December 29, 20241 yr Hi, I need please recommendations for PCI-E for NVME adapter, prefer PCI-E with 4 places for SSDs. Brand is important here or also Chinese product will do the work? It's important to get PCI-E card with fan cooling or not needed? Regards.
December 29, 20241 yr Author 6 minutes ago, JorgeB said: An important consideration is if the board supports x4/x4/x4/x4 bifurcation Thanks for reply, How I can check that?
December 29, 20241 yr Author 5 minutes ago, JorgeB said: Board manual It's a server, HPE ML110 Gen 10, in the manual nothing mentioned about bifurcation.
December 29, 20241 yr Not only that there is no bifurbication, the machine also comes equipped with a RAID controller that is not usable for UNRAID. Its an avoid, avoid, avoid, device! You may however use an expensive NVMe card (one that comes with its own PCIe switch, do not expect to find them in China) and additional SATA Controllers in the slots. But it will be hard to find a video card that uses less than 16lanes slot (needed for the switch card) So it CAN be done but will be very expensive and many parts of the server are not usable.
December 29, 20241 yr Author 51 minutes ago, MAM59 said: Not only that there is no bifurbication, the machine also comes equipped with a RAID controller that is not usable for UNRAID. Its an avoid, avoid, avoid, device! You may however use an expensive NVMe card (one that comes with its own PCIe switch, do not expect to find them in China) and additional SATA Controllers in the slots. But it will be hard to find a video card that uses less than 16lanes slot (needed for the switch card) So it CAN be done but will be very expensive and many parts of the server are not usable. No No No! you don't tell me this! And I thought this is a good machine for me, it's have place for 8 HDDs, places for PCI-E cards. DAM! And I had an CPU and motherboard (i5 8400) and sold it because I bought this server. And already bought an CoolerMaster N400 (still here) for the custom made server, but again, then I bought this server. Edited December 29, 20241 yr by ChaoscripT
December 29, 20241 yr 3 hours ago, ChaoscripT said: And I thought this is a good machine for me, it's have place for 8 HDDs, places for PCI-E cards. DAM! Remember one thing: Manufacturers like HPE or DELL (or Apple too) do not produce "main stream" hardware. They always put in their own stuff, create own drivers, sometimes even need own OS-es. They want to buy their customers to their own products. The machines are good, but work badly or not at all with common stuff that you can buy everywhere. In case of the Controller its not really a big deal, you just need to put in a standard HBA (in "IT" mode!). The tricky (and likely expensive) part is to get a cableset that connects the HBA to the HD slots. If you are lucky, HPE has used "standard" SAS plugs, cables for them ("reverse SATA") can be found on Amazon or elsewhere. If not, bad luck. The same for ILO (the management part). If lucky the ILO VGA connector also shows an emulated VGA for the main computer, if not, you need an additional graphics card. (And I remember older HPE boxes that even needed the ILO to be activated by a license that had be be bought seperate, hopefully they have dropped this stupid behaviour by now) BTW, with the builtin HBA you are usually also limited to insert certified HP hard drives. Normal drives can be rejected or not put into service. There is a list of allowed hard disks in the technical reference. Read it carefully!!!
December 29, 20241 yr Author 5 minutes ago, MAM59 said: Remember one thing: Manufacturers like HPE or DELL (or Apple too) do not produce "main stream" hardware. They always put in their own stuff, create own drivers, sometimes even need own OS-es. They want to buy their customers to their own products. The machines are good, but work badly or not at all with common stuff that you can buy everywhere. In case of the Controller its not really a big deal, you just need to put in a standard HBA (in "IT" mode!). The tricky (and likely expensive) part is to get a cableset that connects the HBA to the HD slots. If you are lucky, HPE has used "standard" SAS plugs, cables for them ("reverse SATA") can be found on Amazon or elsewhere. If not, bad luck. The same for ILO (the management part). If lucky the ILO VGA connector also shows an emulated VGA for the main computer, if not, you need an additional graphics card. (And I remember older HPE boxes that even needed the ILO to be activated by a license that had be be bought seperate, hopefully they have dropped this stupid behaviour by now) BTW, with the builtin HBA you are usually also limited to insert certified HP hard drives. Normal drives can be rejected or not put into service. There is a list of allowed hard disks in the technical reference. Read it carefully!!! With this, I try to think maybe to switch it again, Find some Motherboard and CPU and connect it to my Cooler Master N400 Case.
December 29, 20241 yr 4 minutes ago, ChaoscripT said: With this, I try to think maybe to switch it again, Find some Motherboard and CPU and connect it to my Cooler Master N400 Case. Could be a wise descion... That case has 2*5,25" slots as I can see. You can get a hotswap case that fits up to 5*3,5" disks for this. This would allow disk changes/adds without needing a screwdriver.
December 30, 20241 yr Author 16 hours ago, MAM59 said: Could be a wise descion... That case has 2*5,25" slots as I can see. You can get a hotswap case that fits up to 5*3,5" disks for this. This would allow disk changes/adds without needing a screwdriver. Where I can found something like that, how swap is nice but I read that it's god very hot? how can I cool down it? But, which CPU and motherboard should I choose? To be honest, already ordered CPU and RAM for the HPE Server, Intel XEON 5218n (LGA 3647 Socket) and 128 GB DDR4 ECC RDIMM (I think), maybe I can use it them and buy related motherboard? Regards.
December 30, 20241 yr 22 minutes ago, ChaoscripT said: Where I can found something like that, how swap is nice but I read that it's god very hot? how can I cool down it? LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL! It is called "hot swap" because you can change / open Drives while still running. If you got the right controller (in slot or on Mobo), it signals the os the drive change and allows a graceful shutdown. It has nothing to do with "beeing hot" (in fact, most of these cases come with an additional fan at the back). 22 minutes ago, ChaoscripT said: To be honest, already ordered CPU and RAM for the HPE Server, Intel XEON 5218n (LGA 3647 Socket) and 128 GB DDR4 ECC RDIMM (I think), maybe I can use it them and buy related motherboard? Bad luck again, I dont know any standard boards that would fit into your case and accept these parts. But they MAY exist somewhere, who knows? To be honest, I also do not believe that your case will give enough cooling for this "glowing" CPU. This will be a real challenge... The RAM too, ECC Ram is uncommon, most CPUs and Mobos do not support it. And it is very expensive too... Also the electricity bill will jump up intensely with these parts, be prepared... Summerize: what you have bought/ordered is meant to be run in a datacenter with active cooling, heavy noise and electrical power to the max. It is nothing somebody would run at home.
December 30, 20241 yr Author 1 minute ago, MAM59 said: LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL! It is called "hot swap" because you can change / open Drives while still running. If you got the right controller (in slot or on Mobo), it signals the os the drive change and allows a graceful shutdown. It has nothing to do with "beeing hot" (in fact, most of these cases come with an additional fan at the back). Bad luck again, I dont know any standard boards that would fit into your case and accept these parts. But they MAY exist somewhere, who knows? To be honest, I also do not believe that your case will give enough cooling for this "glowing" CPU. This will be a real challenge... The RAM too, ECC Ram is uncommon, most CPUs and Mobos do not support it. And it is very expensive too... Also the electricity bill will jump up intensely with these parts, be prepared... Summerize: what you have bought/ordered is meant to be run in a datacenter with active cooling, heavy noise and electrical power to the max. It is nothing somebody would run at home. Yeah yeah, I means to "hot swap" and not "how swap". So which parts is good to our project? I will try to find some second hand bundle (Mobo and CPU). Most of the Mobo I checked is with 2x NVME M.2 and 6x SATA 6GB, they also have PCI-E, so maybe I can use PCIE for NVME add-on? Regards.
December 30, 20241 yr 42 minutes ago, ChaoscripT said: Most of the Mobo I checked is with 2x NVME M.2 and 6x SATA 6GB, they also have PCI-E, so maybe I can use PCIE for NVME add-on? Dunno what you need, Either AMD Ryzen or Intel Whatever-for-a-lake. Ryzens usually have more PCIe Lanes to offer. For the Mobo look for "bifurbication" but be prepared that there maybe some drawback hidden behind (*) sections in the manual. Many of these boards are "overequipped" which means that if you use a certain device, others have to be shut off (for instance: "if using PCIe Slot #3 SATA 5-8 are not available") This can become quite complicated. I haven't build a new system for over a year so I am not really up to date what stuff is available.
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