# NVMe 5.25 External Hot Swap Adapter?



## JAB Creations (Feb 3, 2020)

I clone drives under normal circumstances which reduces my downtime from 3 days if I have to set things up manually (without my tweaks and AppData files available) to as little as an hour plus some Windows updates. I finally managed to update from AM3+ to AM4 and I think I'll wait for Samsung to debut their 2TB PCI-Express 4.0 NVMe drives as I've never had trouble with them in RAID mode and it'll seriously help my current reliance on SATA get knocked down from 10 ports (older storage limited to 4TB at the time of purchase).

That being said with NVMe drives I'll still be able to plug in a drive in my 5.25 external adapter that gives me a 2.5, 3.5 and 2x USB 3.0 ports. That being said I can also buy a USB to NVMe drive adapter if and when I need to clone drives without removing the motherboard heatsink that covers the NVMe drives. However I am curious if there are any external 5.25 bay adapters that allow hot-swapping NVMe drives or at least easy access to remove if NVMe is not hot-swappable? I've seen something along those lines with server setups though I'm not ready to buy dedicated hardware for my business and I'm sure that there are form factor differences.

Also apologies to the mods if this should be in the storage forum instead though I figured this is more related to cases or at least a half-way point.


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## FreedomEclipse (Feb 3, 2020)

The only thing i can think of is buying a NvMe USB enclosure and not closing it up. Just use the interface to hook it up and connect to your PC


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## Ware (Feb 3, 2020)

icy dock?
https://www.icydock.com/nvme_m2


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## JAB Creations (Feb 3, 2020)

Ware said:


> icy dock?
> https://www.icydock.com/nvme_m2



From what I can tell looks spot on! Are those four modules for up to 16 drives in a single 5.25 bay or only four drives for the entire single 5.25 bay? A little confusing...

What about the wires to the motherboard or PCI-Express addon cards?


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## TheLostSwede (Feb 3, 2020)

JAB Creations said:


> From what I can tell looks spot on! Are those four modules for up to 16 drives in a single 5.25 bay or only four drives for the entire single 5.25 bay? A little confusing...
> 
> What about the wires to the motherboard or PCI-Express addon cards?


Four drives in 5.25" bay.
They are apparently looking for beta testers.





						CP053_CONCEPT PRODUCTS_ICY DOCK manufacturer Removable enclosure, Screwless hard drive enclosure, SAS SATA Mobile Rack, DVR Surveillance Recording, Video Audio Editing, SATA portable hard drive enclosure
					

ICY DOCK product page overview description for SATA/SAS/NVMe rugged mobile rack enclosures.




					www.icydock.com
				




Cable wise, you need something like this, with an SFF-8643 to SFF-8643 cable in-between, for each SSD.


			Addonics Product: M2 SFF-8643 converter


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## kapone32 (Feb 3, 2020)

Ware said:


> icy dock?
> https://www.icydock.com/nvme_m2



How much do these units cost? What interface to these connect to on the MB?


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## Ware (Feb 3, 2020)

They are using U.2 interface.  I don't recall the cables exactly.  Look like mini SAS.
You might need a card to run one of those docks, or convert an M.2 socket.
They have other products too that might work for you.
I don't fully understand what you are doing.
Good luck.






						MB703M2P-B_EZConvert Series_REMOVABLE U.2 / M.2 SSD ENCLOSURES_ICY DOCK manufacturer Removable enclosure, Screwless hard drive enclosure, SAS SATA Mobile Rack, DVR Surveillance Recording, Video Audio Editing, SATA portable hard drive enclosure
					

ICY DOCK product page overview description for SATA/SAS/NVMe rugged mobile rack enclosures.




					www.icydock.com


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## kapone32 (Feb 3, 2020)

Ware said:


> They are using U.2 interface.  I don't recall the cables exactly.  Look like mini SAS.
> You might need a card to run one of those docks, or convert an M.2 socket.
> They have other products too that might work for you.
> I don't fully understand what you are doing.
> ...



I thought U2 only support 4 lanes of PCI_E 3.0?


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## TheLostSwede (Feb 3, 2020)

This should be the cable needed, but doesn't seem to be very common.








						HD Mini-SAS Cables (12Gb/s)
					

12Gbs SAS/SATA cables for Gen 3 SAS/SATA




					www.serialcables.com
				






kapone32 said:


> I thought U2 only support 4 lanes of PCI_E 3.0?


Correct. From their spec page.


> Supports PCIe Gen 3.0 x 4 32 Gb/s transfer speed


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## kapone32 (Feb 3, 2020)

TheLostSwede said:


> This should be the cable needed, but doesn't seem to be very common.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Wow I cannot think of a single consumer board that has more than 1 U2 port. Based on my own knowledge this would need something like a GPU riser cable and be connected to a 16 slot.


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## EarthDog (Feb 3, 2020)

kapone32 said:


> Wow I cannot think of a single consumer board that has more than 1 U2 port. Based on my own knowledge this would need something like a GPU riser cable and be connected to a 16 slot.


I believe there are a couple. Evga x299 dark is one i can name off the top of my head. Workstation class hedt boards and xeon boards are where they would be found.


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## kapone32 (Feb 3, 2020)

EarthDog said:


> I believe there are a couple. Evga x299 dark is one i can name off the top of my head. Workstation class hedt boards and xeon boards are where they would be found.



Understood hopefully the OP understands that he cannot run that Icy dock on X570.


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## TheLostSwede (Feb 3, 2020)

kapone32 said:


> Wow I cannot think of a single consumer board that has more than 1 U2 port. Based on my own knowledge this would need something like a GPU riser cable and be connected to a 16 slot.


See my previous post, there are M.2 to U.2/SFF-8643 adapters.
Also, there are at least a couple of boards with two U.2 boards, but I think they were all TR4 or X299.

*Edit: *This one even has three.








						Pro WS X299 SAGE II   | Motherboards | ASUS Global
					

PRO WS X299 SAGE II




					www.asus.com


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## kapone32 (Feb 3, 2020)

TheLostSwede said:


> See my previous post, there are M.2 to U.2/SFF-8643 adapters.
> Also, there are at least a couple of boards with two U.2 boards, but I think they were all TR4 or X299.



Got it and I did see those. The OP would still need a better MB than the X570 to get what he wants. Actually with the flakiness of some NVME drives I don't know if hot swap is even an option?


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## TheLostSwede (Feb 3, 2020)

kapone32 said:


> Got it and I did see those. The OP would still need a better MB than the X570 to get what he wants. Actually with the flakiness of some NVME drives I don't know if hot swap is even an option?


Well, that's an entirely different topic though. That said, you can run three native M.2 drives on higher-end X570 boards and you could technically get a fourth one from a PCIe x4/x8 slot if you wanted to.
This would do the trick for the fourth SSD.








						PCI Express 2.5in. NVMe SSD Adapter - Drive Adapters and Drive Converters | StarTech.com Europe
					

x4 PCI Express to SFF-8643 Adapter for PCIe NVMe U.2 SSD | Europe




					www.startech.com


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## kapone32 (Feb 3, 2020)

TheLostSwede said:


> See my previous post, there are M.2 to U.2/SFF-8643 adapters.
> Also, there are at least a couple of boards with two U.2 boards, but I think they were all TR4 or X299.
> 
> *Edit: *This one even has three.
> ...



That is actually a nice priced board considering what you get it seems to be $757 Canadian on Newegg. Thanks  now I am seriously thinking of building an X299 PC. I read the specs on that board and wow.


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## JAB Creations (Feb 3, 2020)

TheLostSwede said:


> Four drives in 5.25" bay.
> They are apparently looking for beta testers.
> 
> 
> ...



*ALMOST!* The NVMe ports are underneath my motherboard's heatsink. I could purchase a 4x 4-port NVMe addon card or I could find some alternative cables that I could somehow tunnel under the heatsink. It's all theorectical at the moment, it's the ideas and options I'm interested in right now. I appreciate your willingness to help along with the other folks too.


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## kapone32 (Feb 3, 2020)

TheLostSwede said:


> Well, that's an entirely different topic though. That said, you can run three native M.2 drives on higher-end X570 boards and you could technically get a fourth one from a PCIe x4/x8 slot if you wanted to.
> This would do the trick for the fourth SSD.
> 
> 
> ...



Yeah. I would have recommended the Asus M2 riser card if he wanted to go internal. At least if he ever upgraded to TR40, X299 or X399.


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## TheLostSwede (Feb 3, 2020)

JAB Creations said:


> *ALMOST!* The NVMe ports are underneath my motherboard's heatsink. I could purchase a 4x 4-port NVMe addon card or I could find some alternative cables that I could somehow tunnel under the heatsink. It's all theorectical at the moment, it's the ideas and options I'm interested in right now. I appreciate your willingness to help along with the other folks too.


Wow, that's kind of poopy. I guess these fancy single pieces of metal aren't always so good. I can remove all the heatsinks on top of the M.2 slots on my board separately.
I guess you could run it naked? 






And no, a four port M.2/U.2 card wouldn't work on your board, unless you'd be happy to run your graphics card in the bottom x4 slot via the chipset, as such a card would need 16 PCIe lanes. The only thing that would work, but there's no such thing yet, would be a PCIe 4.0 x8 card with a PCIe 4.0 to PCIe 3.0 bridge, which would turn eight lanes in to 16.


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## JAB Creations (Feb 14, 2020)

TheLostSwede said:


> Wow, that's kind of poopy. I guess these fancy single pieces of metal aren't always so good. I can remove all the heatsinks on top of the M.2 slots on my board separately.
> I guess you could run it naked?
> 
> 
> ...



Looks like with the full heatsink that at best I might be able to rotate the cables 90 degrees, that is if they're not too wide. Running the system without the full heatsink as you've displayed would technically work as the south bridge cooler is still attached.


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## newtekie1 (Feb 14, 2020)

JAB Creations said:


> I finally managed to update from AM3+ to AM4 and I think I'll wait for Samsung to debut their 2TB PCI-Express 4.0 NVMe drives as I've never had trouble with them in RAID mode



Just a note.  Enabling RAID mode on AM4 causes all the drives connected to the system to lose TRIM support, even single drives that aren't in a RAID array.  At least that is how it works on my system.


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## Vario (Feb 14, 2020)

If you went the usb route, just get multiple USB C / 3.2 to m.2. enclosures and keep the NVMe in them, but you'd probably be doing 400-900 MB/s just looking at some of the reviews for these enclosures.





						Amazon.com: Plugable USB C to M.2 NVMe Tool-free Enclosure USB C and Thunderbolt 3 Compatible up to USB 3.1 Gen 2 Speeds (10Gbps). Adapter Includes USB-C and USB 3.0 Cables (Supports M.2 NVMe SSDs 2280 2260 2242): Computers & Accessories
					

Buy Plugable USB C to M.2 NVMe Tool-free Enclosure USB C and Thunderbolt 3 Compatible up to USB 3.1 Gen 2 Speeds (10Gbps). Adapter Includes USB-C and USB 3.0 Cables (Supports M.2 NVMe SSDs 2280 2260 2242): Hard Drive Enclosures - Amazon.com ✓ FREE DELIVERY possible on eligible purchases



					www.amazon.com


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## TheLostSwede (Feb 14, 2020)

Vario said:


> If you went the usb route, just get multiple USB C / 3.2 to m.2. enclosures and keep the NVMe in them, but you'd probably be doing 400-900 MB/s just looking at some of the reviews for these enclosures.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The best external drives can do around 1,100MB/s read.


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## JAB Creations (Feb 15, 2020)

newtekie1 said:


> Just a note.  Enabling RAID mode on AM4 causes all the drives connected to the system to lose TRIM support, even single drives that aren't in a RAID array.  At least that is how it works on my system.



Is there an official source for this? This is the first time I've heard about this.



TheLostSwede said:


> The best external drives can do around 1,100MB/s read.



I've considered an external USB connector and if I'm cloning drives that still isn't a terrible speed especially considering I'm still at-best using SATA SSDs right now.

I do a lot of reading and research and for example haven't had a single drive die since the mid-2000s. Maybe I'm just lucky, maybe I don't use my drives enough, maybe my research in the past has paid off.


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## EarthDog (Feb 15, 2020)

JAB Creations said:


> there an official source for this? This is the first time I've heard about this.


His experience. Search threads started by newtekie to find it...


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