12g SAS to NVME 2.5" drive adapter case

[nutsnax]

I just got a Cisco 12g sas controller and am curious if these exist. I know these exist to adapt NVME to SATA-3 but I figure (especially with PCI-E 4.0 12g sas adapters out there) something like this would be a great way to really saturate the bus. Does anyone know of anything like this out there or is this something that's even remotely interesting?

I look at the cost of the average 12g sas drive and thought this would be a good alternative (assuming it exists).

edit: this would saturate the bus without the use of PCI-E bifurcation..... and would probably even fit in a 7mm bay.

 

[masterchief07]

Literally looking for the exact same thing. Plenty of NVME to SATA 2.5" adapters. SAS would be amazing!

 

[nutsnax]

Literally looking for the exact same thing. Plenty of NVME to SATA 2.5" adapters. SAS would be amazing!

PCI-E 3.0 drives are going to be getting cheaper as time goes on (samsung PMxxx drives for example) and their performance would be a good fit for 12g SAS I would think.

I've got an IcyDock 8-bay 7mm 5.25 enclosure with the SAS backplane - it's absolutely awesome but I find that the selection of 7mm 12g sas drives really sucks (probably because companies are still buying them).... that's what made me think of this.

It would be great if I could stuff this 8-port enclosure full of PCI-E 3.0 server-grade 2280 drives an run them all into a PCI-E 4.0 controller.

The only issue I could possibly see is cooling the drives as they tend to get hot. My 8-bay setup has dual adjustable cooling fans, but I could see how some situations might get a bit hot.

 

[masterchief07]

True though I'm sure cooling would be fine to be honest, especially considering you could buy a U.2 NVME backplane and just buy the 2.5" NVME SSDs which would essentially be under the same thermals.

Either way, if I find anything, will post here for sure!

 

[masterchief07]

Nothing yet, unfortunately. I did reach out to a few vendors, as well as some manufacturers on Alibaba. Hoping for some good news. I don't see why this would not be a product. Seems like a no brainer.

 

[i386]

I read this multiple times and still don't understand what the goal is

Is it about tri mode controller/hbas that can do nvme, sas and sata?

 

[masterchief07]

So, there are a bunch of NVME to SATA adapters and NVME to U2 adapters, like this one: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B073W65QX6

But nothing exists that would be compatible with a SAS Controller.

For my particular situation, I have a few Proliant DL360 G10s with 8SFF SATA/SAS ports, right now populated with 8 SSDs in RAID10 capped at SATA's max of 6GBps.

It would be awesome to transition these SFF to SAS SSDs, but to purchase them directly, prices are absurd. So ideally, there exists an NVME to SAS adapter in which we could use very reasonably prices PCIe Gen 3 NVME's to take advantage of the 12GBps throughput of SAS.

Edit: The other option would be to buy some PCIe cards that can hold multiple NVMEs at once (Hotpoint, IOCrest), but I am working with vSphere and setting up a vSAN environment to take full advantage of the throughput would require me to upgrade switches and NICs. Which is doable, just super costly as well.

Edit2: StarTech just got back to me with the following:

 

[i386]

NVME to U2 adapters, like this one: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B073W65QX6

that's a m.2 to u.2 adapter (connectors), the protocol is the same (nvme)

So, there are a bunch of NVME to SATA adapters

I'm, not sure if such an adapter exists becuase these are two different protocolls and would require "logic" to convert from one protocol to another and this is expensive (and would only serve a small niche market)

For my particular situation, I have a few Proliant DL360 G10s with 8SFF ports, right now populated with 8 SSDs in RAID10 capped at SATA's max of 6GBps.

My interpretation of this is that there is a backplane that has sata only connectors? If yes than for sas and u.2 ssds you would need another backplane.
sas and sata have the same pins, but sata backplanes have a key (piece of plastic between data and power pins).
u.2/u.3 uses completly different pins.
Graphic from techtarget:

 

[masterchief07]

I'm, not sure if such an adapter exists because these are two different protocols and would require "logic" to convert from one protocol to another and this is expensive (and would only serve a small niche market)

Ahh, you are correct. There are M2 to SATA devices, BUT they require M2 SATA drives, not M2 PCIE. Did not look close enough.

So then yeah, chipset just does not exist.

As for the backplane, the one I have supports SATA/SAS. There is an 8SFF NVME U2 backplane for G10+ servers, but as far as I can tell from the compatibility spec, it would not work in a standard G10 server. Hence why I was hoping to take advantage of these 8 SAS bays in the most cost-effective way.

 

[nutsnax]

Ahh, you are correct. There are M2 to SATA devices, BUT they require M2 SATA drives, not M2 PCIE. Did not look close enough.

So then yeah, chipset just does not exist.

As for the backplane, the one I have supports SATA/SAS. There is an 8SFF NVME U2 backplane for G10+ servers, but as far as I can tell from the compatibility spec, it would not work in a standard G10 server. Hence why I was hoping to take advantage of these 8 SAS bays in the most cost-effective way.

So how do the sabrent (and others) usb to nvme adapter cases work then, I wonder?

 

[i386]

So how do the sabrent (and others) usb to nvme adapter cases work then, I wonder?

It has a controller that translates from nvme to usb.
See this front page article, scroll down to "Common Features":

https://www.servethehome.com/sabrent-ec-tfnb-ec-nvme-and-ec-wpne-m-2-nvme-to-usb-type-c-review/

 

[nutsnax]

It has a controller that translates from nvme to usb.
See this front page article, scroll down to "Common Features":

https://www.servethehome.com/sabrent-ec-tfnb-ec-nvme-and-ec-wpne-m-2-nvme-to-usb-type-c-review/

cool thanks, so a translator chipset does exist (for usb at least)... I chatted with icydock on their site and they seemed to think that this could be possible albeit with a translation performance hit (which I cant imagine would be that big of a deal as nvme should more than saturate each individual 12g channel)

 

[nutsnax]

Ahh, you are correct. There are M2 to SATA devices, BUT they require M2 SATA drives, not M2 PCIE. Did not look close enough.

So then yeah, chipset just does not exist.

As for the backplane, the one I have supports SATA/SAS. There is an 8SFF NVME U2 backplane for G10+ servers, but as far as I can tell from the compatibility spec, it would not work in a standard G10 server. Hence why I was hoping to take advantage of these 8 SAS bays in the most cost-effective way.

I think there are a lot of companies in a similar position.

I can see that, if a reasonable 12g to nvme chipset were developed, they would sell a metric sh*tton of them as I think quite a few companies are in a similar boat as you. There are droves of servers with existing 12g controllers (which is most servers out there... even brand new ones) with limited-to-no NVME options. Plus your existing 12g drives (or even 6g sata in some cases) aren't totally using the 12g bandwidth and are likely too low capacity anyway.

In order to get larger and faster drives that utilize that bandwidth it would require wheelbarrows full of money to purchase in sufficient quantity (especially new).

That's where this adapter would come in; with an adapter like this you could purchase cheaper PCI-E SSD's (even smaller ones) and use your existing backplane which may have as many as 16+ slots on it depending on the manufacturer. So if you're a company that makes these things, you have to figure at $30-40 a piece that's $500+ per server

a 2TB Seagate Nytro 12g sas drive is like $700 .... a 2tb firecuda 530 is less than half the price and could be put into a u.2 adapter later on if/when you upgrade.

Even In my own company now, we're getting a new supermicro server with 7x 3.5" 12g sas bays.... and 4x NVME-capable bays plus two on-board m.2 slots.

If you look at the front-end of this particular server as being a representation of the market: 12g sas capability, in this server, is roughly 50% of the market and way more in many other servers. Imagine the servers with 24+ 12g sas bays out there running on PCI-E x16 cards.

Anyway, enough of my ranting

 

[masterchief07]

cool thanks, so a translator chipset does exist (for usb at least)... I chatted with icydock on their site and they seemed to think that this could be possible albeit with a translation performance hit (which I cant imagine would be that big of a deal as nvme should more than saturate each individual 12g channel)

Did they seem interesting in pursuing? I wonder what turnaround time would be. I'll chat them up too, show them that there is definite demand.

 

[nutsnax]

Did they seem interesting in pursuing? I wonder what turnaround time would be. I'll chat them up too, show them that there is definite demand.

They did; however, they just wanted to know what quantity I'd want to order (like they wanted to do a limited production run or something?)- they need to know that there is sufficient demand out there for them to begin to research it. I think there is insane demand out there. If they doubt that there is sufficient demand out there, show them this insane thing:

SuperMicro 4U X10DRH-iT 72x 2.5" 2xE5-2667v3 64GB SAS9300-8i 12Gbps SAS3 Server | eBay

 

[masterchief07]

Shit, I need 48, so that's a good chunk right there (pails in comparison to DCs though lol). But yeah, maybe they would do a trial run for us to test the waters!

 

[nutsnax]

Shit, I need 48, so that's a good chunk right there (pails in comparison to DCs though lol). But yeah, maybe they would do a trial run for us to test the waters!

I'd need 8 to fit my icydock 8-bay 5.25" enclosure.

edit: But it would have to fit a 7mm bay

 

[i386]

If they doubt that there is sufficient demand out there, show them this insane thing:

SuperMicro 4U X10DRH-iT 72x 2.5" 2xE5-2667v3 64GB SAS9300-8i 12Gbps SAS3 Server | eBay

Wiredzone sells nvme backplanes for ~390$, no need to develop controllers/chips to translate from nvme to sas...

Supermicro BPN-NVMe3-216N-S4 24-port 2U (SC216/219) NVMe direct-attached BPN

24-port 2U (SC216/219) NVMe Direct-attached Backplane, Support 24x 2.5-inch NVMe Devices, 4 of Them Are Hybrid Ports Also Support SAS3/SATA3

www.wiredzone.com

 

[masterchief07]

This is moreso for servers where compatible NVME backplanes do not exist. Like all of mine lol

 

[nutsnax]

Wiredzone sells nvme backplanes for ~390$, no need to develop controllers/chips to translate from nvme to sas...

Supermicro BPN-NVMe3-216N-S4 24-port 2U (SC216/219) NVMe direct-attached BPN

24-port 2U (SC216/219) NVMe Direct-attached Backplane, Support 24x 2.5-inch NVMe Devices, 4 of Them Are Hybrid Ports Also Support SAS3/SATA3

www.wiredzone.com

I don't see where this does the translation.... Also would this not still require bifurcation and/or massively expensive controller(s)? It seems like this switches between 12g/sata3/nvme and doesn't do any nvme->SAS-3 translation?

edit: the nvme -> sas3 conversion would be like having a comparatively super-cheap (albeit lower bandwidth than what nvme is capable of) nvme expander.