Help with PCIE 4.0x4 to 3.0x8

Hardware Hub Storage
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Hi all, (I am new here).

I am currently working on upgrading the storage of my production workstation.
I have recently been playing around with and testing out the solidigm P44 pro and P41 plus. and so far they are awesome drives. So I wanted to add some to my workstation, but the problem being that my workstation is an older xeon system and only supporting PCIe3.0.

Are any of you familiar with some good adapters / add in cards that work at the full performance (or next to) of PCIe gen 4, that works in PCIe gen 3 slots at that performance?

Any help or recommendation would be appreciated.
(Just to clarify, I am looking for either single or double PCIe4x4 M.2 to PCIe3x8 or x16. Thanks again for any help or insight you can provide.)

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Forget it, they don’t exist. The Soligigm drives, from what I understand, will clock down to PCIe gen 3 speeds if connected to such slot. Yes, you’d “leave 50% potential performance”, but in effect you’ll get 100% performance for your platform.

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If you’re set on only using M.2 SSDs there are products with an active PCIe Gen4 switch chipset:

They work in a host that only supports PCIe Gen3 but of course with reduced maximum performance. You can max out two PCIe Gen4 x4 NVMe SSDs in a PCIe Gen3 x16 slot, for example.

I’ve personally tested this with Gen4 U.2 SSDs, a Broadcom P411W-32P (PCIe Gen4) and an AMD AM4 system that only supports PCIe Gen3 (Ryzen PRO 5750G).

3 Likes
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They make M.2 to U.2 adapters to expand options a bit

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Thats good to know it works, I honestly wasnt sure it would work exactly like that (hoped but wasnt sure since its not just a plx chip)

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Thanks a lot, that was exactly that kind of equipment I was look for.
And great to hear that it works :slight_smile:

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