PCIe U.2 to 12g sas adapter 1u?

[funkywizard]

Hey everyone. Much appreciate the help in the other thread regarding U.2 to pcie, having the drive attached to the addon board.

Have a slightly different scenario here.

Have a pretty standard 1u chassis where I do have access to 2.5" / 3.5" bays, as well as molex and sata power. But, no native support for u.2 nvme so need an adapter for that.

I do know of 2-port adapters that will work with a riser, but can only install one of those in most 1u servers. This limits me to 2 drives in 1u and I'd like to have at least 4.

Ideally, I'd like an adapter that supports one or two u.2 devices in a pcie slot, but is short enough to fit into a pcie slot in a 1u server without a riser. This way I can hook up at least 4x u.2 drives, one or two to each pcie slot.

Alternately, a 4-port adapter that requires a riser and connects to a single x16 pcie slot is also good.

Any ideas?

 

[nthu9280]

I've not used these myself but Supermicro has couple of pcie x16 cards:
AOC-SLG3-4E4R
AOC-SLG3-4E4T

Dell also has a Pcie x16 card but not sure if they have any bios lock to Dell systems only.

 

[funkywizard]

May have found my own answer.

U.2 to M.2 SSD cable - Replacement U.2 to M.2 Cable for PCIe* NVMe supporting Intel® Solid State Drives - SSD Spare Parts

Intel has these cables for pretty cheap, like $17.

Another STH thread has this Asus adapter:

https://www.amazon.com/Asus-Hyper-M-2-x16-Card/dp/B0753JTJTG

Supports 4x m.2 ssds in a single x16 slot

Between the two, might work ok.

If not, there are some adapters like this one:

M.2 NGFF NVMe SSD To PCI-E 3.0 X16/X8/X4 Adapter Expansion Card For 1U/2U Server 647904823405 | eBay

Which might fit into the 1u height, and with the Intel cables might work pretty well.

 

[funkywizard]

I've not used these myself but Supermicro has couple of pcie x16 cards:
AOC-SLG3-4E4R
AOC-SLG3-4E4T

Dell also has a Pcie x16 card but not sure if they have any bios lock to Dell systems only.

Nice find!

Looks like main difference is mini sas vs occulink connector.

Any idea whether these cards use a pcie switch or just rely on bifurcation? Second card has a decent sized heatsink, so maybe pcie swotch, but it's not obvious.

 

[funkywizard]

Looks like they do have a plx version but for $300-400. So as long as it works I'd stick to the retimer versions which are a bit more than $100.

 

[funkywizard]

Ordered 4 of the ebay pcie x4 -> m.2 adapters, 1 of the asus adapters, and 4 of the intel m.2 -> u.2 cables.

Carefully measuring the images of the ebay m.2 adapter, I expect it to be 1.3" tall including the pcie slot portion. With 1u being 1.75", there's a decent shot this will fit in a 1u case without a riser. With 6-7 x4 pcie slots available, could potentially get a lot of drives in a 1u server.

Will report back on how well they work when they show up.