Adapters for Getting maximum speeds from U.3 drives

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aloe

Member
Aug 17, 2019
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So I recently got two intel D7 5600 1.6tb u.3 drives and installed them onto this adapter and set them up in btrfs raid 0

PCIe 3.0 to (2) U.2 SFF-8639... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09WR1ZZVQ?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

I did some quick benching with fio and I don't seem to be getting the rated speeds. I'm not sure if this is due to the adapter being listed as u.2 compatible or what. Any ideas?
 
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Tech Junky

Active Member
Oct 26, 2023
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I tried cards and ended up going M2 oculink for full speeds. U.2 adapters work with both 2/3 drives but U3 adapters only with 3 drives. As for connectivity oculink right now is the fastest and able to hit speeds on Gen 4 level.
 
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aloe

Member
Aug 17, 2019
59
11
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I'm looking for the best and most affordable 2*u.3 solution.

For oculink I would have to do pcie to oculink and then ? cable to drives?
 
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Tech Junky

Active Member
Oct 26, 2023
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M2+cable per drive is about $40

PCIE card for dual drives $40 plus cables

There's an x16 card though with two cable ports you could get for four drives using split cables off each port.

Depends on what slots and sockets you have open and future expansion.
 
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aloe

Member
Aug 17, 2019
59
11
8
Tech Junky said:
M2+cable per drive is about $40

PCIE card for dual drives $40 plus cables

There's an x16 card though with two cable ports you could get for four drives using split cables off each port.

Depends on what slots and sockets you have open and future expansion.
Click to expand...
I have pcie 4.0*16 physical but its *8 lanes pcie. I'm only going to be using the two drives and don't need expansion capability. Is there a certain pcie card you'd recommend?
 
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reasonsandreasons

Active Member
May 16, 2022
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Any of these options are just passive adapters. It'd be useful if you could share what speeds you're getting--it's possible that the problem is that the drives are just connecting over PCIe 3.0 instead of 4.0 (in that case the drives will hit a bit less than 4 GB/s). If that's the case it might be possible to force the slot to run at PCIe 4.0 in the BIOS, but I'd test the snot out of it. If that doesn't work, it might be that the 10Gtek adapter isn't designed well enough to push 4.0 speeds successfully and you'l want to pick something else.
 
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aloe

Member
Aug 17, 2019
59
11
8
reasonsandreasons said:
Any of these options are just passive adapters. It'd be useful if you could share what speeds you're getting--it's possible that the problem is that the drives are just connecting over PCIe 3.0 instead of 4.0 (in that case the drives will hit a bit less than 4 GB/s). If that's the case it might be possible to force the slot to run at PCIe 4.0 in the BIOS, but I'd test the snot out of it. If that doesn't work, it might be that the 10Gtek adapter isn't designed well enough to push 4.0 speeds successfully and you'l want to pick something else.
Click to expand...
What tests should I run? I know nothing about storage benchmarking I just followed this link to get an idea:How fast are your disks? Find out the open source way, with fio
 
A

aloe

Member
Aug 17, 2019
59
11
8
reasonsandreasons said:
Any of these options are just passive adapters. It'd be useful if you could share what speeds you're getting--it's possible that the problem is that the drives are just connecting over PCIe 3.0 instead of 4.0 (in that case the drives will hit a bit less than 4 GB/s). If that's the case it might be possible to force the slot to run at PCIe 4.0 in the BIOS, but I'd test the snot out of it. If that doesn't work, it might be that the 10Gtek adapter isn't designed well enough to push 4.0 speeds successfully and you'l want to pick something else.
Click to expand...
I'll see if I can select pcie 4.0/3.0 in bios and report back when I have a chance to reboot.
 
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