I have a dozens of m.2 lying around, and a proper server (WRX80E, w/ 2x SFF-8643 U.2 port empty) frequently needing swapping of drives.
Restarting the server (with PCIe device change ) typically takes 3-30mins.
So I am thinking if adaptor like this be utilized to mobilize my m2 NVMes is a good idea.
Yes, you can… But I would go with something like this instead:
With this it will work like any hot-swappable drive. Only problem is that you will give up a PCIe port, but that’s usually not a problem in a 4U file server.
I thought m.2 drives are not hotswappable.
I looked into this specific icy dock a bit, the detachable connection seems to be the drive m.2 socket itself. So either it’s doing some black magic or physically I don’t think it’s capable of hot swapping.
Yeah, you are right. I was confusing it with E1.S bays. Those have m.2 adapters that can be hotswapped. Something like this perhaps?
just learned from here (timestamp) my WRX80e sage motherboard might not support NVMe hot-swap (not sure he’s talking about the U.2 socket or any NVMe).
Pcie is hotswapable for m.2 and u.2
Startech has a few devices
Its mainly motherboard support for these features
I use m.2 and u.2 over thunderbolt and thunderbolt is just pcie tunneling
My kaoxia 15.36tb in my minisforum ms-01 wants to be removable (its a bios setting im too lazy to fix)
Hell on the correct devices you can hotswap gpus
thunderbolt is different.
from my limited knowledge not only they’ve got an extra redriver, they also standardized an encapsulation tech that includes hot-swapping (cabling).
m.2 by itself can’t be hotswapped because of its socket design, U.2 does on that aspect. However there are multiple things involved when it comes to hot swapping: