BashedShell,

To answer the easiest question first, the R430 doesn't support NVMe drives. Now with that out of the way, with the R440 it does support NVMe, but would require the x10 backplane and would only allow for up to 4 NVMe drives, the remaining slots would be SAS/SATA, as seen below.

Also you can find a list of some of the supported NVMe's on 131-132 here.

Let me know if this helps.

Thanks for the tip @DELL-Chris H. So if I'm understanding then, the NVMe 4x units can be loaded standard front bays on the R440 10x drives backplane, but I still need that adapter I mentioned here, correct?

So 4 NVMe front bays + 6 SSD front bays remaining, all 2.5" format. Any other adapters I need or such? If I wanted to add more via PCI slots also, in addition to the 4x NVMe front drives, is that also possible?

I just want to understand the max drives for NVMe, any adapters I might need, etc. Don't want surprises when I order them and realize something is missing or not compatible.

Hello BashedShell,

The M.2 drives are only supported on the BOSS card (Boot Optimized Storage Subsystem).

The U.2 would be supported for drive bays.

BashedShell,

You would not need the adapter. As far as the amount of NVMe drives, all that are officially supported is the 4 that we discussed, anything more would be based on trial and error. 

Ok a bit confused, not about quantity but NVMe compatibility. The example model I provided is this one which is PCIe. That is why I mentioned the adapter. From what I can see, that one is M.2 PCIe Gen3 x 4 but the R440 has to be U.2 PCIe Gen3 x 4. Is that the main difference in this case for using front bays? If so, they're much more expensive compared to the M.2 options. Any suggestions? 

I found this one and unreal, they don't mention specs like speed, etc. Suspicious?

Thanks again.

Thanks @Dell -Charles R, so is it possible to have 2 M.2 NVMe drives via that BOSS card (with O/S installed on one of them), plus the 4 x U.2 front loaded drives + 6 SSD front loaded drives? Specifically on the R440.

I looked up:

"Thanks @Dell -Charles R, so is it possible to have 2 M.2 NVMe drives via that BOSS card (with O/S installed on one of them), plus the 4 x U.2 front loaded drives + 6 SSD front loaded drives? Specifically on the R440. ->  Yes , " Front drive bays: Up to 10 x 2.5” SAS/SATA (HDD/SSD) with up to 4 NVMe SSD max 76.8TB"

R440 does not support BOSS card with NVMe drives. R440 support BOSS card with SATA M.2 SSD drives. You can refer below link for BOSS S1 supported servers

https://www.dell.com/support/manuals/en-us/boss-s-1/boss_s1_ug_publication/supported-poweredge-systems?guid=guid-d4b0fd15-6b96-4f68-a66b-fb3c3427b743&lang=en-us

For NVMe on PCIe Slot you can have 2 of below NVMe HHHL cards installed. Below link have details on slots supported for NVMe PCIe SSD

Hi, I stand corrected: I happened to misread this part "M.2 NVMe drives via that BOSS card" and Shine is correct. My apologies once again.

Thanks for the tip.

In summary and hopefully to get final clear understanding on my part, does the below look compatible?

Dell R440 with 2.5" 10-Bay backplane
BOSS S1 Controller (separate add-on purchase)
- 2 x NVMe installed in Boss controller (model: Samsung MZPLJ12THALA-00007)
4 x 8TB NVMe U.2 format via front bays (model: this one + M.2 to U.2 adapter)
6 x 8tb SSD (model: Samsung 870)

Total Disk: 105TB estimate

Please clarify if the above looks right. The adapter option for front loaded NVMe is because the U.2 drives are insanely much more expensive. I've used virtually on all regular SSD drives adapters for 3.5" to 2.5" inch in some older Dell servers with 3.5" backplane. Never had issues with them. Just hoping in this case with NVMe drives, these adapters I mentioned won't degrade performance in any way.