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Adding NVMe to a Dell R710
Hello
We have two Dell R710 and we thought that by just adding a card we were going to revamp the servers! (how mistaken we were :-(
I bought the Dell Ultra-Speed Drive Quad NVMe M.2 PCIe x16 Card (4TB - 4x1TB)
We have updated the R710 to the last BIOS / UEFI settings and read all the methods Dell suggest and only "one" on the cards on the setting is recognized. We discovered about bifurcations and R710 lacks of it.
My question is:
Is there any way to make this work in the dell r710? If the present card will not work, will you suggest any other setup to use the Samsung memory cards
(like, two x8 double cards or independent x4 or sata adapters)?
Thanks you in advance
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DELL-Daniel My
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June 26th, 2018 10:00
Hello
It is not a supported device on the R710. I am not familiar with the device. I searched the description and the device that came up in the search results is for our client workstation systems, it is not intended for our servers.
You can review the slot specifications of the server to make sure the slots meet the device requirements.
http://www.dell.com/support/
Thanks
w_bufffet
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January 20th, 2019 01:00
Hi,
I did manage to boot from the PCI nvme. The idea is to do the following:
1. change the boot to UEFI (must be done! this does not work with legacy boot, even if the other posts say it does).
2. create a bootable windows (10,server etc) usb stick. Make sure its formatted FAT32 (to be able to install UEFI). this is explained in many other posts.
3. create a clover boot USB (I used the internal SD Card as the special boot device), but if you do have the internal SD Card its a good idea to use it.
good luck!
the way to create this SD/USB card is covered in this post:
https://www.win-raid.com/t2375f50-Guide-NVMe-boot-without-modding-your-UEFI-BIOS-Clover-EFI-bootloader-method.html
make sure to copy the nvme driver as mentioned in the post.
4. insert both to the server, and boot UEFI mode into the boot manager, boot first time from the windows usb, and proceed to install into the nvme ssd (it will show up). Make sure to wipe it and install clean.
5. during the install the server will reboot, this time make sure to boot to the sd card, and when the clover menu appear just select the efi partition (its usually the second to the left). this will continue the installation. repeat for all future boots.
6. once the install is done, remove the windows usb.
so every boot the clover SD card boots first, load the driver for the nvme, and continue to boot the windows. it works super well for me.
Make sure to disable C states in the bios - it speeds up the system dramatically.
sscotti
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August 22nd, 2020 07:00
I'm looking for a way to add an SSD to a Dell R710, 6 3.5 in drive bays, 4 vacant PCI slots and a DVD in one of the SATA slot. Ideally, I'd want to put an SSD in on of the 6 drives bay, or somehow hook it up to one of the PCI slots. I want that disk to be the system disk. Seems like using a PCI slot would be a nice solution if that is possible and relatively inexpensive. I am running UBUNTU with UEFI enabled, so that might not be an issue. I think I have the latest BIOS (6.6 ?). Not sure if the UEFI is a separate firmware.
Anyways, I did find this adapter:
https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-Adaptador-SSD-M2-PCIe/dp/B01FU9JS94/ref=sr_1_51?dchild=1&keywords=ssd%2Bdrive%2Bwith%2Bpci%2Binterface&qid=1598106916&s=pc&sr=1-51&th=1
Not sure you can even use that, and it looks like it has fewer lanes than the Dell slot.
Just wondering what solution you arrived at.