4-Port M.2 SSD7105 PCIe Gen3 Bootable NVMe RAID Controller for Windows & Linux Systems.

This NVMe M.2 SSD HBA is plug-and-play in Ubuntu 24.04 LTS server. Its using the PEX 8747 PLX chipset so it takes some number of PCIe lanes as input, and multiplexes them across multiple lanes per its 4x M.2 slots. I loaded this up with 3x Western Digitial SN850X 8TB M.2 SSD's (leaving one slot open for future upgrades), put the disks in a mergerFS volume, and immediately had 24TB of usable NVMe SSD volume that is working just fine with the rest of the server. Considering that this PCIe card lacks a fan and instead has a giant heatsink that covers the entire card, I positioned an internal PC case fan to try to blow over it, though its not clear how effective this is. Regardless, its working just fine. This PCIe card is size 8x, but it I put it in the x16 size PCIe slot in my PC which is only electrically enabled for x4 PCIe lanes ; there are no apparent issues so far. Overall I am really happy with this device. I chose this because I specifically did NOT want to bother with CPU-based PCIe bifurcation, which ONLY works in the top PCIe slot on your system ; mine is already occupied with my other HBA and I dont want to change that. So this PCIe NVMe HBA card was perfect since it does not require CPU-based bifurcation and handles the bifurcation itself. Will update if there are any changes, but so far so good.

In my opinion, the SSD7101A-1 is the best M.2 RAID card on the market. Primarily, I use this as workspace for rendering projects. It has proven to be a great investment and has seriously cut down production time. While performing multiple tests with Samsung 970 EVO’s I was able to repeatedly document numbers in the range of 13,000 MB/s. Real world use is unbelievable – it’s amazing how fast this card is for the price. I should add, the card also works with Kingston drives and likely any other NVMe drive currently available - it is not limited to Samsung. Some may be confused by some of the ads/marketing released for this controller (it does not include SSD’s like the rSSD versions). Also, the card is not bootable. It is designed for high performance apps, rather than to support a system’s boot drive. Honestly, this kind of speed would be wasted on something so basic. A single onboard NVMe drive or even SATA SSD would be a better option for booting the OS. One thing you will have to look out for is the need to have 16 lanes available for the maximum performance. You will need a system/motherboard capable of reserving 16x lanes just for this card, otherwise you will seriously handicap the speed. No worries if you aren’t a major DIYer - the included RAID software has an easy method of checking if you are connected to a x16 slot, or not.

I have an ASUS X299-A motherboard. Installing two 970 evo plus drives on this thing in RAID 0 worked but took some time setting up. You need to change boot options to allow OPROM devices to boot. Also need to disable secure boot. When installing windows you have to load raid drivers from another usb. Lastly, my setup kept hanging up during installation despite all this. Eventually I figured out I needed to physically remove an existing drive that had windows 10 on it already. I was reluctant to remove it because it required taking out my GPU to get at it. But, after I took it out the installation went forward smoothly. it's very fast!

While this was the exact type of card I was looking for, the terrible heatsink design and ridiculously bad coil whine makes it unusable. With drives installed, the cheap screws won't seat the heatsink again - the threads are just tapped into the aluminum, and cut off-center. Even in use, the horrible squealing that I can only assume is coil whine also makes this unusable.

UPDATE: Had to remove it from the machine it was in because every morning when we booted it would not show the files on it without 3-4 reboots. Once it booted with the files it seemed OK. But having ~2tb of files floating around in there made us nervous. We had 4-500 gig drives in RAID "0" for the speed but switched it for a single NVMe @ 2tb which is working great now. To spend ~$700 extra for that little boost in speed seems foolish in hindsight - but as they say live and learn. Got it installed with 4-500gig WD Black SSD NVMe's into array "0" to make one 2tb disk. One caveat though. . . If you are not an experienced computer geek you may want to have one help with the install. I have a RTX 3090 in that machine, it is a beast of a board and it had a plastic support bridge between two metal walls in the computer. This board is full height and almost as long as the graphics board so I had to use a Dremel to grind another notch so the support would go over it and still secure the graphics board. I guess I could have also sawed it. Again this may/may not be an issue for you depending upon your specific computer layout. Also download the instructions, don't use the insert that comes with the board. The link on the enclosed leaflet is dead because the is now a "-1" version so that is the drivers & software you need. We'll see how it goes from here on. After all this setup cost ~$900 and we used small size drives.

Works great for my Mac Pro 5,1. I'm able to do Raid-0 with 2 drives. Speed is great. But the boot drive remains from a single drive. I don't think it can boot from a Raid setup (never tried, just from what I understand, it wouldn't work).

MacPro 2009 ファームウェア5.1でboot ROMをNVMe対応にFlashすると、Windows10を起動ドライブとして使用できました。Windows10のインストールはUEFIモードで行い、インストール後、起動してからMac用のドライバの更新を行なって完了です。起動はcommandボタンを押してMacの電源を入れて、EFI Bootを選ぶと起動できます。 bootROMのFlashが面倒でしたが、https://mussann.blogspot.com/2019/05/macpro-2012-m2-nvme-ssd_12.html?m=1 の記事を参考に ROMの書き換えができました。 次はMac OS（High Sierra）をNVMe で起動できるようにやってみるところです。Mac OSとWin10をこのHighPoint 7101A-1から bootできるようにしてみたいと思います。 それから、このカードのファンの音がうるさいという口コミが海外であり、ファンの交換をして使っている人もいるようでしたが、今回購入したものは、どうやらファンが改良されているようで、音はさほど気になりませんでした。ファンのケーブルが2極のものから3極のものに変更になっています。ファンの3極コネクタを接続するコネクタの位置も変更されているので、何らかの対策がとられたのかな？と思います。 ベンチマークもこのご老体MacProでは大満足の速度です。 ちなみに、NVMe ブレードはWD Black 500GBです。Samsung 970 EVOと迷ったのですが、なんとなく昔からWDが好きだったので、それにしました。特に大きな理由はありません。EVO970 Plusは、MacProの古いタイプではうまく動かないらしいので、注意してください。 1枚目の写真は、HighPoint 7101A-1とWD Black500GB の組み合わせのベンチです。 2枚目は、もともとBoot Campで使用していたIntel2.5インチSSD（SATA）160GBのベンチです。

I purchased this m.2 card to add 4x 4tb sabrent rocket 3.0 ssds to my linux file server. installation was simple, just plug the drives in, place it in a pcie 3.0 x16 slot and booted the server. all drives showed up immediately and i have had no problems with it going on 10 months now. a word of warning this device will run HOT so you MUST HAVE proper airflow. I ended up strapping a slim 120mm noctua fan to it since it was hitting 70c even with the 3x 120mm noctua fans in the front of the case running at 80% duty pushing air through the 4u chassis. With the extra fan temps dropped 10c under the same load which is still a bit hot but within safe margins.

Fue una misión de varias pizzas, al final logramos que funcionara en Windows pero en Linux no. Quedó como interfaz sin RAID por que el servidor en cuestión es Linux, pero funciona perfecto como interfaz PCIe- NVME

Being a satisfied customer of High Point I purchased 7505 after 7103 Very happy about the speed and the low decibal level sound of the cooling fan. While the 7103 was little annoying my wife in terms of the PC Sound level in our bed room. But 7505 Cooling system is much worked upon. Thanks