Hi all, I was trying to figure how to set the storage, there is several options for this mobo.it has Slimline SAS 4i as connectors, two M.2 slots, and a lot of PCIe 4.0.
The first point that would be good to know, we don't have "quality" cables for the SAS connectors, only some from places like ebuy or amazon, I don't have access to enterprise products, so, put a lot of work (24/7) on that is something I'm afraid... of a failure.
Good to have the manual at hand: https://download.gigabyte.com/FileL..._e_v10.pdf?v=403839afad78c873b56c7f3901d30d9e
Base data
Oks, math time.
The mobo has PCI 4.0, is aprox 1968 MB/s per lane.
A PCI 3.0 has aprox half of it, 984MB/s this is important because some lines are in Gen 3.0.
SATA 3 has 750MB/s.
NVMe/PCIe Gen3 x 4 here we have 4 lanes of 3.0 which is the same to have 2 lanes of 4.0 with a speed of 3936MB/s.
I don't know how split a 4.0 lane in two lanes of 3.0, there can be something I don't know.
SATA options
Oks, with this as base.
The sata ports are declared as: Slimline SAS 4i Connector (SATAIII 6Gb/s Signal), there is two of them and has 8 SATA3 lanes (?
Which as first part, there is the option to buy the cables, two cables of 4 ports, or one of 8.
So if trust or not the cables is important, because there is also the option to get a PCIe Card for SATA ports, it would need 3 4.0 lanes to get 8 SATA 3.
Is good to think that, every SAS connector to 4 are not "cheap", some of them costs 25$, there more cheaper ones, and I would need two of them, so maybe the price, if the quality of the cables are not good, instead of cables, get a good PCIe card.
Which of them do you think would be better? get the SAS cables or buy a PCIe card? if the card, which card do you think would be good?
NVMe options
Oks, this ones are confusing:
There is 4 SAS ports.
Each port should have x2 4.0 lanes.
A statement "4xlines can be linked to Slot7"
Slot 7 has 16 lanes.
So, that means, each SAS port has x1 lane? or to all 4 ports lanes can be linked to Slot7?
Well, the first part is that the speed of each port is 3936MB/s, which is some.. similar speed to an actual NVME, with full use you can write one NVME per port without cause a bottleneck. We can use in total 4 NVMe here.
Or that would be, if there is cables, but for this SAS connector the only cable I found for this is to U2, so I would need a cable from SAS to U2, then an adapter from U2 to M.2.
¿How is the quality of the cables and the adapters of U2 to M.2? which one can we trust to put hard work to do there?
The PCIe options is similar to SATA, each NVME can eat 2x 4.0 lanes, the PCIe x16 could consume the 4 SAS ports, and I could use it to put 8 NVMe drives without any cable/adapter that can be hard to trust on.
The cost of SAS to U2 cables are from 20$ to 30$ and would be 4 of them + adapter similar from 20$ to 30$ each of them. Is not a minor amount is there is a PCIe Adapter that handle NVME natively.
Then that would be the next question, is there a good NVME PCIe card that could replace all this adapter after adapter? or you think worth connect directly to SAS ports?
Conclusion
Oks, I'm new, newbie and ppl has helped me to understand until this point, I think you can see my lack of experience, is pretty hard to know about this, there is almost no info about this ports, connections and technology out of enterprise things.
I would appreciente if advice with this, or know how have solved this issues, how do you use storage with this mobo.
Edit
I have found a "issue" with PCIe cards, for example you have 4 SATA ports with 2GB/s of badwith, the problem? each SATA port can use 750 MB/s,
so we can only have 2 drives at full speed (0.6666 speed of one), this happens with a lot of PCIe cards! or keep the bandwidth and increase the SATA ports.
Seems not be a problem on PCIe challange, after all x1lane can handle 2.624 SATA ports, a x4 lane PCIe can handle all 10 SATA ports if used correctly.
Thx!
The first point that would be good to know, we don't have "quality" cables for the SAS connectors, only some from places like ebuy or amazon, I don't have access to enterprise products, so, put a lot of work (24/7) on that is something I'm afraid... of a failure.
Good to have the manual at hand: https://download.gigabyte.com/FileL..._e_v10.pdf?v=403839afad78c873b56c7f3901d30d9e
Base data
Oks, math time.
The mobo has PCI 4.0, is aprox 1968 MB/s per lane.
A PCI 3.0 has aprox half of it, 984MB/s this is important because some lines are in Gen 3.0.
SATA 3 has 750MB/s.
NVMe/PCIe Gen3 x 4 here we have 4 lanes of 3.0 which is the same to have 2 lanes of 4.0 with a speed of 3936MB/s.
I don't know how split a 4.0 lane in two lanes of 3.0, there can be something I don't know.
SATA options
Oks, with this as base.
The sata ports are declared as: Slimline SAS 4i Connector (SATAIII 6Gb/s Signal), there is two of them and has 8 SATA3 lanes (?
Which as first part, there is the option to buy the cables, two cables of 4 ports, or one of 8.
So if trust or not the cables is important, because there is also the option to get a PCIe Card for SATA ports, it would need 3 4.0 lanes to get 8 SATA 3.
Is good to think that, every SAS connector to 4 are not "cheap", some of them costs 25$, there more cheaper ones, and I would need two of them, so maybe the price, if the quality of the cables are not good, instead of cables, get a good PCIe card.
Which of them do you think would be better? get the SAS cables or buy a PCIe card? if the card, which card do you think would be good?
NVMe options
Oks, this ones are confusing:
There is 4 SAS ports.
Each port should have x2 4.0 lanes.
A statement "4xlines can be linked to Slot7"
Slot 7 has 16 lanes.
So, that means, each SAS port has x1 lane? or to all 4 ports lanes can be linked to Slot7?
Well, the first part is that the speed of each port is 3936MB/s, which is some.. similar speed to an actual NVME, with full use you can write one NVME per port without cause a bottleneck. We can use in total 4 NVMe here.
Or that would be, if there is cables, but for this SAS connector the only cable I found for this is to U2, so I would need a cable from SAS to U2, then an adapter from U2 to M.2.
¿How is the quality of the cables and the adapters of U2 to M.2? which one can we trust to put hard work to do there?
The PCIe options is similar to SATA, each NVME can eat 2x 4.0 lanes, the PCIe x16 could consume the 4 SAS ports, and I could use it to put 8 NVMe drives without any cable/adapter that can be hard to trust on.
The cost of SAS to U2 cables are from 20$ to 30$ and would be 4 of them + adapter similar from 20$ to 30$ each of them. Is not a minor amount is there is a PCIe Adapter that handle NVME natively.
Then that would be the next question, is there a good NVME PCIe card that could replace all this adapter after adapter? or you think worth connect directly to SAS ports?
Conclusion
Oks, I'm new, newbie and ppl has helped me to understand until this point, I think you can see my lack of experience, is pretty hard to know about this, there is almost no info about this ports, connections and technology out of enterprise things.
I would appreciente if advice with this, or know how have solved this issues, how do you use storage with this mobo.
Edit
I have found a "issue" with PCIe cards, for example you have 4 SATA ports with 2GB/s of badwith, the problem? each SATA port can use 750 MB/s,
so we can only have 2 drives at full speed (0.6666 speed of one), this happens with a lot of PCIe cards! or keep the bandwidth and increase the SATA ports.
Seems not be a problem on PCIe challange, after all x1lane can handle 2.624 SATA ports, a x4 lane PCIe can handle all 10 SATA ports if used correctly.
Thx!
Last edited: