NVMe: 2.5" SFF drives working in a normal desktop

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Patrick

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Dec 21, 2010
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@Patrick I hope to hear the Intel kit works as I have a chassis/jbod that it works in as well.
Have you ever seen a converter from the Intel chassis backplane 4x pin connector to something like a standard Molex? If I do not get to the DC, trying to find a good way to test.
 

T_Minus

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Feb 15, 2015
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For those curious my thread in the 'drive' section details more of my findings.
I plan to try another motherboard and see if my motherboard is having PCIE Lane problems as I'm seemingly stuck at 1x, and that would explain why only 1 of the ports works (although I'm not 100% both should work -- even though my board is on the approved list.)
 

MiniKnight

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Mar 30, 2012
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SMART output from either device would be great. I've been testing a lot of devices as of late and I'm curious to see what's being tracked and reported in the logs. Thanks
What kind of drives and testing? I love seeing storage testing results ;-) (did we get too OT here?)
 

T_Minus

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Anyone else get the AOC cards (cheap)?

Results?

What about the $250 ones, anyone using these in various boards?

Just tried it in my 2nd SM 2011-v3 board (not on the "list"), and it isn't detected at all... no boot problems, unless you accidentally put it in a PCIE 2.0 slot :D then it won't boot. BUT, still not being detected :(
 

Chuntzu

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Jun 30, 2013
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I will try and work on the Intel chassis power tomorrow after work. 3x13 hour days in a row is a bit tiring.
 

Chuntzu

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I have a non r card and it works great, I have messing with benchmarking on single v dual socket 2011 platforms with storage spaces and tuning the config to optimize seq v 4k iops. But I have had so little free time lately I can make much progress on this project
 

T_Minus

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Feb 15, 2015
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@Chuntzu GOod to hear, mine arrives end of week when i Get back home... fingers crossed :) Also going with a 2U 2011-v3 chassis instead of the 2 node i was looking at before, ebay bucks going to good use :D
 

Patrick

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Non-R still has not arrived. I got a FedEx tracking number from a seller about 15 miles away (usually ground is 1 days shipping) and it is still not here, nor has it been tendered to FedEx in a week.

The Intel kit arrives tomorrow.
 

T_Minus

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Feb 15, 2015
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I have not gotten mine to work in ANY non-v3 motherboard approved. The unapproved v3 motheboards did NOT work with the 'cheap' card. My $$ card will be here by end of week I got tracking # from place in San Jose already, hope I don't get delays like @Patrick though.

SuperMicro Support Engineers have been in contact and are working on some things, I"m about to email again to RMA the cards + my board as it seems like it could be a combo, and, ironically, I paid full retail for this board ~900$ after tax... stupid me.


I also need my damn cables I ordered over a week ago from that places NEO suggested, I'm about to cancel that order and just wait on the # from him.
 
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Patrick

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Mine arrives tomorrow also. Now just hoping I will not be on a plane tomorrow afternoon to the east coast.
 

Patrick

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I think I am going to make a thread on this itself, but the Intel A2U44X25NVMEDK arrived. I did not realize this but I think it actually will support 4x 2.5" NVMe drives and 4x 2.5" SAS drives. The rear of the backplane has 4x SFF-8643 connectors for PCIe and 2x SFF-8643 connectors labeled SAS.

It also came with dual 2x SFF-8643 to 2x SFF-8643 connector cables.

@Chuntzu that 4 pin power connector is going to kill me! If only we can find a way to power these off a standard molex power cable they would be awesome.