U.2 nvme enclosure

[outsider]

I've been asked to build a "budget" NVMe storage box for a friend. The requirement is that it can handle 8 drives to start and have room to double. This will be built for a testing homelab environment.
(Yes, I realize that the words budget and NVMe don't really mix.)

Enterprise NVMe drives (in a 2.5" form factor) are expensive when new (more reasonable from ebay), and consumer NVMe (in the stick form) are more affordable.

Aside from a dedicated u.2 server from Supermicro, (which is outside the budget), do I go with a couple Icy Dock u.2 enclosure for (4 drives per enclosure)? And go with a U.2 controller? (what options do I have for this)
Or do i just get a few a couple of PCIe cards that can handle 4x NVMe sticks per card? and just add more cards as more drives are needed?

What are my options?

 

[i386]

Does you friend need storage capacity or performance?

 

[outsider]

More performance oriented, with some room to grow in capacity. We were thinking of populating with 2TB drives to start.
There's also a 40Gbit network card going into that box to make use of the drive performance.

 

[gea]

Your idea with the Ici Dock U.2 enclosures is a good start for a budget system.

I would add a mainboard like the X11SPH-nCTPF | Motherboards | Products - Super Micro Computer, Inc. that comes with 2 x Oculink and M.2 onboard (together with 10G and SAS). Together with the PCI Slots for Oculink/M.2 adapters you can connect up to 10 NVme with 4 lanes each (either via Oculink -> U.2 or M.2 > U.2 cables)