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Dell R640 - M.2 NVME PCI-EXPRESS ADAPTER
lowprofile
Member
in General
Hi guys,
I have the R640 with 10 disk chassis - I just realized it might not support NVME disks. It has a RAID H730P Raid controller which ofcourse dont work with NVMe disks.
Now my question, would it be possible to buy a PCI-express adapter which can take M.2 nvme disks? Anyone know if that works? and can it work simultaneously with another PERC raid controller where normal SATA/SAS disks are attached.
Thanks!
Comments
I just ran through this whole exact same issue. Dell R7425 servers. They SUPPOSEDLY support U.2 2.5" NVMe drives. At least the PERC does. However when I actually insert them into the front 2.5 bays, it does not work. Drives don't sync. Turns out the backplane is missing PCIe cable from the board.
Not sure what you mean by "work simultaneously" but the PCIe adapter option does work, for both U.2 or M.2 on the new and old Dell servers. They work together, but you can't span a RAID array across both. Also the Dell Poweredge servers DO NOT BOOT from anything but USB or PERC controller. If you want to boot from NVMe, you have to write the bootloader onto a PERC disk. Grub will let you write the bootloader to the RAID controller and then load OS from NVMe.
Hope this helps.
Currently trying to get one of these to work on a new R540 (with a PERC H740P but not sure it matters):
https://www.scan.co.uk/products/akasa-ak-pccm2p-0-m2-ssd-to-pcie-adapter-card-plus-heatsink-cooler-pcie-gen3-x16-slot-low-profile-1u
The idea is to use the NVMe for SWAP. DRAC isn't seeing it and neither is Ubuntu on a live CD.
In theory it should work though.
Yes i realized as well the missing cables. Found a picture where it shows the actual cables. My slots are empty. You think it would work? Need to check the backplane as well.
Let me know if you get any succes.
Turns out it does work, just not in the x16 slot for some reason (even though it's a x16 adapter). A bit of further reading suggests if you only have 1 CPU installed some PCI slots might be disabled. Still testing but I think the slot is OK.
In my case I'm pretty sure I need a 2nd CPU to use the x16 slot:
https://www.ballicom.co.uk/docs//a1/49/a149014d-d35a-444f-8752-2dc0898e107f.pdf
Your case might be different. Maybe you have 2 CPUs. Some advice though - don't get unnecessarily large PCIe cards (as in, get 4x cards if they won't be a bottleneck). and be aware that you might need 2 CPUs to use all of the slots.
Great info! thanks. i will give it a try