5+ drives in T20

[TLN 7]

Hello.

 

What options I have I want to plug in more then 4 drives inT20?

I'd like to use "bigger" PCI-X slots for videocards. I wonder if I have performance issues, if using Dell PERC H310 in PCI-X x1 slot? Does it works/make big difference?

 

Vic

[schoondoggy 869]

Hello.

 

What options I have I want to plug in more then 4 drives inT20?

I'd like to use "bigger" PCI-X slots for videocards. I wonder if I have performance issues, if using Dell PERC H310 in PCI-X x1 slot? Does it works/make big difference?

 

Vic

The slots on the T20 are PCIe and a PCI. According to the specs the H310 is a x8 card. It will not fit in the x1 slot. how many drives do you want to add? How are you configuring the drives?

[TLN 7]

I wanna use PCIe for two videocards, they will be low-end single slot videos.

So I can put H310 in either PCIe x1 or place in PCIe x8 and put videocard in x1.

 

Wanna have 4 drives for data + SSD for ESXi VMs + may be extra drive, or at least option to connect 6th drive.

 

 

ps. Oh, wait... Can I passthrough internal videocard to ESXI? I know T20 have two DP ports.

Edited March 16, 2016 by TLN

[schoondoggy 869]

You can not put the H310 in a x1 slot it will not physically fit.

You could put the H310 in the x16 slot that is running at x4. I have not seen any video cards that would fit in a x1 slot, they tend to be x16 physical connectors.

Why do you want two video cards?

Slots

• 4 Slots, 
  1x16 (x16, G3)
  1x16 (x4, G2)
  1x1 (x1, G2) 
  1 x PCI Slot

[TLN 7]

 

You can not put the H310 in a x1 slot it will not physically fit.

You could put the H310 in the x16 slot that is running at x4. I have not seen any video cards that would fit in a x1 slot, they tend to be x16 physical connectors.

Why do you want two video cards?

 

I want to VT-D it and use same system as my desktop. and/or media PC alongside with NAS.

Also another "PC" will be useful sometimes, this makes perfect sense: they all share lots of memory and horsepower. 

 

The only way I can think of is Dell recommeded extension, which uses PCIe X1, and gives me two SATA ports. This is not RAID controller, but still works.

[schoondoggy 869]

There are several SATA cards that are x1 PCIe, I prefer Marvell chip based boards. 

I tend to use ESXi as a stand alone server running VM's, that I access from other computers. I am not sure how you would use the same server as a ESXi server and a PC, actual connecting to VM's from the Host server. Let me know if I am missing something here, but if you are running ESXi as your HyperVisor that takes over that entire server. Windows Server can be installed as an OS and you can run the HyperVisor role to run VM's under it as well. VMware WorkStation could be used to do what you are looking at achieving. 

[TLN 7]

Let me know if I am missing something here, but if you are running ESXi as your HyperVisor that takes over that entire server.

 

Yep, but you can pass-through any USB or PCI device to particular VM.  This requires Xeon though, but I'm ok with that.

That's exactly what I did with my G8 microserver. It works as NAS, as my desktop, and run several more VM for lab testing. So if you want another PC - all you need to do is plug in another videocard.

[schoondoggy 869]

IF you hadn't seen it there is a mod in this thread to add two more 3.5" bays to a T20:

http://homeservershow.com/forums/index.php?/topic/7492-easy-mod-to-add-four-more-25-drives-to-a-t20/

[TLN 7]

I've seen this mod, but board have only 4 SATA ports. So I was thinking of buying H310, connect all the storage drives to it, and use internal ports for ESXI disks with VM.