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Q: What is the physical interface and actual bandwidth of the PX24M41?
A: The card uses a standard PCIe x16 full-length slot physical form factor, but the electrical interface is PCIe 4.0 x8, providing 128Gbps (approx. 15.7GB/s) of bidirectional theoretical bandwidth. The x16 gold-finger design is purely for mechanical compatibility and ease of insertion.
Q: What is the core function of the onboard IX8024 Switch chip?
A: The IX8024 is a low-power PCIe 4.0 switch chip that dynamically allocates 8 PCIe 4.0 lanes to 4 downstream x4 ports. Most importantly, it does not require motherboard BIOS support for Bifurcation - it is plug-and-play with all PCIe 4.0-capable motherboards. This completely solves the problem of consumer motherboards that do not support x8-to-4x4 splitting, allowing older boards to easily expand with 4 NVMe SSDs.
Q: What NVMe SSD form factors are supported? Is it compatible with PCIe 3.0 SSDs?
A: It supports 4 M.2 NVMe SSDs (Key M interface), compatible with 2230/2242/2260/2280 lengths. It is backward compatible with PCIe 3.0 x4 SSDs, with speeds automatically negotiating down to PCIe 3.0 x4 (approx. 3.9GB/s). SATA SSDs and U.2/U.3 devices are not supported.
Q: What is the single-drive and multi-drive concurrent performance like?
A: Single-drive sequential reads can reach 7000MB/s+ (depending on SSD model). With 4 drives concurrent, the aggregate bandwidth stabilises at 12-13GB/s, approaching the theoretical PCIe 4.0 x8 limit. The IX8024's intelligent arbitration ensures latency jitter under 5% during multi-drive contention, outperforming software RAID or HBA solutions.
Q: What is the purpose of the large aluminium heatsink?
A: The heatsink is CNC-machined from a solid block of aluminium, covering both the IX8024 chip and the 4 SSD positions. High-conductivity thermal pads rapidly transfer heat from the chip and SSDs to the heatsink, significantly improving passive cooling efficiency - even with the fan stopped, safe temperatures can be maintained for short periods.
Q: How does the thermal design affect SSD lifespan?
A: The excellent cooling keeps SSD operating temperatures safely below the 70°C threshold, preventing accelerated NAND aging and controller throttling caused by high temperatures. It also reduces thermal expansion/contraction stress, lowering the risk of solder joint fatigue.
Q: Why is this card only compatible with 4U full-height chassis and not 2U?
A: The card uses a standard full-height bracket (approx. 120mm), and the combined thickness of the heatsink and fan module exceeds the low-profile bracket limit, making it unsuitable for the tight space of 2U rackmount servers. 4U and larger chassis, tower workstations, and full-height desktops are all compatible. For 2U users, please consider our low-profile version or U.2 adapter solutions.
Q: What are the specific PCIe slot requirements for this card?
A: The motherboard must have at least one PCIe 4.0 x8 or x16 physical slot (electrical x8 is sufficient). No motherboard Bifurcation support is needed - the IX8024 handles lane allocation independently. PCIe 3.0 x8/x16 slots can also be used, but speeds will drop to PCIe 3.0 x8 (64Gbps), halving the aggregate 4-drive bandwidth.
Q: Does it require additional power input?
A: No external SATA/Molex power is needed. The PCIe x16 slot can deliver up to 75W - far more than the card's maximum power draw. However, we recommend using a power supply rated at 550W or above to avoid insufficient power when multiple cards and high-end GPUs are used simultaneously.
Q: Does it support RAID functionality?
A: Hardware RAID is not provided, but it is fully compatible with software RAID solutions including Windows Storage Spaces, Linux mdadm/ZFS, and macOS Disk Utility. We recommend ZFS RAIDZ1/RAIDZ2 or Windows mirrored volumes, leveraging the IX8024's low latency for high-performance software RAID with far greater flexibility than hardware RAID controllers.
Q: Can it be used with virtualization platforms like ESXi or PVE?
A: Fully supported. VMware ESXi 7.0+ and Proxmox VE can directly recognise the 4 independent NVMe SSDs, supporting passthrough to VMs or building vSAN/Ceph distributed storage. The IX8024 has excellent IOMMU compatibility, and latency after passthrough is virtually identical to bare-metal, making it ideal for All-in-One virtualised storage nodes.
Q: Who is this product best suited for?
A: 1. Legacy motherboard upgraders: No Bifurcation required - older Z370/X470 boards can add 4 PCIe 4.0 SSDs. 2. Video editing workstations: 4-drive concurrent 13GB/s for stutter-free 8K RAW playback. 3. NAS/storage servers: Dense NVMe cache pool in 4U chassis with quiet fans. 4. AI training/deep learning: Parallel model loading with PCIe 4.0 x8 bandwidth to feed GPU data demands. 5. IT operations/test platforms: Quickly build multi-drive test environments with Bifurcation-free compatibility across various spare motherboards.
