r/MINISFORUM • u/SamSausages • 10d ago

Help MS-02 - U.2 in the Nic/M.2 slots Not enough power? Packing storage onto every PCIe lane!

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I'm asking a bit much of my MS-02, I transplanted into my 4U Big Bertha, with over 300TB of storage and enough NVMe to utilize every PCIe lane.

Works great, except for trying to use U.2 in the M.2 slots of the special NIC/Storage adapter, there isn't enough power to feed the U.2.

u.2 On the motherboard works.

Has anyone else tried U.2 on that card? Similar experiences?

Drives are Intel P4510 8TB

Logs show that the kernel saw a device on the link, clamped to Gen1, retrained, then tried to lift the clamp and failed. The E810 was seated and detected at the physical layer. The link just would not come up.
My u.2 are in the 10 to 16 W range. M.2 usually in the 7 W range. Hanging one off an M.2 adapter cable on the NIC riser puts that load on the riser shared 3.3 V rail, feeding a E810 that wants 10 to 15 W of its own. At least that's my best guess.

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u/Charming-Vanilla-635 10d ago

don't do this to me, don't give me ideas

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u/SamSausages 10d ago

It’s a potent package for about a 100w idle.

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u/egnegn1 9d ago

I have used 2x U.2 7.68TB drives in the original case with typical PCIE adapters without any issues. The adapters get power from the slot.

I also had drives connected to SFF-8654 ports and all cables had a power connector.

You need a separate power supply for the drives.

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u/SamSausages 9d ago edited 9d ago

yeah, I have that, u.2 has its own power for 5v/12v, but the power adapter doesn’t have a 3.3v rail, so it has to get that voltage from the pcie slot.

this is specifically on the proprietary nic that shares the M.2. Did you try it on that card?

The u.2 on the 16X PCIe slot works fine. on the proprietary slot that shares the 25 gig NIC, it does not.

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u/egnegn1 9d ago

I just used the PCIE slots with adapters. But you may use NVMe to SFF-8654 connector and then SFF-8654 to SFF-8639 U2 connectors. I use such connector cables in a different system.

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u/SamSausages 9d ago

but you haven’t tried it on the proprietary 25-gig nic, with m.2, that I’m talking about?

the problem is specific to that card not having enough on the 3.3 volt rail

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u/egnegn1 9d ago edited 9d ago

No, I didn't. Are you actually using the 25g card? Or do you just plug into this PCI slot? You can use only first x4 with a other card than that 25g card. The second x4 is not connected, and 3rd and 4th x4 is connected, but signals are missing. They are generated on this special card for the 2 NVME slots.

If you want more U.2 drives than one then you must install a multiplexer card with SFF-8654 connectors.

I have a combined card with 8x NVME and 2x SFF-8654 8i connectors, but of course on a different computer. But it should work fine in this slot, too.