NVMe: 2.5" SFF drives working in a normal desktop

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R.Zoli

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Sep 5, 2015
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i have purchased 2 cables that look like that one and they have not worked. Get the funtin adapter, an Intel NVMe Cable. or i have a 2u backplane and cage that you could put 4 drives in (1 with hyper kit 2 with supermacro card) for $350 w/ cables)
With those cables the drive didn't even get power? Cause my drive doesn't get warmer after 30 minutes...
 

RobertFontaine

Active Member
Dec 17, 2015
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Winterpeg, Canuckistan
I still have to buy some 2670's , at least one more phi, another 64gb of ram, and radiator/reservoir pump and hose for the phis to complete(hah!) the compute node (sans enclosure) before I can move on to working on the data server. No one is buying my ebay crap this week. One cable away from posting the compute node with my e5 2660 b0's (with a little luck). Being able to start building the compute node should keep me distracted long enough that hopefully more junk will sell. I have too much time and not enough money right now.

I should break out my saw tomorrow morning and build myself an enclosure for my x9drg board while I wait for the postman.
 
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sparx

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Jul 16, 2015
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With those cables the drive didn't even get power? Cause my drive doesn't get warmer after 30 minutes...
Have you changed the power config of the Molex connector? I think i posted about this before.
The standard molex is 12V 0V 0V 5V. But the amphenol cable is something like 12V 5V 0V 3.3V.
I also made the same mistake.
 
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R.Zoli

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Sep 5, 2015
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Have you changed the power config of the Molex connector? I think i posted about this before.
The standard molex is 12V 0V 0V 5V. But the amphenol cable is something like 12V 5V 0V 3.3V.
I also made the same mistake.

oops....You are right... But then I already made a big overvoltage to the drive? Maybe I killed it?
How can you change to 3.3 volt? The other voltages is ok but 3.3 volt in a 4 pin conncetor I can not make...
 

R.Zoli

Member
Sep 5, 2015
52
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Have you changed the power config of the Molex connector? I think i posted about this before.
The standard molex is 12V 0V 0V 5V. But the amphenol cable is something like 12V 5V 0V 3.3V.
I also made the same mistake.

THANK YOU MAN!!!!!!
YOU MADE MY DAY!!!!

I changed the +12Volt pin to the corect position and now the drive works!!!!In the UEFI I didn't see it (I think because it's not a nvme drive) but under win 10 it works perfectly :) I buy this drive for 81 US Dollar from ebay and it has 6 work days and 100% life remaining :D I think it was a good business :D
 
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sparx

Active Member
Jul 16, 2015
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oops....You are right... But then I already made a big overvoltage to the drive? Maybe I killed it?
How can you change to 3.3 volt? The other voltages is ok but 3.3 volt in a 4 pin conncetor I can not make...
Yeah i think the 12V was fed with 5V and the 3V3 with 12V. And the 5V was grounded :)
The 3V3 is not really needed. Its optional.
Qoute from datasheet: "3.3V aux is optional, not needed for power up or functionality. 3.3Vaux is needed for accessing VPD page by means of SMBUS for both form factors."
 
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R.Zoli

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Sep 5, 2015
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Yeah i think the 12V was fed with 5V and the 3V3 with 12V. And the 5V was grounded :)
The 3V3 is not really needed. Its optional.
Qoute from datasheet: "3.3V aux is optional, not needed for power up or functionality. 3.3Vaux is needed for accessing VPD page by means of SMBUS for both form factors."
This drive uses only 12V so I didn!t connect the others only the ground... :)
 

Patrick

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Staff member
Dec 21, 2010
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THANK YOU MAN!!!!!!
YOU MADE MY DAY!!!!

I changed the +12Volt pin to the corect position and now the drive works!!!!In the UEFI I didn't see it (I think because it's not a nvme drive) but under win 10 it works perfectly :) I buy this drive for 81 US Dollar from ebay and it has 6 work days and 100% life remaining :D I think it was a good business :D
Wow awesome!
 
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izx

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Jan 17, 2016
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Sorry for digging this threat up but can somebody tell me, will the AOC-SLG3-2E4R card work with every motherboard, if I connect only one drive?
In general, no, with the possible exception of putting it in a PCI-E slot that's 4x electrical/8x mechanical.
 

Zac_K

Member
Nov 24, 2015
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Hamburg/Germany, Graz/Austria
Thank you for the response.
I forgot the information about the slot configuration, yes, I want to put it in an 4x electrical and 8x mechanical slot. The non R variant cost about the double and right now I am looking for the cheapest variant to get one drive connected to the system.
 
Last edited:
Jun 24, 2015
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Look what I found (copy of Comment posted today at PCPER.COM):

[begin quote]

Here's an add-on card with an x16 edge connector
and four U.2 ports:

http://www.serialcables.com/downloads/PCI-HBx16-I.pdf

I doubt that it supports hardware RAID, however:
note where it says "requires no additional software".

The company is called Serial Cables:

Serial Cables, SAS Cables, SATA Cables, MiniSAS Cables, IPass Cables, IPass Adapters, MiniSAS Adapters, SAS Adapters, SATA Adapters, Serial Cables, Adapters and Accessories from Serial Cables

Here's the spec page for the
PCIe Gen3 Switch Board mentioned above:

PCIe/NVMe Switch

Allyn, if you're still reading this, does that
Switch-based Host Adapter appear very similar to the two
made by Supermicro?

It sure would be nice to have a workstation motherboard
with four U.2 ports, just like that Host Adapter ...

... replacing 2 x SATA-Express ports,
like this:

http://supremelaw.org/systems/nvme/4xU.2.and.SATA-E.jpg

I tried to maintain the same scale:
if so, there's plenty of room for 3 more U.2 ports
if we remove the SATA-Express ports.

[end quote]

MRFS
 
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Patrick

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Dec 21, 2010
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@Paul A. Mitchell both @William and I met with those guys at Flash Memory Summit this year and saw the solutions they have. They even have PCIe boards where you can have 2-4 input PCIe U.2 connectors and get a higher number of output ports (e.g. 8+). That board is using a bigger PLX chip than the Supermicro one.