Hi. I am trying to figure out how to get high-speed storage in my R640 server. I just want to use consumer-grade NVME disks, so I can write data at ≥ 1GByte/sec per disk. Do you have any suggestions on what hardware to choose?
Hi. I am trying to figure out how to get high-speed storage in my R640 server. I just want to use consumer-grade NVME disks, so I can write data at ≥ 1GByte/sec per disk. Do you have any suggestions on what hardware to choose?
Thanks. This is very useful.
I did find out about the U.2 interface is what is needed for NVME disks on server backplane. But when I for example try to search for nvme disks with U.2 interface on Dells webpage, I don’t find anything. Also I have not been able to find any info on which Dell R640 servers support U.2.
I need to go above at least 800MByte/s write speed, preferably a bit more.
Perhaps I could use something like this https://global.icydock.com/product_172.html ?
There may be some sort of marking that indicates if the bay is only accepts Nvme drives on the front of the drive tray. Line this.
Another option would be to open the server and find the part number for the backplane on Google or Dell’s page.
U.2 connectors and sata connectors are pretty similar, so It will be hard to tell only by watching the connector.
The link you’ve provided is the type of enclosure I’ve mentioned, that goes from m.2 to u.2 . I’ve never used one of those before, so I don’t know how well they work, but there could be compatibility issues with some operating systems, especially if you plan on setting up RAID.
If the backplane ends up having SAS connectors, you could try and get used enterprise SAS SSDs. Sometimes they can be had for about the same price as consumer SATA SSDs. And the max sequential speed is 1.2 GB/s.
If you have a PCI-Express slot available, you could also buy a Nvme to PCIE adapter. Many aren’t expensive and work quite well (I use one to have a Nvme drive in an old computer). However depending on the BIOS/UEFI booting from an Nvme doesn’t work.