R730xd connect rear bays to mb sata port?

[carlosmp]

just got a few R730xd in and wondering if anyone has connected the onboard SATA ports (SFF-8634) cable to the rear bays? I am a little hesitant to do it, but wonder why not. The only cables on the backplane appear to be the power, activity, and the SAS cable, and no reason why the onboard sata couldnt connect to the same port on the backplane... better option than using up some PCIe slots for boot drive. T

TIA,
Carlos

 

[neb50]

On the R720xd, the two standard MB SATA ports are disabled. I don't know if that is the same on the 730's, but might be the case.

 

[carlosmp]

Update...
I went ahead and gave it a shot... the onboard sata (at least "A") is active. It detected the SSD in the bays. The only thing is that it gives a "CBL0009: Backplane 0 connector A0 is not connected" error. So i figured the SGPIO cable was the one causing that. Unplugged that cable, and just get an error "CBL0002 - Backplane 0 signal cable disconnected" Signal cable for BP0 not connected.

Unfortunately, it keeps interrupting boot to show the error messages. I've gone in to BIOS, etc. but can't seem to find a way of preventing it from booting with the rear backplane not connected completely correctly. So it seems I'm looking at 2 options:

A - Leave a 2.5" SSDs float in the back, using breakout/power cables (will be pretty messy)
B - Use a PCIe card with an M.2