I don’t really know much about M.2 slots and the different capabilities and how the key type corresponds, so I don’t want to spend money on something that won’t work.
There’s an unused slot on the motherboard marked ‘M.2 PCIe / SATA1’. I believe it’s M-keyed.
Can it be used with an M+B keyed adapter like this one? Or will it physically fit, but the socket itself isn’t wired to work with an ethernet adapter? Is there a command I can run to figure out the capabilities of that slot?
My plan is to use this machine as an OpenWrt router to replace the shitty Linksys one my ISP supplied, but it would obviously need a second ethernet socket. My home wifi is dealt with by a TP-Link mesh network, so I don’t need it to have wifi and bluetooth. I could use the slot that the networking card is using, but if I can retain those then that would be ideal for any future flexibility I may need.
It is wired for PCIe, it will probably work, I have personally had wonderful luck with these kinds of things, but you always risk stupid UEFI vendor code stopping it from working.
In other words, if it’s correctly labeled, it will work unless Dell actively prevented it from doing so, but that isn’t out of the question.
I’m in a rush but ive put Ethernet cards in both slots of my optiplex 3080 m.2 slots. The top right slot is vanilla and 4xpcie lanes,full speed. The bottom left is A+e keying and only 1x lane which is enough for 2.5gig Ethernet. This is ultimately what i used. For my prfesene box I added a second card, a 2 port Ethernet card to the top right m.2 slot and made it a four port beast.
Ok sorry its been a busy day but here are the things I ordered and all work:
Godspeed!
The key doesn’t correspond to capability. It’s about the connector’s physical shape. i.e. which side is the lil notch on. B has a notch on the right, M on the left. B & M have a notch on both sides and therefore fits into either connector, but it is limited to PCIex2/SATA speed (i’d guess this won’t matter to you as pciex2 is around 4gbps even on pci1). It also doesn’t mean the length would fit, that’ll be a number like 2230, 2280 etc.
You’d have to check the manual for the motherboard to see if it specifies, but if it’s labelled m.2 PCIe it should work I think. If it only said SATA then it would not work.
You can try
dmidecode --type sloton Linux, it should list them as available and presumably specify the type to be PCI express.I think ultimately you’ll only know when you try, but these may give you some confidence.
Huh, TIL that B-keyed slots can have any PCIe at all. I thought it meant SATA-only.
This is the output of dmidecode
Handle 0x0026, DMI type 9, 17 bytes System Slot Information Designation: SLOT1_M.2 Type: x4 M.2 Socket 3 Current Usage: Available Length: Long Characteristics: 3.3 V is provided PME signal is supported Bus Address: 0000:ff:1f.7
Handle 0x0027, DMI type 9, 17 bytes System Slot Information Designation: SLOT2_M.2 Type: x1 M.2 Socket 1-SD Current Usage: In Use Length: Short Characteristics: 3.3 V is provided PME signal is supported Bus Address: 0000:ff:00.0
I’m guessing the top one is the M.2 in question, on account of it saying “Available”. And from what I understand having searched for some of the info on that, it should work, assuming the firmware allows for it.
I believe the fact that it comes up as a “slot” is positive. SATA m.2 connectors don’t show up under slots, they come under "connector"s with type SATA.
I don’t see why not, and for $24 you may as well give it a go.
It should work, but its kinda one of those things where you won’t know until you try. As long as the Ethernet adapter is using an Intel or Realtek chipset, you shouldn’t have any issues driver-wise
Do note you can use a device with only one ethernet port as a router/firewall, if you have a managed switch, you just only get half-duplex speeds naturally.
You don’t strictly need a managed switch, but I would recommend it for security.
But where are you getting half duplex from? I’ve never seen anything support half duplex gigabit Ethernet. A router on a stick is as fast as your adapter chipset can push packets.
It’s not actually half duplex, but because every outbound packet needs an inbound twin (and vice versa) on the same cable, you get half-duplex rates for the interface in effect.
No, if everything supports it, you can can get full gigabit line rate in both directions at the same time.
Got 3080 recently, there is one m2 for ssd, second one is for wifi/bt.
So the currently unused slot won’t work with an ethernet adapter? It’s purely for storage?
I’m not entirely sure. I think it probably should. I think the second slot (used for wifi) is a different size than the storage slot and a little slower, but still faster than 1gbps ethernet. Check the port sizes. And verify all I said, I have 3080 for a week and migrated my home server to it, so I didn’t do much inside investigation :)
My router is literally exactly that running proxmox with pfsense, pihole, and wifi controller VMs. No issues works fantastic, make sure it auto boots in bios and you should have a great time.
Not a direct answer to your question, but assuming you have a switch that supports VLANs you don’t need a second ethernet port at all.
Yes. I’m doing that with a 7040mff right now.
Yes but I personally wouldn’t run OpenWRT on x86. I would instead pickup a old gateway/firewall device that is supported by openwrt.
It is PCIe, so yes.
