Howdy, I bought a extra PCIe SATA expansion card. I mostly wanted a extra. I have a 10 port in my main rig and thought I was buying one like that one, in case it breaks. When I put it in the old NAS box rig to test, my ethernet wouldn't work. I tried a different slot but same thing. I found it odd that it would recognize the hard drive plugged into the card tho. o_O I shutdown the rig and pulled the card. I was checking the card and connector on the mobo when I noticed the card said 3.0 right where it plugs into the mobo. Ooops.
First, I thought cards were backward compatible? You could stick a 3.0 into a 2.0 slot and it would just run as a 2.0 and vice versa. I know the mobo is 2.0. It does recognize the drive but seems to nuke the ethernet somehow. I looked, there is no switches on the card. I don't see a way to adjust how it works or anything. Second, what is the best way to know, from the card itself, what version PCIe it is? If it just says PCIe or PCIe with x1, x4, x16 or something for those that include that info, can one assume it is 2.0? It seems the ones that are 3.0 are marked as such. I don't want to buy another card and get another one that won't work in either the NAS box or my current main rig. At least I have cards for the new rig if I need one. Although I was planning to buy a x4 or x8 card with lots of ports. I was hoping for a speed improvement with the extra 'lanes' I think they called. I could use those m.2 to SATA thingys too. I already found pics that help me identify PCI, PCIe, x1, x2, x4,x8 and x16 slots. Basically, the longer it is, the larger the number. So, I got that. I can't find a way to look at a card or a picture of a card and know if it is v2.0, v3.0 or v4.0 if those exist. I'm looking for some guidance. Sadly, some don't include that info in the description of the card either. Thanks for any tips or tricks to know which is which. Dale :-) :-)
