I have had a few messages after I wrote the post here comparing the MS-01 and the MS-A2: Minisforum MS-A2 vs MS-01: Best Home Lab Server in 2025?. One of the questions that has been asked with the MS-A2 is whether or not it will support bifurcation. This was not a comparison point that I had in the blog post, mainly because we don't have that information as of yet on the MS-A2.
Bifurcation on the PCI-e slot will allow you to add a card that supports adding multiple NVMe drives as an example and have each one dedicated to a specific number of lanes. In other words, it allows you to carve up the available lanes you have to serve various devices, which is extremely handy in a home lab.Â
The Minisforum MS-01 with the PCI-e slot does not support bifurcation. Just so you know, I have a question into a contact with Minisforum currently on this capability with the MS-A2 and will post the official answer from them once I hear back as soon as possible.
However, in looking back and some of the official notes with the MS-01, it looks like the lack of bifurcation support on the MS-01 was directly related to limitations of the Alder Lake CPU. Here is a comment from one of the Minisforum staff: "Because of Intel’s CPU hardware limit, There is not possabile bifurcation on Alderlake-H platform CPU.(on that PCIE slot)". So according to this, it may have all related to the specific CPU.
My hope is that with the AM5 generation AMD with 16 cores, we won't see this limitation on bifurcation support. Read my full post on the bifurcation support on the MS-01 here: Does the Minisforum MS-01 support bifurcation with the PCI-e slot?
Update
If you have been following my Minisforum BD795M build, it uses the same processor as the forthcoming Minisforum MS-A2, the AMD 7945HX processor. I am pleased to say that it indeed looks to have bifurcation as a possibility! Take a look at the screenshot below which I think will be similar to what we will see with the Minisforum MS-A2:
Thank you Brandon for asking this important question regarding the up coming A2 and bifurcation support.
It was difficult to see miniforum did not include it with the 01 and A1 series, I have emailed miniforum tech support regarding if they have fixed the lack of double sided nvme drives or 4tb or 8tb support on the upcoming A2 but not heard anything back from them.
Miniforum did sort of admit they messed up with the lack of clearance space to allow double sided or 4/8tb nvme drive support in their 01/A1 series slots and suggested to try and see myself if it would fit or not.
Hopefully we get some more details and news in April.
@dev47, welcome to the forums! I totally agree, as good as the MS-01 is for a homelab server, there were some shortcomings for sure. I am hoping many of these will be overcome with the MS-A2 as well. The BD795M motherboard is fantastic with the Ryzen 9 7945HX processor, extremely fast proc. I am certainly hoping the settings I am seeing with this board will translate to the MS-A2.
Just realized the miniforum BD795M motherboard has an PCIe 4.0 X16 connector, so 4x4x4x4 is there but on the A2 its only 8x so do we only get 4x4 or 2 nvmes that can be used?
I have terrible math.
I guess its not too bad, if we still have those 3x nvme slots with much better pci lane support anyhow.
I am considering getting the A2 to make an all nvme nas box.
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@dev47 I have seen conflicting information about the MS-A2, the info graphic they provided and then other information I have seen. I have a question into Minisforum myself about a few of these details. I am hoping for the best though and hoping it will have an x16 slot. You are right with the 3 NVMe slots, it will make a great box if you are looking for NVMe storage out of the box. Let's hope the PCIe slot will have the ability to do bifurcation as well. 👍
Hopefully x16 slot, but I think since they have that 3rd nvme slot and 10gb ports it may have eaten into the pcie lanes somewhat.
miniforum UK support got back to me in regards to 8tb and double sided 4tb nvme modules, they said it will support it:
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Hi there,
Thanks for your email.
It can be support.
Thank you for your understanding and cooperation.
Best regards,
Nicole
MINISFORUM TEAM
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@dev47 Nice! This is great information and I really appreciate you sharing this. it will be shaping up to be a great little mini PC from what we know so far.
@brandon-lee @dev47 I reached out to Miniforum to confirm and they stated the opposite. That only 4TB is supported due to 'the design'. I really wanted to kit this out with 4x8TB as a NAS/Container Station, but given the price of 8TB NVME I'm a bit worried about biting the bullet and finding out it doesn't actually work.
@stanjewhurstÂ
that is disappointing to hear, this is why I was trying to email them few months ago to keep on top of them to get things supported right, which sounds like they failed again.
Looking at the reviews, it doesn't look like they have added much space or clearance on top, bottom or sides so I suspect their maybe the same issues not to mention lack of 8tb support.
I too was looking at WD 8TB drives but despite asking several owners and around the internet, could not find out how good its endurance is in real world cases. I even emailed WD tech support who had no idea, my main worry is with WD 8tbs is the real-world endurance, I don't want to see it go from 100% health down to 99% after a few weeks or months since the WD SN700 4TB red nvme drives have no issue and can hold 100% drive health even after a good 2+ years of formatting regular and downloading and deleting large 4k video files.
miniforum's are however creating a MS-A* type addon pci-e card which supports 4 separate m2 nvmes, there was a sneak peek I believe from one of nascompares YT videos recently but I think miniforums is still working on it.
Overall the nas world is in a bit of a mess if you want an all nvme nas, I was hoping to avoid thermal/heat issues, power issues, bandwidth issues and compatibility issues, but its almost like it would be easier and cheaper building an AMD PC with a mobo that supports bifurcation support and has 2-3 pci-e 8-16x slots.
cwwk have some interesting nas addons and motherboards and mini pcs upcoming that appears to try and address things, good video on it here
But I wouldn't bank on cwwk gear being 100% either, its cheap and from china and questionable bios/support as always.
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Here was that sneak peak video bit of miniforum's nvme nas expansion board with new heatsink. Just correcting above its not 4x nvme but 6x nvme actually.
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