Anyone knows of any active (i.e. no mobo bifurcation needed) x16 NVMe add-on cards that are PCIe 4 (preferably 5)? I’ve seen plenty of PCIe 3 such cards, though nothing beyond that.
(Just for reference, PCIe 4 was introduced in 2017(!).)
I “know of” but have never used:
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Thanks! Out of my price range I’m afraid, not to mention that further “adapting” is needed for M.2 NVMes.
Ah! You had mentioned neither of those requirements. Anyway, PCIe 4.0 and “affordable” do not go together—for the sake of decency, let’s not mention 5.0… And if you’re using M.2 you’re seriously limited in capacity compared to U.2 and you’re also limited by cooling (PCIe 4.0 controllers get HOT).
Better stick to PCIe 3.0 solutions with integrated cooling.
Heck, even PCIe 3.0 switches are pricey–last time I looked, around US$250 for a four-way card.
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This one sounds good. Also, this HighPoint looks accessible at only ~$160, though it’s only an x8.
Which one of these two would you guys go for? I need to squeeze at least 10Gbps from it. (Just FYI, I am not interested in being able to boot from it.)
I’d go for the one which indicates plainly that it is based on a PLX8747 over the one which had me read the specification to no avail and then crawl through the FAQ to eventually find that it is based on a Marvell 2241. But either should work—including for boot devices. 
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Thanks. I would also feel better knowing that I got x4 lanes dedicated for each NVMe drive, hence an x16 card is a must. (Yes, the mobo has one real x16 port.)
This seems like a good reference…
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I try to keep up on this. TrueNAS Scale NVME Performance Scaling | TrueNAS Community
As far as I know, none of the usual sellers I’ve found have made the leap to PCI-E Gen4 yet. Most of these parts are still unobtanium and OEM only (think motherboards, specific storage vendors like posted above, etc) and haven’t seen trickle down into Shenzen AIC markets yet. That Highpoint card looks good, but $600 is a steep ask for most of us homelab types.
I have used these Gen3 products and they all work well
Linkreal 4 Port PCIe 3.0 x16 to U.2 SFF-8643 NVMe Adapter Expansion Card with Cooling Fan and Heatsink-LRNV9347-4I - AliExpress 7
This seller does make a retimer for PCI-E Gen 4 and I can confirm it works, but I’ve been using it with Gen1 Optane which is PCI-E Gen3 so thats all I can speak towards, and this card does need bifurcation.
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Apparently there is a PCIe 5(!) solution out there!
Also, have you guys seen the Ceacent ANM24PE16 for sale anywhere (new, and for a reasonable price, that is)? Do they still manufacture it? It’s the only PLX8748 card I’ve seen.
Hi - same as you, can’t see (m)any options for PCIe gen4 NVMe cards.
I can only attest to success with the Glotrends PCIe cards (single and dual NVMe models) in a DIY TrueNAS SCALE installation.
The 2 models I’ve used are the single-M.2 “Glotrends PA09-X1” gen3x1 and the dual-M.2 “Glotrends PA20” gen3x4.
The dual-M.2 PA20 has a PCIe switch chip (ASM2812), so manages the PCIe bifurcation without the motherboard needing to support that. I’m using this in a HP Z240 SFF which doesn’t support bifurcation.
There is a quad-M.2 model “Glotrends PA40” gen3x8 which has the ASM2824 chipset to manage bifurcation. I’ve not used this one myself.
I’m using 10GbE networking at home, and very light storage / VM / video editing usage, so I’m not really fussed if real-world NVMe performance across the array doesn’t exceed gen3x1 per device.
Hope that’s helpful 
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Also, I was wrong. Linkreal does have an option for PCI-E Gen4. But its actually more expensive than the Highpoint card.
PCIe x16 4-port NVMe Switch Adapter-LRNV9F48 - AliExpress 7
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Yeah, but it’s not M.2.
I would have tought that at $600-800 these Gen4 cards made no sense for small M.2 drives. But your find of a $2000 Gen5 card for 8 M.2 (
) proves otherwise…