Innodisk Releases 10GbE LAN Module in M.2-2280 Form Factor

Will it work with standard desktop board, where is M.2 slot designed for Storage?

 

I don't quite get who the target market is. I could see this appealing to mini ITX users, but for most of those boards, that heatsink would be a real problem. Most servers with M.2 slots either already have 10Gbps or otherwise don't need it. Most workstations have enough PCIe slots to just get a normal PCIe 10Gbps card. Since the actual RJ45 jack is rather hacky to mount, I imagine most people would rather just go for a normal PCIe 10Gbps card and use a M.2 to PCIe x4 converter (which are cheap).

I would assume so but it's rather suspicious how the key isn't mentioned anywhere.

 

Most ITX have the M2 on back of the board.
Maybe for those mATX board with a PCIe X16 and a PCIe X1, but then no M2 SSD...

 

it could be used on a DIY nas or on some home servers, but it is an strange product

 

I received a couple of these modules to test with recently and have done a video looking at them here which might be of interest.


One of them is in my Ryzen 7 5700G + X570 home server build, whilst the other was fitted into a small form factor system for testing but is going to live in my main workstation - both fitted into PCIe 16x to 4 x M.2 2280 riser cards using PCIe Bifurication to enable me to maximise the usage of PCIe slots and lanes inside the systems.

Its not a product which will suit every user (in a lot of cases a regular PCIe card is going to make more sense) but for those niche uses there isn't much else like it.

 

Yes, should work in any M.2 2280 slot with PCIe 2.0 or higher so long as there is clearance for the heatsink and to route the cable.

For my main workstation it ended up being my only good option, and that's a full ATX Intel X299 system - I have a number of PCIe devices already with an Elgato 4K capture card and M.2 riser for storage, along with an RTX 3080 covering 2.5 slots.
I could have squeezed a PCIe 10GbE card in to the second PEG slot alongside the 3080, but it would have been blocking airflow to two of the fans for the GPU cooler which was a definite no-no for me.
Installing it into the ASUS Hyper M.2 x16 card I had in the system for my additional SSDs and then 3D printing a backplate mount was a much cleaner option for me.

Keying is B+M, so fits into a PCIe 2x or 4x M.2 slot.

There are quite a few mATX and ITX have dual M.2 slots - looked at some ITX boards where you could rear mount the SSD and then front mount the 10GbE adapter. A lot of these boards have their own M.2 heatsink which you'd have to just leave off when using this.

Definitely not a product which is useful for every application, but if you have a use where nothing else quite fits the bill its unique in what it does.