Using an Intel NVMe/SAS3 2U Disk Enclosure (A2U8X25S3PHS) with Slimline (8-lane) + MiniSas HD ports?

[j.battermann]

I am putting together a new system and going with the ASRock Rack ROMED6U-2L2T motherboard that has 3 'Slimline PCIe4.0 x8' ports (albeit the specs list 2 'for U.2', the manual however lists 3 of those ports in total - two 'upwards' on the board and one at the backside) and a bunch of MiniSas HD ports.

Ideally I'd like to use it with one of the Intel A2U8X25S3PHS enclosures that has 8 x 2.5" drive slots and would want to fill 4 of those 8 drive slots with U.2 drives and 4 with SAS3 drives but was wondering if anyone knows from experience if that combo works... or how to do it.

By 'that combo' I mean using two of these "SFF-8654 8i to SFF-8611 4i Slimline SAS 8-Lane to OCulink 4-Lane x2 Cable"s (or even the Supermicro ones) for the splitting up two of these 8x Slimline ports on the board to four 4x oculink lanes fort the 4 U.2 drives, but I am a bit uncertain how I could or would connect those 4 other slots with potential SAS3 drives.

I was thinking of using the board's Mini SAS HD ports and these "Mini SAS SFF-8643 To SFF-8611 Oculink Cable"s for the later, but I really wonder if I am missing something / am being too naïve overall.


Basically it boils down to: can two or three Slimline 8x connectors on the board + one or two of its MiniSas HD connectors be used to properly connect to the A2U8X25S3PHS? I am struggling or doubting mostly if these potentially possible cable conversions will actually work and if everything speaks the correct/expected protocol(s) at the end of the day or are there any weird connector != connector/protocol things going on I might miss.. or are some of the cables mentioned above uni-directional and all those weird, annoying pitfalls?


If anyone has a clear picture if/what's correct, it would be awesome to hear about that.. and also what's potentially wrong and might need a change / further investigation with ASRock Rack.

Thanks,
-Joerg

 

[zack$]

Cable compatibility aside, you can connect 8x sff-8611 or 2x sff-8643 to the A2U8X25S3PHS. You can use 4 x sff-8611 to connect the 4 nvme drives and use a sff-8643 to connect the other 4 Sas/Sata drives. You will have to keep the Sas/Sata drives in either the first four or last four bays and vice-versa for the nvme.

This is a tri-mode enclosure so it is made to mix and match. However, a sff-8643 attached will convert half of the bays to Sas/Sata. Two will be the entire enclosure.

In your case, your motherboard does not have SAS3 (it's just Sata with MiniSas-HD ports). So SAS3 drives would not work. You will need a SAS3 AIC if you want SAS3 drives.

Also, I've heard some weird stories about Amd's Sata controllers. If you have a sff-8643 to sff-8643 cable laying around, I would just try it out with some sata drives to see if it works.

 

[j.battermann]

Thanks $zack for clarifying this a bit, much appreciated!

One last Q as you seem to be one of the few that have this enclosure: can it be mounted (read: standard screws) in any 2x5.25 slot combo or does it need some proprietary mounting mechanism/modding? And also.. would you happen to know roughly the depth of the enclosure..?

 

[zack$]

Depth is ~150mm (counting the protruding MiniSas-HD or the 4-pin power).

The mounting is proprietary (3 mounting points on top and a slide-in connector). Yes, it is standard screws. I was able to mount by drilling holes to line-up (4u) or double-sided mounting tape (2u, the enclosure is very light). Some cases have tool free bays (like the HP cases in the other thread) that will hold this enclosure with no difficulty at all.

Here's a picture to better explain things:

http://imgur.com/a/FhgkU4i

 

[j.battermann]

Thanks zack$ .. thath helps a lot!!