Hey everybody…I’m begging here. Don’t be shitty about this question. It comes from someone that just doesn’t know, but knows enough that they don’t know.
My question is…can MiniSAS be converted into SAS in any way? Or are they completely different monsters that happen to share a name somehow? Because, I’m trying to wrap my head around the idea of converting PCI-E NVMe M.2 drives, to MiniSAS, and finding a way to convert them from that to SAS…somehow. I’ve been looking for backplanes that can handle NVMe drives, because I have a bunch of them, but some tutelage in this regard would help greatly.
If you have any questions please feel free to ask! Also, thanks for your help!
So. There are NVMe to U.2 Adapters, like this - https://www.mwave.com.au/product/silverstone-mua01-m2-nvme-ssd-to-u2-ssd-adapter-ac69201
That converts a NVMe SSD to something resembling a 2.5" SAS SSD.
Then there are SAS/NVMe Hotswap bays, like this - https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/99083/2u-hotswap-8x2-5inch-sasnvme-combo-drive-bay-kit-a2u8x25s3phs/specifications.html
Then there are these cables that connect Occulink (PCIe) to SFF-8643 - like this one - https://www.microsatacables.com/oculink-sff-8611-straight-male-to-sff-8643-cable
Then there are PCIe to 4x SFF expansion cards like this - https://www.amazon.com/Expansion-Adapter-SFF-8643-Indicator-Breakout/dp/B0B7BHM954 - This will require hardware support for PCIe Bifurcation, but will provide you 4x SFF-8643 sockets per each 16x slot.
Do with this information what you will.