[SOLVED] Where do I buy OCuLink adapters? | ASRock Rack ROMED8-2T/BCM

High-Performance Computing Workstations & Servers
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I bought an ASRock Rack ROMED8-2T/BCM, but I don’t see any OCuLink adapters in the box.

I’d like to grab a few of these because I bought some Intel Optane 905P drives and would like to connect them up.

Where can I find these adapters?

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I recommend checking out microsatacables.com. They have a ton of the enterprise connector standards available to consumers.

Once you find the one you need, you can sometimes pick it up via Amazon (microsatacables is a 3rd party reseller) but they only have a portion of their catalog on Amazon.

You could also checkout Newegg, Connection, CDW, Insight, other business vars. Startech may be another manufacturer to source a cable.

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tons of places sell them you really need to check with what your are hooking up to it tho.

I know my icydock needed specific cables depending on raid card. so they are not all created equal. (See the FAQ page)

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I think this is the cable I’m looking for:

On the Intel site, it says 4x PCIe 3.0 which means I could technically get 4 cables out of one port:

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Not quite. OCuLink (SFF-8611) and SlimSAS (SFF-8654) both have two variations: 4i and 8i, with 8i being twice the physical width of 4i.

The connectors on the ROMED8 series are SFF-8611 4i. Assuming the U.2 variant of the Optane drive, the appropriate cable would look more like this one:

I can’t vouch for it as I’ve never tried this configuration personally, and there can be some weird compatibility issues with OCuLink between vendors, but that’s the physical form to look for.

It’s PCIe3 x4, meaning a single run of 4 lanes. OCuLink 4i in PCIe mode is also 4 lanes, so one drive per connector.

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My bad. I just noticed. You’re right. Man, these are expensive!

But also, yes, it’s 1 drive per port because I’d need a PCIe splitter otherwise.

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Is that Serial Cables store a good one?

On Amazon, all I see are random Chinese ones like these:

But they’re also a third of the price. I’d like to avoid random Chinese ones if I can.

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UPDATE

The cables I bought worked!

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Do you mind sharing what specific model you bought?

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I only tested the bare minimum of “working”. This is what I bought:

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