Adding m.2 NVME to HPE DL385 gen 10

[Extreme_BB]

HI i bought 2 high endurance NVME drives each to add into DL385 gen10 servers for the purpose of high IO writes, while they aren't HP branded (we can't find HP branded drives with equal or better endurance), it was not stated that the motherboard m.2 slots were SATA only.

At the moment we've identified which HP parts and accessories are needed to obtain the functionality and it looks like other than using a generic PCIe card, quite a slew of parts are needed. In the documentation and according to HP support, the part 826687-B21 looks suitable but why would mounting it at the rear above the PSU mean no NVME functionality? Any frontal module is a big no since it is already fully populated (not to mention front bays requiring 2 parts at least). With what limited information we were able to find, it does not look like there should be any problem connecting the NVMe cable between the drive bay and the motherboard if it is mounted above the PSU. There is a lot of information lacking on HPE server parts, from images to datasheets and documentations just to figure out what is needed to make this work.

Regardless of which module it looks like the other parts needed are a 2.5 inch drive cage to slot in with a 2.5 inch m.2 to u.2 adapter in order for the drives to work. We need each server to be capable of only 2 NVME only drives for this task while standard m.2 sata works for both OS and cache while the servers have different configurations of what they have at the front.

Please let me know if what is needed to get this part to work with m.2 NVME drives if placed at the back of the case and if there is anything else other than the drive bay itself eneded to add it above the PSU. It was very embarrassing and painful to find out that an AMD EPYC2 based server made for compute does not easily support a feature AMD has that has existed since zen came out.

[Suman_1978]

Hi,

Am I right in understanding that you would like to install NVMe drives above the PSU?
As far as I know from the documentatoin, that is not supported.
But let me check with others here and will get back.

Thanks

[Extreme_BB]

Hi yes that is correct. Looking at the service manual, it appears the connector for NVME is on the part itself so i find it very odd as to why it says not supported. There are 2 parts listed that are similar which is said to support 2 NVMe drives, one requires the universal media bay infront, while the other is an optional to add to a 8 LFF config infront. However when i take a close look, neither of the parts the 8LFF and the universal media bay have a NVMe connector for the cable to plug to the motherboard which is something i find very strange. Ofcourse HP support mentions a backplane on the front for this but so far the board which the drives plug into and that is attach to the drivebay seem to have the cables connect directly to it including NVMe.

So i'm wondering why the documentation says something different, unless someone has a rear picture of the drive bay itself as i have not yet managed to find one.

[Suman_1978]

Hi,

I checked with some folks here, but there is no documentation on this part, except these.

https://techhub.hpe.com/eginfolib/servers/CableMatrix/DL385_Gen10_Diagrams.html
https://support.hpe.com/hpesc/public/docDisplay?docId=emr_na-a00041905en_us

Thanks

[Extreme_BB]

Thanks. It looks like the 2SFF front/rear premium shows it being plugged into PCIe 7B, Which if i'm right has the connector on the part itself so should work for nvme even if placed rear.

[Extreme_BB]

Just an update, got quotes for different parts. I found a diagram by accident that shows the premium SFF bay has the PCIe connector on it and is actually compatible if placed above the CPU for NVME drives, but not documented.

I would like to ask, would generic NVME to PCIe adapters work? We have those on other servers and i want to add heatsinks to them.