LiKenun
December 31, 2023, 3:57pm
9
Calling it quits… I know what does not work. And I also have some idea what could be tried next. tl;dr: one of the new Threadripper motherboard with a BIOS that supports bifurcation down to two lanes or a different cable than the one I tested. Either way, an Intel Optane H10/H20 is a white elephant.
An unspectacular failure: only one device shows up. It seems like a proper backplane is mandatory .
The cable I had hoped would do the trick did not: SLSP-8X-39X2U2-2X2-0.5M . If it had worked, I could have managed to connect two Intel Optane H10/H20 SSDs to the Broadcom P411W-32P and have four block devices (2 Optanes, 2 NANDs) show up in lspci’s output. (F.Y.I., only the Optane side of the SSD showed up.)
Looks like this will be the end of my investment into the project. I should have stopped at just buying the H20, but curiosity got the better of me. 3 adapters, 3 cables, 2 enclosures, and 1 HBA in, I am calling this quits.
Where would this project have gone next with deeper pockets? I heard some new Epyc or Threadripper motherboards have BIOS settings for bifurcating down to two lanes.
Perhaps the SLS5-8X-39X2U2-2X2-0.5M would work, but that is an incredible waste of precious ports/lanes on the HBA just to connect Intel’s crappy product. There is no scenario in which buying it for use with H10/H20 SSDs is a winning proposition; a single cable alone costs more than the highest capacity SKU.
EDIT: I should note that although these part numbers hyperlinks are identical at a glance, they actually differ by a single character. I had made several edits to correct the links before due to being unable to tell them apart.
The SLSP-8X-39X2U2-2X2-0.5M has one SlimSAS 8i connector on the host end and two U.2 connectors for two 2x2 dual port SSDs.
The SLS5-8X-39X2U2-2X2-0.5M has one SlimSAS 8i connector on the host end and one U.2 connector for the 2x2 dual port SSD.
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