Unsolved
This post is more than 5 years old
1 Rookie
•
29 Posts
0
5750
September 24th, 2019 14:00
SAS connectors on T7600
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.
Dell-Alan D
3 Apprentice
•
1.2K Posts
0
September 25th, 2019 03:00
@Guswah the most convenient way to connect up SAS drives to the system board is via a PERC PCI-E card.
We offered two cards for the system the H310 (P/N - HV52W) and the H710P (P/N - XDHXT). Here are the specs below -
Depending on your drive configuration you may need specific cables for the SAS drives and PERC card
Mini SAS (36 pin) to 4 drop SATA
Mini SASA (36 pin) to 4 drop SAS
Mini SAS (36 pin) to 2 drop SAS with shared power
Alan
Guswah
1 Rookie
•
29 Posts
0
September 25th, 2019 07:00
Alan, thanks a million. I do have the H710P, currently uninstalled.
Do you know whether the connector on the adapter in my photo carries the required power, and if so, which of the cables in your photo would be correct?
Again, many thanks.
Guswah
1 Rookie
•
29 Posts
0
September 25th, 2019 14:00
My prior comment might be poorly worded.
What I should have asked is whether the SAS port on the H710P carries power to the drives -- or it's just for data.
Your second and third cable images differ in that one appears to have power, the other not. One of them refers to the board end as SASA, and the other simply as SAS.
Guswah
1 Rookie
•
29 Posts
0
September 26th, 2019 16:00
As if it wasn't already confusing, I've found that there are cables with SAS connectors of various types.
Does anyone know if the SAS connectors on the H710P RAID card are SFF-8643 and if cables to these ports carry power to the device (in my case, the NVMe enclosure)?
Sure appreciate whatever help I can get.
Dell-Alan D
3 Apprentice
•
1.2K Posts
0
September 27th, 2019 02:00
@Guswah apologies for the delay in responding. The PERC H710P card doesn't supply power, only the data. You require the SAS drop with power cable, the third one in my previous post. The That will supply both data and power to the drives.
Having studied the pictures of the PERC card and your drive adaptor, neither of those are SFF-8643.
Alan
Guswah
1 Rookie
•
29 Posts
0
September 30th, 2019 08:00
The third image, and the one you recommend, at least appears to be what I need. The problem is finding one. Is there a Dell part number for this?
I've found something similar, Dell's OEM part #T3F4V to connect drives with the RAID card, but I've been unable to determine if the drive-end connector is correct. My drive enclosures are SFF-8639. If any such cable has connectors meant for drives that predate the U.2 (SFF-8639), will they still work?
Dell-Alan D
3 Apprentice
•
1.2K Posts
0
October 1st, 2019 03:00
@Guswah the part number for the PWR/SAS cable that you require is T5C70.
For the second part, I cant honestly say. The cable I provided connects to SAS drives or the connector you provided the picture of. You may find an answer in the following two links -
https://www.dell.com/community/PowerEdge-Hardware-General/m-2-NVME-on-Dell-T630/td-p/5085064
http://www.datacenterprofessionals.net/profiles/blogs/how-to-use-intel-optane-nvme-u-2-sff-8639-ssd-drive-in-a-pcie
Alan
MountainD3w
1 Rookie
•
45 Posts
0
October 4th, 2019 11:00
Sorry to partially hijack this thread, but it's very similar to my request. I want to use 3.5" SAS drives in my T7600 in the 4 hard drive bays of the workstation. I've been trying to find diagrams, pics, or forums to see if this is possible. I know I could just rip out the chassis and find out, but it's not exactly convenient due to my setup.
If I get the recommended card(s) and cable(s), will they be able to use the backplane for the hard drive bays?
MountainD3w
1 Rookie
•
45 Posts
0
October 5th, 2019 11:00
nevermind. With all the PCIx cards in my workstation, I failed to see the perc card staring at me.
Dell-Alan D
3 Apprentice
•
1.2K Posts
0
October 7th, 2019 04:00
@MountainD3w you may find the following manuals helpful for setting up and configuring the drives specifically the hard drive issues section.
Alan
(edited)
krravi
3 Posts
0
October 13th, 2021 11:00
My machine has no PCI Perc cards. But in the motherboard, I do see 4 connectors. Two for SATA and two for SAS. One of the SAS ports does seem to be connected and the cables go beneath the motherboards to the drives upfront.
All I want to do is to see if the SAS ports will offer 6Gbps speed. I am only getting 3 Gbps right now.
mjur3191
1 Rookie
•
17 Posts
0
October 14th, 2021 19:00
Generally I run M.2 NVME hardware directly into the PCIe slot using one of the many adapters on the market. It wont be RAID but it will be 400% faster than a PERC interface (depending on the brand and model of the M2 NVME device). You can source SAS SSD already.
I think everyone wants NVME for speed not convenience. How do you justify this complexity?
If you have a chance to upgrade later to a machine with BIFURCATION on the PCIe slots (T5810, T7810) you can load 4 NVME storage devices on the one PCIe x16 slot and do some interesting things. Such as booting directly from NVME.
The limitation is in the design of the motherboard.
If you want to run some different setups, you can also consider "Clover EFI Bootloader" as an experimentation tool worthy of consideration.