Re: [gentoo-user] Qustions re Dell M.2 PCIe NVMe Solid State Drives under Gentoo

[Grant Taylor <gtaylor@gentoo.tnetconsulting.net>]

On 5/27/21 3:05 PM, Walter Dnes wrote:
> All current XPS models seem to have 256G or 512G M.2 PCIe NVMe Solid 
> State drives in the base configuration.  Questions...
> 
> * do NVMe drives function well under Gentoo (driver issues, etc)?

I've not had any problems with them.  They do show up as a different device:

    /dev/nvme0n1p#

Where # is the partition number.  I think /dev/nvme0 might be the first 
NVMe controller as the only NVMe (card?) that I have is /dev/nvme0n1.

> * how long do they hold up (wear and tear)?

I've been using the inexpensive ~> cheap one that I have for more than 
18 months.  I'm using a partition on said NVMe as a cache for my ZFS 
pool.  I've not yet seen any symptoms of problems.

I will say, that you want to make sure the system has PCIe that's 3.0 or 
better to take advantage of the full speed.  --  My existing NVMe is in 
a PCIe-16x slot to NVMe adapter card.  It only uses 4x lanes, but the 
other are physically occupied holding the card.

I'm building a new system, to replace the 5+ year old XPX w/ PCIe 2.0 
that has the card and I'm replying from with a newer system with quite 
similar, save for PCIe 3.0.  The speed difference between the NVMe in 
the systems is insane with the faster PCIe bus.

> * can I simply disable them if I run into problems?

That depends.

If they are used for part of the operating system, as in your boot / 
root drive, then simply disabling them will be ... problematic.  If 
however, you are using it as a non-essential drive, or not using it at 
all, then sure, you can disable it.



-- 
Grant. . . .
unix || die