Dual M.2 SSD to 2.5" SFF Kit (P19888-B21)

[T_1_6]

Guys we curently run VMware esxi off some HPE High endurance 32GB MicroSD cards, but are really paranoid about these with esxi v7 onwards.

These little dual M2 SATA SSD kits look brilliant value for money, but my only concern is can they run 2xM.2 Cards in RAID1 and present this as a single disk to the Smart Array P816i-a SR Gen10 we have in each server?
OR, would both of these M.2 Drives show up as individuals, and would the P816i-a allow us to RAID1 x2 M.2 cards inside this lovely looking little caddy?
Many thanks!!

[KevinSpringPM]

They show up as individual drives and you can use the P816 to RAID them. Be aware though, these caddies don't work in regular drive cages, you need to put them into the premium cage kit 826687-B21 and ensure you have an open port on your P816 to cable to that new cage.

[T_1_6]

I just checked our server spec, we have hotswappable backplane as part of our original build:-

867966-B21 - HPE DL360 Gen10 2SFF SAS_SATA FIO Backplane Kit

Is this a no-go or are we good?

Thank you so much for the reply, this looks the perfect solution to replace an esxi MicroSD setup. Fingers crossed our backplane is OK!

[KevinSpringPM]

sorry just got back to my desk and double checked the part number you gave in the title of your post. That's not one of the dual M.2 SFF solutions, that's just a single M.2 SSD. Additionally that backplane is a no-go. For the DL360 you need either 867970-B21 or 867972-B21.

So to do this you'd need either 

867970-B21 (2SFF front cage kit)

OR

867972-B21 (1SFF rear cage kit)

AND

P19896-B21 (dual 480GB kit)

OR 

P19894-B21 (dual 240GB kit)

Personally though, I'd keep it simpler and just use the NS204i-p P12965-B21 which provides two NVME M.2's already in a RAID 1, in a PCIE slot, assuming you have one available.

[T_1_6]

Yeah sorry I screwed the P/N up I think.
After some googling, I think we wanted the P06607-B21 Mixed use. However, do we really need a new backplane for plain old SATA? HPE Smart Carrier M.2 doesnt mention nVME.

Also I see some that have the fancy data/safe removal lights on the front, and others that dont like this:-

That internal solution looks good, and might be our best option, however, if we have to open servers up and replace things, it would be better if we made sure that we had a solution which allows us to hotswap drives from the front without having to power down.

[KevinSpringPM]

That's fair, I didn't find the mixed use ones because I think they were discontinued last year, but if you can find some that's totally fine. 99% of the time mixed use is overkill for boot though. Yes, you do really need the new backplane, the regular one doesn't support plumbing two SATA drives per drive bay which is what you're doing here.

From the DL360 quickspecs: "SCM dual drive functionality only supported on HPE DL360 Gen10 1SFF SAS/SATA Rear Backplane (867972-B21) or HPE DL360 Gen10 2SFF SATA UFF Backplane Kit (867970-B21). Installation on any other bay will only show one M.2 drive per bay."

[T_1_6]

SATA Only front backplane? This means we lose our SAS capability?

Things are getting complicated !

[KevinSpringPM]

Yes, that 2sff cage is for when you want to use the dual m.2 sata drives, so it doesn't include SAS support. You can still use SAS on your other 8 bays though. This partially goes to why I like the NS204i-p keeping things simpler. It's definitely more complicated to get other solutions 100% right.

[T_1_6]

Ive probably overthought this.
I guess all we really need are some "cheap" smallest SATA Gen10 2.5" smart carrier SSD drives and set them up in RAID1 via the smart array.
1) OK we lose 1 more bay

2) its plug and play

3) we dont even need to power anything down.

[KevinSpringPM]

Sounds like a wise decision to me

[T_1_6]

AHHH !!!

I think I get it now.

So we will have the 8SFF, + 2 Universal bay jobs.

So we have two options if we want to keep it front mounted drives.

1) get the small dual port SATA only backplane that supports the 4xUFF drives (2xSFF slots) and go with the M.2 solution, which leaves us with x8 remaining SATA/SAS bays.

2) Jsut shove in x2 SATA SSDs as I mentioned above, which STILL leaves us with x8 SATA/SAS bays for anythign else we need! 

Sorry to be so dumb, unless you are really at one with all the HPE options, it can be a minefield for a customer! 

[KevinSpringPM · Accepted solution]

haha yes you've got it now. I definitely get how it can be a struggle to get around the many many options, that's part of why I try to check the forums and help out where I can.

If you go with option 2, my recommendation would be P18420-B21

[T_1_6]

I got suckered in by the cool fancy lights and the x2 UFF good looking high density slots.
There was me thinking that HPE was using the Dual Port capability of SAS to split it into x2 SATA channels in the same drive bay. It seems they are not doing that, and simply doubling up the connections on a specially required backplane!

That will teach me to make assumptions.
Thank you so much for your kind help, 10/10, really suberb.

Im just about to look at that drive P/N, as long as it has all the smart Gen10 functionality and shows the techs when its safe to unplug, we are golden.

[T_1_6]

Gotta be honest, Ive just looked at the spec for our 32GB HPE SD cards, and they are pretty mega:-

HPE 32GB microSD Flash Memory Card 700139-B21
Usable Capacity 32GB*
Performance 33+ MB/second Read Transfer Rate, 34+ MB/second Write Transfer Rate
DWPD (64K sequential workload)* 5.26
DWPD (4K random workload)* 0.22
TBW (4K random workload) 13TB
TBW (64K sequential workload) 307TB
Class UHS I

[KevinSpringPM]

I am glad that we as HPE source quality SD cards for our servers, but if it were me, I wouldn't be using them for VMware anymore. It's just not a good idea in 2021, and not something VMware encourages or optimizes for anymore. There's also a lot of nuace in the differences between SD and real drives that go beyond DWPD and performance. 

[dell1]

In this front tray 2 bay but showing one m.2 480gb