ASRock WRX80 Creator has one nvme attached directly to CPU and another one via chipset. Is it okay to use those nvme slots for RAID or should I go with M.2 card? My primary concern is whether performance difference between chipset attached nvme and cpu attached one will be noticeable and will affect array perfornance in noticeable way?
I’m talking about software raid ofc (btrfs)
Yep. If you spend all that money on all these juicy CPU-attached PCIe lanes, you should use them.
Chipset attached m.2 slots incur latency and (depending on concurrent use of other chipset attached devices) other penalties.
I would only use the chipset M.2 for boot drive(s) (mirror). If you have 128 CPU lanes to work with, you don’t want bandwidth bottleneck between CPU and chipset.
With bifurcation support on the slot, you can get those nice ASUS Hyper X cards for PCIe 4.0 and 2-4 cards for <100$ which is pocket change for a TR Pro machine.
For me, not having to rely on (usually) overbooked chipset bandwidth, is one of the best features on TR/EPYC boards over consumer ones.
And boot drives dont need much bandwidth and most chipset bandwidth is available for periphery like NICs,USB and Thunderbolt.
One more question then - is it still advised in 2022 to have separate OS drive? I mean well… I probably could use that chipset m.2 slot for OS drive so that it doesn’t go to waste…
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