It has been some time and now I have what I was looking for in hand. Hot swap NVMe without needing to burn $$$$ on an HPE server. Testing and wiping large sums of M.2 drives can only be done in a sane manner when we can perform those tasks without a bunch of PCIe card adapters, NVMe screws, and tons of reboots while you swap out hardware. It cost a lot but cuts down on time to process.
The machine doesn’t need to be a beast to do what we need it to do. We insert the dive, the software detects the drive, pushes command for the drive to wipe itself, test for verification of the wipe, gather drive details for grading the drive, and after the results we eject the drive. The entire thing takes under 2 minutes unless a full blockerase is required. For now, it is sitting in a Optiplex I had lying around.
All that capability sitting in a 2nd gen business class desktop. I love it.
The hardware making this all possible consists of:
- An old Dell Optiplex 790, [2nd gen i7 CPU]
- ToughArmor MB720M2K-B
- Broadcom 9400-16I Tri-Mode Controller [sitting in the 16x gen3 slot, why not]
- Broadcom 1m U.2 Enabler cables
Reservations I had:
A week or so after ordering the hardware I watched Wendell’s “Icy Dock: Helping you PCIe All The Things” video. After watching, I was a little curious how the FAQ for the MB720M2K-B claims hot swap for drives not designed for hot-swap. The Tri-mode controller certainly does. I think the ground pins of the connector inside the IcyDock enclosure may be the answer. I don’t want to risk opening mine up to get the answer. This hardware is now in limited production now. I don’t really have an option. But, the m.2 connectors located on the back-plane might be were you find the longer grounding pins.
I did not go the full 8 NVMe drives the controller supports. At first, I was not totally sold on the hot swap capability or the software we used to support it. But, after booting the PC with a drive inserted, allowing the software to detect it, and then moving the drive through all the bays and having the drive detecting without a hitch, it is not likely to be a problem.
The trays come with a metal base with a black plastic insert that keeps the drive lined up for the m.2 connector on the back-plane, a black plastic clip that slides up and down allowing you to lock the drive in the various supporting lengths, a metal heat spreader, and some thermal pads. The heat spreader is at least as good, if not better, than what you find on a motherboard. The all important clip is not at all smooth in it’s operation and the feel of plastic on plastic makes me not super hopeful for the drive tray’s longevity for our specific use case. If you plan on keeping the drives in the trays and moving the trays around or not doing a ton of swapping m.2 drives than I am sure it will be more than reasonable. I assume variations of the trays will come out and we may end up with trays with better methods to secure the drive. It is not bad for normal use case, just not ideal when you have half a dozen drives in each tray in a day and expect to get 3-5 years of use.
The controller and U.2 enable cable worked in the system without a hitch. It is about as complicated as installing a stick of RAM to setup.
Who is this for, besides us?
You can get PCIe cards and the whole thing is cheaper and much more simple, maybe performs a bit better also? But the setup would only be internal to the machine. I think that where this comes in.
- If the need is there for the ability to transfer a large some of data quickly over sneaker net then SED capable M.2 drives can do it in a fashion that reduces the risk and be in a much smaller form factor than a 2.5" SSD enclosure.
- Being able to bring in a M.2 drive home and continue to work on a project locally at home and not over a questionable network connection.
- Have the ability to insert M.2 storage as you would a removable disk and have the speed and reliability you expect from NVMe drives and do so without reboots.
- Having the ability to get M.2 performance and redundantly replace a failing drive with no down time without needing some HPE enterprise server level equipment.