DL380Gen11 EDSFF

[Gromz]

Question about DL380Gen11 12EDSFF chassis and EDSSF NVMe drives. There is 12 slots, which controller are the drives connected to? QuickSpec state that DL380 Gen11 12EDSFF NC CTO P52536-B21 have Embedded SW RAID with 14 SATA ports (12-ports accessible) Storage Controller, but NVMe drives is not SATA devices. Furthermore - "Intel VROC NVMe for HPE ProLiant Gen11 - All models feature 4 x8 PCIe 5.0 connectors per socket for NVMe connectivity, provides support for up to 8 direct attach x4 NVMe bays." That mean only 8 slots of 12 may be populated with EDSFF? Very confused by this.

[Cali]

Hi,

the EDSFF Disk is directly connected to the CPU by the PCIe Bus.

There is no Raid Controller support.

See here for Cabling: EDSFF cabling | HPE ProLiant DL380 Gen11 Server User Guide

You need 2 CPUs to get enough PCIe connections.

Cali

[Gromz]

Yes, EDSSF drives must be connected to PCIe bus. But according cabling diagram EDSFF box 2 (middle cage shown as default for 12EDSFF chassis) connected to 6 SlimSAS ports (?). IMHO this ports are SATA ports (AHCI-controller/embedded SW RAID), not a PCIe bus.

[Cali]

Sorry, the Cabling Picture is correct.

Yes, these are slimSAS x8 input ports and Cable, but the Ports on the Mainboard are named MCIO Connector and are connected to PCIe, not to any Raid Controller.

The EDSFF front cage has 6 Connector slimSAS x8 as input ports.

Every EDSFF Drive uses four PCIe lanes per drive slot, so every slimSAS x8 Cable/Connector can support 2 Drives.

You need 2 CPU by the Way.

The Naming "slimSAS" may be confusing here, but it can be used for both (SAS and NVMe).

Here is a picture of the 12Bay EDSFF Cabling:

Cali

[Gromz]

Interesting. Thanks for this valuable info. If one SlimSAS-port support two drive how we can handle 12EDSFF cage as Box 1 (leftmost)? According cabling diagram "Front EDSFF box 1 port 2" (p.149 Maintenance and Service Guide) there are only single cable connected to SlimSAS port. This mean that only two EDSSF drives in box #1 can be used? And alternative connection - from EDSFF box 1 port 1  to Socket 2 MCIO port 2 - all of twelves EDSSF slots available for use?

[Cali · Accepted solution]

20 and 32 EDSFF are also possible but need some additional Parts.

As you already notice, in this case, there are not enough free Ports on the Mainboard for Bay#1 and Bay#3 to fully Populate without additional Parts.

To solve this, for the 32 EDSFF for example, multiple PCIe Gen5 Re-timer Cards and additional Cages, Cables, and PCIe Slots are needed.

This max. configuration is a bit tricky, but your HPE Partner can configure this for you.

Cali 

[Gromz]

@Cali OK, let me summarized. With DL380 Gen11 12EDSFF chassis (two CPU of course) we can add up to twelve EDSSF drives, which will be connected to PCIe bus. Intel VROC NVMe license will allow to do SW RAID on this NVMe EDSFF drives, right?

[Cali]

Sorry, I have no experiance with VROC.

Cali