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PCI-e vs Mini-SAS

Post Date: 2015-07-16
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Smarmy View Drop Down
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Posts: 69 		  Quote Smarmy Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Topic: PCI-e vs Mini-SAS
    Posted: 16 Jul 2015 at 3:58am
So I see we have new Intel SSDs like "1x SSD mini-SAS (400GB Intel 750 Series) (2.5 inch - NVM Express) (Extreme Performance)" in two flavors. One uses the mini-SAS interface and the other uses the PCI-e interface. I'm aware that the PCI-e interface would share lanes with the video card(s). So how do these two interfaces compare? Is one vastly faster than the other? If I had SLIx3 would I gimp myself if I had 2 mini-SAS SSDs?

- Smarmy
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FrankW View Drop Down
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Posts: 2254 		  Quote FrankW Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 16 Jul 2015 at 7:42am
Hi Smarmy,

I know little about Mini-SAS and there will be other members who know more about your question than I do.

What is your computer setup. What mother board and CPU do you have. Mini-SAS is usually used in a RAID setup for a server or maybe a workstation. The drives are external and requires a SAS RAID card with Mini-SAS ports. One card I looked at had dual Mini-SAS ports and required a PCIe X8 slot. So you would have to have a spare PCIe X8 slot. If you have three GPUs I doubt you have a spare X8 slot. There may be SAS RAID cards that use a X4 slot but I don't know.

If you have a gaming computer I think what you need is an PCIe NVMe drive to plug into your computer. That requires a X4 slot. We need to know what motherboard and CPU you have.

Frank

Edited by FrankW - 16 Jul 2015 at 7:43am
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Posts: 1674 		  Quote  Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 16 Jul 2015 at 10:22am
The Intel drives Mini-SAS (SFF-8643) port uses PCI-e, electrically...you may notice on Intel's specs that the Mini-SAS port must support PCI-e. There is essentially no difference in the interface, other than the physical form, between the PCI-e cards and SFF-8639 (U.2) units.
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Alex View Drop Down
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Posts: 16314 		  Quote Alex Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 16 Jul 2015 at 10:37am
The two drives will deliver the same performance, it depends on your configuration as some customers will order a system that does not have enough PCI-E slots, or some customers prefer to have the SSD drive remain in the normal hard drive trays.

If you do go with a mini-SAS version, make sure your motherboard has a m.2 connector as we will have to use an m.2 to mini-SAS adapter.
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Posts: 69 		  Quote Smarmy Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 17 Jul 2015 at 4:13pm
Thanks for the info. One other question. Will the m.2 to mini-SAS adapter support 2 mini-SAS drives?

Thank You,
Smarmy
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Posts: 1674 		  Quote  Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 24 Jul 2015 at 10:08pm
The new Asus ROG boards pics are out



Interesting thing to note is the SFF-8643 connector on the Extreme board just beneath the SATA Express (I really don't know why any MB manufacturer bothers with SATA Express still...that connector is essentially still-born).  The Intel SSD 750 with SFF-8639 (U.2) will now be able to plug directly into it without needing the Hyper Card adapter in an M.2 slot.
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Alex View Drop Down
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Posts: 16314 		  Quote Alex Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 25 Jul 2015 at 12:58pm
From what I know, you can only connect one mini-SAS drive to the motherboard.
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Posts: 1674 		  Quote  Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 25 Jul 2015 at 3:26pm
If the M.2 slot and the mini-SAS port are connected to different PCI-e lanes from the chipset and they both support Intel RST, you could theoretically connect two drives up with a Hyper Card with a mini-SAS port on it.  The Z170 chipset will support up to 3, if properly configured to do so.  I talked about it somewhat in depth in this thread.
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