Thats not TOO bad for a pcie switch I think? Also yeah, I would imagine that the switch + 4 drives would need active cooling in that density for sure
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I picked up a few of these and have been unable to get them to work at all when connected via any m.2->u.2 converter I've tried. They aren't even listed within the pci output so I am wondering if this behavior has any resolution suggestions from anyone here. I was unable to find any uart or usb connection, so I am unclear how to flash or modify these if a pci connection isn't even shown.
One thing I did notice with these is that they are hot to a concerning degree even at idle. The hottest I've ever seen out of any u.2 form factor device. I attempted to mount up some of those m.2 heatsinks to my drives to mitigate it. This is obviously not an intended answer, but I would have liked to know this in advance before purchase so I'm noting it here for others. The spacing between the drives doesn't really allow this to work If you want to populate all three of the slots on top with any form of individual heatsink. The bottom slot also barely has enough room for the m.2 drive itself.
I mounted these within a standard HDD drive cage using 2.5->3.5 adapters, and the fan in the cage was really helpful at controlling temps. Originally I was going to try mounting 2-4 of these to a u.2->pcie card, but I do think the heat would kill the drives.
One thing I did notice with these is that they are hot to a concerning degree even at idle. The hottest I've ever seen out of any u.2 form factor device. I attempted to mount up some of those m.2 heatsinks to my drives to mitigate it. This is obviously not an intended answer, but I would have liked to know this in advance before purchase so I'm noting it here for others. The spacing between the drives doesn't really allow this to work If you want to populate all three of the slots on top with any form of individual heatsink. The bottom slot also barely has enough room for the m.2 drive itself.
I mounted these within a standard HDD drive cage using 2.5->3.5 adapters, and the fan in the cage was really helpful at controlling temps. Originally I was going to try mounting 2-4 of these to a u.2->pcie card, but I do think the heat would kill the drives.
They're just there to give you a physical connection not actually be visible.
Likely with bad airflow and depends on the drive itself. Some run hotter than others. Kioxia runs cool while micron's run hot. Research your brand!
Forgive my ignorance here, but if I have a physical connection which itself is not visible, or visibly passing through any of the devices that are attached to it, how am I to make use of the device? Is there a driver somewhere I should have sourced?
I'm running it and the M2 just passed the signal to the drive and it's transparent to the OS and doesn't have electronics on the adapter, just the lanes for the socket to pass the info. I'll concede that there are about 10 different adapter types out there and maybe the one he got has more smarts but, in the $20 range I doubt it.
And this is all from 2019 and the adapter isn't even listed any longer on the OEM page? I should have looked before interjecting.
There's a good summary with photos in this thread from 6 weeks ago, neat little units that I consider buying whenever I see them on ebay, I just don't know what I'd do with any (mostly because I already have more SSDs than I know what to do with.)
@nexox
Interesting but, not the most efficient option considering how much things have advanced since its release. I suppose if you have a MCIO port to plug into and no available slots for anything else it might be relevant. If you wanted to drop in a quad or more M2 carrier then High Point would be a better option for cooling them while in use. They also offer more drives per card
I was looking into this sort of thing when I was stuck on Intel but, AMD offers dumb card options for much less since you can bifurcate in the UEFI instead of relying on the HW cards to do it. Even so though you have to pay attention to which slot/socket you use since anything off the chipset side is x4 total. Intel at least through the modern DMI offers x8 which opens things up a bit more for bandwidth beyond the CPU sockets/slots.
AMD though would be a cheaper migration path when compared to the costs for most of these cards though. It's a chicken/egg situation depending on budget and goals. Sometimes it's best to throw in the towel and migrate from one platform to the other. I avoided the switch as long as AMD was two steps behind in terms of other underlying tech but, switching up my storage game from consumer gear to enterprise made it apparent to ditch Intel finally and go back to my roots of AMD. The other option would be completely jump ship and spend up to the enterprise level but, that's a 3X jump just for the CPU/MOBO and I'm not that serious about it at this point. I threw together a ground up AMD build minus the U drive for ~$800 where looking at tantalizing gear starts out at closer to $3K and wouldn't even include the case or much more.
Interesting but, not the most efficient option considering how much things have advanced since its release. I suppose if you have a MCIO port to plug into and no available slots for anything else it might be relevant. If you wanted to drop in a quad or more M2 carrier then High Point would be a better option for cooling them while in use. They also offer more drives per card
I was looking into this sort of thing when I was stuck on Intel but, AMD offers dumb card options for much less since you can bifurcate in the UEFI instead of relying on the HW cards to do it. Even so though you have to pay attention to which slot/socket you use since anything off the chipset side is x4 total. Intel at least through the modern DMI offers x8 which opens things up a bit more for bandwidth beyond the CPU sockets/slots.
AMD though would be a cheaper migration path when compared to the costs for most of these cards though. It's a chicken/egg situation depending on budget and goals. Sometimes it's best to throw in the towel and migrate from one platform to the other. I avoided the switch as long as AMD was two steps behind in terms of other underlying tech but, switching up my storage game from consumer gear to enterprise made it apparent to ditch Intel finally and go back to my roots of AMD. The other option would be completely jump ship and spend up to the enterprise level but, that's a 3X jump just for the CPU/MOBO and I'm not that serious about it at this point. I threw together a ground up AMD build minus the U drive for ~$800 where looking at tantalizing gear starts out at closer to $3K and wouldn't even include the case or much more.
I was bored a few nights back. So, I thought of adding the 4 of the carriers I own in series using some M.2 to U.2 adapters and see if it would work on the only M.2 interface on a z170 board.
This is the result of such madness:
What a surprise! Not only did this abomination work, but it also exceeded my expectations. I managed to run nine drives, with the potential for even more, all on a single M.2 Interface. And the best part? The latency and bandwidth were maintained at a decent level. The only limitation was the 4 PCIe Gen 3 lanes.
Here's what the SSD-Hydra looks like:
As mentioned earlier in the thread, these sleds can get hot, and cooling four closely packed together was challenging.
Lucky for me, someone designed a nice 3D printable 2.5-inch drive case that can hold four drives and a case fan.
Inside this case, the drives and sleds stay very cool.
Putting them in a series is probably not the most efficient. I only did it that way to satisfy my curiosity.
It would be better to put them in parallel on the first sled.
The best option would be to use a PCIe x16 card and bifurcation to give each sled 4 PCIe lanes and 4 drivers per sled.
This is the result of such madness:
What a surprise! Not only did this abomination work, but it also exceeded my expectations. I managed to run nine drives, with the potential for even more, all on a single M.2 Interface. And the best part? The latency and bandwidth were maintained at a decent level. The only limitation was the 4 PCIe Gen 3 lanes.
Here's what the SSD-Hydra looks like:
As mentioned earlier in the thread, these sleds can get hot, and cooling four closely packed together was challenging.
Lucky for me, someone designed a nice 3D printable 2.5-inch drive case that can hold four drives and a case fan.
Inside this case, the drives and sleds stay very cool.
Putting them in a series is probably not the most efficient. I only did it that way to satisfy my curiosity.
It would be better to put them in parallel on the first sled.
The best option would be to use a PCIe x16 card and bifurcation to give each sled 4 PCIe lanes and 4 drivers per sled.
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