SE that only has (2) M.2 slots. Bifurcation is definitely your friend.
