ive been fortunate enough to inherit quite a few d7-p5500 3.84TB drives, and im thinking of upgrading my storage server with these in a zfs pool.
Since the HBA route seems to be quite expensive, ive considered going the route of finding some x16 PCie adapters that i can fit 4 U.2 drives on each. My motherboard (a h12ssl) supports bifurcation on the ports, and i think that would be the most cost effective solution.
i just wanted to hear, there are quite a few different types on the market, and im wondering if anyone have tried them out?
Those are all passive PCIe cards, they don’t have any logic or anything. They all should work fine as long as your mobo/PCIe slot support bifurcation.
I’d recommend buying off of eBay instead of random websites though, eBay has very strong buyer protections in case you receive DOA or have other issues.
They’re mass produced and resold by many sellers/ “brands” as you can see by three eBay listings in the USA for the exact same product.
I’m curious how these work out for you as I was getting ready to post the same question. I was looking at the 10GTek one as I’ve had good luck with their products, but it’s only Gen 3. PCIe NVMe (U.2)
I’m currently planning on putting them in an Epyc which only supports Gen 3, but it would be nice to have the Gen 4 compatibility for when I upgrade.
I was originally looking at them, but I read somewhere that they’re just random Chinese rebrands. That and they don’t seem to be easily available in the US.