I’m repurposing my old X570 system to add another node into my Proxmox cluster. Obviously PCIe lanes are pretty limited but I’ve got a motherboard that splits the 4.0 x16 lanes into two PCIe slots. That’ll let me assign x8 to a NIC and the other x8 for a pair of NVMe drives.
I’m looking at some E1.S drives on the secondary market, but it seems like getting those in service in a PCIe slot is going to be obnoxious. E1 adapters are pretty rare compared with M.2 and U.2, and compatibility and reliability on cards and cables seems a bit trial-and-error.
Anyone have a setup to recommend for E1 drives that has worked out really well? Or would you recommend sticking with the better-supported U.2 drive market.
Well that’s good to know. I’m dealing with information overload; there’s too many standards and options here… mcio, slim sas, occulink, the aforementioned genz… and that’s on top of the connectors on drives, motherboards, and cards.
I checked different form factors before I bought my stuff…U.2/3 is really the best form factor for availability, price, new/used SKUs available and with new generations of drives still with U.2, this isn’t going obsolete in the next decade.
And for a desktop…well, we have M.2 as a super small option. And U.2 if you want capacity with the benefit of having 15mm drives with much better cooling.
My U.3 drives run quiet with 40mm Noctua fans cooling them. HDDs next to them are way louder. I use Micron Pro NVMe, they have a serious heatsink on top (feels cold in hand → great)
Other datacenter form factors…like 7mm U.2 or E3.S just are made not for your average homelab/home experience. These are made for maximum density.
And I don’t see the benefit in other form factors really…You can even put single 15mm U.2 drives in your average gaming case as long as there is airflow around the (internal) 2.5" mounting.
There are two- or even four-way U.2 PCIe cards nowadays. Possibly the cheapest way to install U.2 drives. But 4x U.2 are up to 100W of heat, so make sure there is proper cooling. These things certainly aren’t the M.2 drives or SATA SSDs you are used to.
I just ordered one for 4 p5801x and will post a note after testing. Given it has a 6 pin PCIe aux power input, seems likely it will be great for them, should let them pull a total of ~150W
The ruler format didn’t grant SSD capacities greater than what U.2 could offer, and neither E1.S nor E3.S have technical advantages to offset the hassle of finding accommodation in off-the-shelf chassis and enclosures.
I was hoping it would be a PCIe 5.0 successor to this.
The E1.S are indeed pretty annoying as a form factor. Initially I thought of it as more compact in my case than U.2 because I don’t have anything readily available as a U.2 bay, but the heat sink is the killer.
In the end, I chose E1.S only because of cost, ~30% cheaper on eBay. And even with the heat sink, they fit on a quad card, because I have a slot connected via SlimSAS x16 in a different orientation than the board orientation, so it doesn’t block any slots
I’m considering replacing the SlimSAS host+device adapter with this interesting PCIe 5.0 riser cable:
I feel like I’m shilling for JMT (which seems to just be branded ADT-Link stuff?)
There actually is! You have to look at the exposed pins on the connector. The pattern of long and short pins are not identical on both sides when flipped. Then, you have to read the connector specs for the SSD and figure out which pins are the power pins.
Plug it in and pray. If you get it wrong, the SSD sparks and sets something on fire.
I got it right on my first try, but I was a dumbass and forgot to connect the other end to the PCIe switch, so I thought it didn’t work (without exploding). Then I flipped it.
Had AER issues initially, but it wasn’t the JMT card’s fault, it was a flaky SlimSAS cable I was using (don’t ask)
Connected directly to a PCIe5.0 x16 slot, works great- formatted the drives but haven’t had time to do a proper benchmark. Only confirm i/o with no AER, all 4 drives recognized @ PCIe 4.0 x4
Measure before ordering - it doesn’t fit in one of the 2 non-standard orientations (also: don’t ask) I was planning to try. But should be fine for most
I actually did try to read the technical schematics and figure out how the pins went, but I don’t believe that I succeeded. However, I stand corrected. There is a non-zero indication of which way to plug the thing in. lol.
Let’s just say the chances of figuring out how to plug in the E1.S are slim to none and slim left town.
Blockquote
I just ordered one for 4 p5801x and will post a note after testing. Given it has a 6 pin PCIe aux power input, seems likely it will be great for them, should let them pull a total of ~150W
What thickness of drives will fit on the card without blocking the next PCIe slot or touching the card in the next slot?
I was hoping it would be a PCIe 5.0 successor to