NVMe booting on old systems

[Michael Pope]

Hello,

We have an old Supermicro server at work (2012) and would like to add
NVMe drives as the root file system. Problem is this computer doesn't
know about booting from PCI-e cards.

We have an adapter and a WD blue 250GB PCI-e SATA M.2.
https://www.startech.com/HDD/Adapters/pci-express-m2-pcie-ssd-adapter~PEX4M2E1#ratings_inset

The BIOs doesn't list it as a bootable device and I'm having trouble
upgrading the BIOs at the moment. (I'm using FreeDOS but no luck
there). I have contacted Supermicro and they don't think a BIOs update
will help. The problem I get with updating the BIOs is;
: AMI Firmware Update Utility(APTIO) v2.39
: Error: Problem allocating BIOS Buffer

So I moved on to looking at the UEFI shell version 2.31. When I boot
with just the PCIe adapter + WD M.2 drive in I get to the UEFI shell and
this is displayed;
: Device mapping table
: blk0 :BlockDevice - Alias (null)
: PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1f.0X2)/Sata(0x5, 0x0)

So at least it can see the drive.

This has led me to look at a different path. Some people suggest that
it's possible to boot a PCIe M.2 drive on an old legacy system when the
BIOs doesn't know about PCIe M.2 drives;

https://mrlithium.blogspot.com/2015/12/how-to-boot-nvme-ssd-from-legacy-bios.html
https://www.aioboot.com/en/boot-ubuntu-linux-from-clover/
https://sourceforge.net/projects/cloverefiboot/

Has anyone tried this?
Is there a different way?
The fact that I can see it in the UEFI shell is there a way to manually
boot the drive to see if it technically works?

--
Mick

[Malcolm Herbert]

On Wed, Jul 24, 2019 at 09:06:18AM +1000, Michael Pope wrote:
|We have an old Supermicro server at work (2012) and would like to add
|NVMe drives as the root file system. Problem is this computer doesn't
|know about booting from PCI-e cards.

... do you _actually_ need to boot from the same device as your root
filesystem? having a small /boot somewhere accessable to the BIOS might
just be enough to get a leg up on then discovering the NVMe devices and
making the pivot to / from there ... once the pivot is done the device
that contains /boot should be effectively out of the loop ...

some hosts I've seen have a small USB port available from the mainboard
on the inside of the case for exactly this purpose ...

specifics of how to set that up will vary, however ...

--
Malcolm Herbert
mj...@mjch.net

[Duncan Roe]

On Wed, Jul 24, 2019 at 09:06:18AM +1000, Michael Pope wrote:
>

Hi Mick,

When I changed to having an nvmE root drive on my circa 2010 system, I kept
a spinning drive to boot off. WFFM

Cheers ... Duncan.

[D Burgess]

I will second what Duncan and Malcolm have said.
I have seen small /boot with onboard microSD and then NVMe as root.

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--
D Burgess

[Michael Pope]

Thanks guys I will try this work around. I actually do have a USB on the
motherboard inside the case so I could do the same trick. Just have to
find a high quality USB drive.

--
Mick

[Andrew McGlashan]

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Hash: SHA256

Hi Mick,

On 24/7/19 10:24 am, Michael Pope wrote:
> Malcolm Herbert writes:
>> On Wed, Jul 24, 2019 at 09:06:18AM +1000, Michael Pope wrote: |We
>> have an old Supermicro server at work (2012) and would like to
>> add |NVMe drives as the root file system. Problem is this
>> computer doesn't |know about booting from PCI-e cards.

You know that old saying "Oils aint oils Sol" ...

Well, there are SSD M.2 devices and NVMe M.2 device.

Some equipment / new generation slots will work with one type (SSDs)
and not the other as well.

Given that it is an older machine, perhaps it can have an NVMe card
instaled, I saw one at Centrecom the other day, but it probably
wouldn't be compatible:

https://www.centrecom.com.au/orico-m2-nvme-to-pci-e-30-x4-expansion-card
- -psm2

I don't know if there is any SSD type that is similar, but I too think
it would be best to have a small USB drive for booting tucked inside
the box.

Looking at the Wikipedia page for PCI_Express, it was 3.0 in 2010, so
the Supermicro board might take the NVME card above.

This is another card option:

https://www.centrecom.com.au/orico-m2-nvme-to-pci-e-30-x16-expansion-car
d-psm2-x16

Here's a bit more about the M.2 standard (formerly known as NGFF (Next
Generation Form Factor).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M.2


Cheers
A.

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[Michael Pope]

Thanks Andrew,

I already have a PCI-e adapter card and have put the WD M.2 SATA SSD
drive inside;

Startech PEX4M2E1 X4 PCI Express to M.2 PCIE SSD Adapter {PEX4M2E1} - CPLOnline
https://cplonline.com.au/startech-pex4m2e1-x4-pci-express-to-m-2-pcie-ssd-adapter.html

Yes the supermicro board I have is PCI Express 3.0.

The USB drive inside the case sounds like the best option. No stuffing
around with the BIOs or UEFI scripts. Now I just have to find an easy
way of creating this USB drive from an existing system.

--
Mick

[AJ]

i researched putting a PCIe card in my old system, only to discover that
it was futile.... it was a while ago so i can't recall which of these
conclusions it was:
* PCIe booting requires BIOS features to do so, which old systems tend
not to have.
* PCIe 3.0 is required.. many old systems do not have v3.