I'm curious about HDD connectivity to SAS ports on a Precision T7600. 

Clearly these workstations were made for plugging standard HDD-with-SATA form factors into them, but somewhere in the architecture the cabling adapts them for SAS connectivity on the motherboard, or RAID card, as the case may be.

I'm interested in placing a pair of SSDs mounted in enclosures with U.2 connectors, essentially emulating the form factor for 2.5" drives.  Apparently those connectors would need adapters to become SATA where they meet the built-in ports for the Precision T7600 and many other similar models.

I'm guessing that Dell must have engineered these motherboards for SAS connectivity for speed advantages.  It leaves me wondering if there is a better way to attach to the SAS port(s) on the motherboard than by converting the U.2 connector to SATA, only to be reconverted to SAS where it enters the motherboard.

Or perhaps there is an entirely better way.  I appreciate any help.