9500-8i cabling and can it run in a x4 slot?

[zzz111]

I'm looking for an HBA for my first home server and am looking at the 9500-8i because I only need maybe 6 SAS drives in the foreseeable future even that's probably not going to be the case for a few years. They seem quite cheap on ebay right now (~$100) and from what I've seen they only use a few watts so it seems like a good investment so I can get SAS drives if I can for cheaper than SATA.

First Question, I can put it in a Gen5 x16 slot which I have since I don't have a GPU, but I also have 2 Gen4 x4 slots on my z890 motherboard and no x8 slot so I was wondering if it would run without any issues on an electrical x4 slot (physical x16). I don't really care about speeds if that's the only limitation as this is mostly going to be video storage. I might also add in 2 SAS SSDs over time to help my M.2 along.

Second question is about cabling. So if I'm reading this right, to add up to the full 8 drives, I need a "CABLE, X8 8654 TO 2X4 8643" like Broadcom 05-60003-00. Then I need 2x SFF-8643 to SFF-8482 cables? Both of which seem fairly cheap on ebay

 

[ca3y6]

You can put a x8 card in a x4 slot as long as the slot is long enough. It will work at x4 speed. It’s a PCIe 4 card so that’s 8GB/s of bandwidth. Plenty for 8 SAS drives, even fast SSDs. I believe it using slimsas. Look for a slimsas to sas cable. Something like this: https://amzn.eu/d/gqQPORo (unless you have a backplane)

Note that the SAS connectors of this cable are those large plastic things that include the power as well. Don’t confuse them with SlimSAS to SATA cables that will only have data, no power, and won’t allow you to connect a SAS drive.

 

[twin_savage]

Yes, you're good to go on the PCIe x4 electrical slot. Anecdotally I'm running a 9306-24i in a PCIe x1 electrical/physical slot and it behaves as it should.

Second question is about cabling. So if I'm reading this right, to add up to the full 8 drives, I need a "CABLE, X8 8654 TO 2X4 8643" like Broadcom 05-60003-00. Then I need 2x SFF-8643 to SFF-8482 cables?

This will not work, both SFF-8643 ends of the connectors are male in these cables and will not mate together.
The cable @ca3y6 suggests would work; I've bought that specific listing before and can attest it is as good as broadcom's 05-60006-00 at a third the cost.

 

[zzz111]

Thanks guys, being able to put it in my x4 slots is great to know.

I'm looking around and its so weird I literally can only find this one connecter and it also always uses some weird font when I copy it even from amazon. Are there other options?

$30 aint bad considering how much I'm probably dropping on drives, but I wanna see if I'm missing some options there or if running this without a backplane is that uncommon.

I'm looking at the DiLinker model now and it seems like it needs molex power? They just call it Big4pin Power Cable

 

[nexox]

From what I see the DiLiving cable does use four Molex connectors for eight drives, I've had fine results using their cables for NVMe stuff, but keep in mind that 1 meter is right at the limit for SATA signals, some drives may not behave (not a problem if you stick entirely with SAS drives.)

Also, yeah, I imagine anyone using SFF8654 8i without a backplane is running SATA drives, your combination is probably pretty rare.

 

[ca3y6]

If you are going to connect SAS SSD, not HDD, I would go for an internal backplane. Buy this: Intel 8-Bay PCIe SAS/SATA Backplane Board P/N: H88386-251 Tested Working | eBay

it takes minisas connectors. The power is through a standard ATX power connector, and you have GPU=>ATX power connectors if you don't have a spare ATX connector (that backplane can also do PCIe3 U.2 through some other ports). Requires a fan blowing pretty much directly on the SSD.

Easy to find Slimline SAS to MiniSAS cables (Amazon.com: DiliVing 8X to 2* 4X,- 74Pin to 2*- 36Pin Cable 80cm(Broadcom MPN 05-60003-00) : Electronics). The main advantage of a backplane is that it simplifies a lot your cabling, and avoids having the force of thick cables being applied to the fragile connector of the drive.

If you need SAS HDD, there are backplanes as well but I think none will fit inside a server that it wasn't designed for.

 

[twin_savage]

Are there other options?

microsatacables sells a similar cable for ~95USD and broadcom will sell you the cable for ~120USD. What you're looking for is an 8 link (8i) SFF-8654>SFF-8639 cable, make sure there are eight SFF-8639 connectors at the end because the SFF-8639 connector also comes in 2 and 4 lane configurations cutting down the number of connectors to 4 and 2 respectively.

also as an Idea, backplanes don't have to be separate PCBs with all the complexity to them, you can 3d print a mechanical backplane and snap the cables into it:

 

[zzz111]

If you are going to connect SAS SSD, not HDD, I would go for an internal backplane. Buy this: Intel 8-Bay PCIe SAS/SATA Backplane Board P/N: H88386-251 Tested Working | eBay

it takes minisas connectors. The power is through a standard ATX power connector, and you have GPU=>ATX power connectors if you don't have a spare ATX connector (that backplane can also do PCIe3 U.2 through some other ports). Requires a fan blowing pretty much directly on the SS

Is it possible to use just half of that and only plug in one of the minisas connectors or even better, all running with just one connector? I only need max 4 SAS SSDs (probably only 2 unless prices get better, and I'm looking at 4 HDDs for bulk storage) I'm thinking one of these plus a small 4 bay 3.5" SAS backplane (see below) would be perfect for me.

I had been considering a backplane before, and I got a Rosewill Helium NAS case because it was cheap ($80) and it looks like the drive cages are removable and would be able to have a 4 bay backplane thrown in with fans blowing from the front/side depending on mounting. I hadn't seen anything that cheap before that would fit though. I mostly saw 3.5" backplanes for ~$80 inside drive cages. I'm starting to hate how bad ebay search is.

Off the link you sent, I found a lot of different versions of these HP 4 bay 3.5" backplanes like (HP 671308-001 4-Bay SAS/SATA HDD Backplane for ProLiant Server | eBay) Any other suggestions for something like this?

I'm not opposed to simple cheap options like bare backplanes with sheets of steel and drilling holes in them to hold the SSDs. I probably wouldn't risk a DIY HDD holder in my first build

 

[nexox]

Is it possible to use just half of that and only plug in one of the minisas connectors or even better, all running with just one connector?

You can use half the slots with one connector (and the other 4 slots would be usable with NVMe via the individual OCuLink ports,) but your 3.5" backplane would need to use the same connector if you want to get it on the same 8i cable. Note that HP backplane is SAS2, and HP and Dell parts may not use standard power connectors, you might need to reverse engineer the pinout.

 

[zzz111]

his: Intel 8-Bay PCIe SAS/SATA Backplane Board P/N: H88386-251 Tested Working | eBay

Any idea what this power connector is? At first glance I thought it was just a pcie connector, but now that I ordered it, it looks like a cpu 4 pin? I don't have an extra one, but I do have one molex and two pice and a few sata power connectors left on my psu. I'd rather not take one of my the 8 pin cpus out of my cpu but I think I should be fine since its only a 250w part

 

[nexox]

Any idea what this power connector is? At first glance I thought it was just a pcie connector, but now that I ordered it, it looks like a cpu 4 pin?

Yeah it's a standard 12V 4 pin power connector for a CPU, I believe you can get adapters which use two SATA power connectors, but that won't be enough for a full set of NVMe drives, but then again neither is the 4 pin, so I don't know how that's supposed to work. If you have a modular PSU you can likely come up with additional wiring for it that has the connectors you need, and honestly cutting and crimping your own (it's a Molex Mini Fit Jr, I believe) isn't that difficult or expensive.

 

[gregsachs]

Any idea what this power connector is? At first glance I thought it was just a pcie connector, but now that I ordered it, it looks like a cpu 4 pin? I don't have an extra one, but I do have one molex and two pice and a few sata power connectors left on my psu. I'd rather not take one of my the 8 pin cpus out of my cpu but I think I should be fine since its only a 250w part

Intel documentation is pretty good, if you know the right chassis/series to look at.

Intel® Server System R2000WF Product Family Technical Product Specification

An overview of product features, functions, architecture, and support specifications.

www.intel.com

 

[ca3y6]

There are GPU power to ATX adapter, which I am currently happily using since my server doesn’t have a GPU but the PSU has plenty of GPU power cables: COMeap PCIe 8 Pin to CPU 8 Pin (4+4) EPS-12V Adapter, Black, Male-to-Female, Motherboard Power Cable, Compatible with Motherboards, 13.3 inches, 12V DC, High Speed: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories