The website spec says it connects U.2 drives at PCIe 4.0 x4. While older drives that connect at PCIe 3.0 speeds are readily available on the second hand market (eBay), PCIe 4.0 drives will likely stay relevant longer.
You will have to decide what route to take.
Check out reviews for some enterprise class drives starting with the recent review of the Micron 7500 Pro. The review lists a couple of comparable drives that you can use to further your investigation.
Before purchase, make sure to look up the drive specs on the vendor sites. Many (most?) drives will be 15mm high and not fit into your case (case in point: Micron 7500).
Lastly, last-gen drives are U.3 drives, which are electrically compatible with the U.2 standard.
Where do you get these? The only ones I’ve been able to find were pulled drives on ebay that were OEM drives. The firmware couldn’t be updated, the Samsung enterprise software couldn’t recognize them and no management software from Dell/HP/Lenovo would recognize them.
Since I couldn’t update them, nor manage them, I didn’t want them. Would like to be able to find some that were Samsung factory and not OEM.
That is a good question, my buddy gave them to me; I assume they’re OEM pulls but not 100% sure.
I haven’t ventured into firmware updates yet because they’re running the newest firmware but I know there is a thread over on STH dedicated to the drive with all the form factor specific firmwares available to flash to the SSD.
ahh I just looked at the 7450 spec sheet and some of them are 7mm height drives, but some are also 15mm height. As long as OP was careful with exact part numbers the 7450 could be a good option as well.
I’m using an 6.4TB enterprise Intel P4610 15mm U.2 which fits perfectly with this adapter in the x16 slot. This opens the door for 30+TB enterprise U.2 & U.3 NVMe drives in the Minisforum MS-01
What I did:
I had to remove the full profile bracket, place the low profile bracket into the MS-01 then insert the PCIe adapter with U.2 installed. Once seated in the PCIe x16 slot, I screwed the low profile bracket to the U.2 SFF-8639 card.
This adapter works perfectly for those wanting to add a standard 15mm U.2/U.3 enterprise NVME to their Minisforum MS-01. It fits lower than the fans so you can close the case & still have room for cooling without issue.
This is the adapter I purchased & tested:
U.2 to PCIe Adapter PCI-E 4.0 X4 to 2.5 Inch U.2 SFF-8639 SSD Converter Card. The seller Mu Ji Technology has these with both low-profile & standard profile adapter included.