PE T320 + PCI Express Flash SSD Kit - how / what is needed ?

Question

Dear Community;

I hope someone wise in here would be able to help me to figure out how and what parts are needed in order for things to work.

We have a 12th Gen T320, which has a fair hardware spec, yet still has potential for more I guess

At present the chassis is 8x 3.5" and has some other mods to the original configuration, making it more robust and redundant.

Since the 12th Gen does not support PCI bifurcation and BOSS cannot successfully be used, I had a look at PCI Express Flash SSD Kit (https://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/04/campaigns/poweredge-express-flash).
There is a complete ready kit for R720/820, yet the concept is meant for 12th Gen in general (I understand this to be a predecessor to the BOSS concept) so I see no reason why it would not work with T320.

Yet because I could not find a complete part number for the kit, I had to combine individual elements myself, which I feel I am still missing few elements off to complete. Or even more so - to confirm this is possible and will work.

Could someone please share some light on how to put it together so that it worked, so far I listed the following:
- YPNRC- PCIe extender card, to go on the PCI x16
- 4V75P - 4x PCIe data cables
- 693W6 - 4x NVME backplane -this is for the 720/820, but could it be used in conjunction with 5TX8J 4x2.5" cage for T620 ????? (I suspect the chassis for T620 and T320 is the same at the front, so even though I already have 2 cages of 4x 3.5", there is still room to fit another cage above that, the more that T620 can come with 12x 3.5" bays in 3 rows of 4) - could someone confirm this?
- GKTHG - SFF-8078 to SFF-8087 cable
- KV109 - Backplane signal cable (is this the same cable as for the backplane I already have in, that supports 8x3.5" drives ?) if I already have 1 backplane in, where do I power the other one from, were this all to go in ??
- 123W8 - Backplane Power Cable Assembly
- 4V3T9 - Cage filler (if the cage was to take 2.5" drives, there is only 4 connectors and the other half of the cage would remain unused, so for aesthetics shall be filled with a blanker).

I am not happy with the Internal Dual SD Module (flaky, dropping out, disappearing from iDrac / OMSA after the mirror rebuilt, slow), so looking to get the hypervisor on something redundant and faster than IDSDM, without sacrificing the actual storage.
I hope this retrofit concept is not impossible....
Anyone pls ??

DELL-Young E · Answer

Hi, I'm afraid this would be a risky/time consuming project. You seem to have been trying various parts to see if it actually works if I read it correctly. You will have to wait for someone who actually has the experience and succeeded in it if there's one. We are sorry we can't be of further help.

ArturLorek · Answer

Hi, Thanks for your prompt reply.Not that I have tried various parts to see if it actually works, but I tried to make a list of parts that would be required for this project to work. So since there is a kit for R720/820 that comprises of some specific parts, I was trying to put together P/Ns for a set that would work in my T320. I have not tried the parts yet, as I would need to source them in the first place (not that complicated nor extremely expensive, considering the benefits). Yet before I'd go at it - a bit of a certainty is required that things can be configured in that way and would get the right result, even though the config may not be official. The only thing that concerns me is what I read somewhere in between the lines (could not find a direct statement and explanation), that it may require a 2 CPU setup. Could this be confirmed ??

DELL-Young E · Answer

Hi, that model can have only one CPU I'm afraid.

ArturLorek · Answer

That is kind of obvious, since there is only 1 CPU socket.... The question was whether the PCI Express Flash SSD Kit requires a system with 2 CPU....

DELL-Stefan R · Answer

Hi ArturLorek.

I checked the documentation of T320 and T620 - there is no specific note on the required number of CPUs in order to use the PCIe kit.

But it is just listed in the T620, not the T320.

So, we can not tell if it will work without any hassle or if it throws you into a lot of trouble ^^

The T320 was not designed to handle PCIe SSDs like the T620 was.

The mainboards are different (obvious to the 2nd CPU).

To sum it up, we do not recommend doing any experiments with your running system.
But at the end of the day it is your system, so why not giving it a try.

If you decide to do it, the community would be glad to hear from your experiences. Maybe somebody else is searching for that information already and you could answer it

I wish you the best of luck.

Best regards,
Stefan

PowerEdge Hardware General

PE T320 + PCI Express Flash SSD Kit - how / what is needed ?

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