Connect SATA drives via R640 Rear Flex Bay SFF Backplane

Question

Hello. I bought a Rear Flex Bay SFF Backplane for my R640 and want to use SATA drives in it. This bay came with a 0WMR31 (SAS Slim to SAS Slim) cable that connects to the motherboard connector. Unfortunately, I don’t see the drives in the BIOS or the OS.
In addition, I have a 0RFGX3 (SAS Mini HD to H750 connector) cable that connects the front panel to the H750 PCIe RAID controller. I tried using this cable to connect the rear panel, and the drives appeared.
Am I correct in understanding that the only way to connect SATA drives is through the H750 RAID controller using the Y-shaped 0XJHM0 cable, which has two SAS Mini HD connectors on one side and a connector for the H750 on the other?

DELL-Charles R · Answer

Hello,

We don't support field changing of backplane/storage as we do not have Kits for that. Configuration is set a time of purchase.

Can you look here and see what backplane and cable configuration you have and what you are trying to get to?

R640

Cables Page 101-110

Backplanes Page 96

https://dl.dell.com/content/manual49442633-dell-emc-poweredge-r640-installation-and-service-manual.pdf?language=en-us

Cable WMR31 - Is for NVME and would not be applicable in the server with the PERC H750.

I think you may need this but I haven't confirmed yet as I don't know your configuration:

PGV9F

ASSY,CBL,4/10,REARBP,APERC,R64

ASSY Rear Backplane to PERC Port A Cable, (4HDD + Rear HDD configuration)

Also I have a few points to share:

NOTE: The PERC11 H750, H350 and HBA350i cards are not supported on 4x3.5 + 2x2.5 dual PERC, 10x2.5 + 2x2.5 dual PERC, or x10 NVMe configurations.

Note: The PERC H750 does not support NVMe drives

NOTE: Mixing of 2.5 inch 10K or 15K SAS drives with 2.5 inch 7.2K SATA or Nearline SAS drives on the same backplane is not supported. You can mix solid state drives with hard drives on the same backplane

Oleg K2 · Answer

Thank you for your help.

Right now I have a SAS cable №7 (BP: J_SAS_A to PERC: A1) (Figure 93. Cable routing - 4 x 3.5 drive backplane with adapter PERC, page 106) and a PCIe cable №10 (Figure 94. Cable routing - 4 x 3.5 drive backplane and 2 x 2.5 rear drive backplane with NVMe, page 106). My backplane is 4x3.5 (Figure 79. 4 X 3.5 drive backplane, page 96)

I'm using 4x2.5 SATA SSD drives in front and 2x2.5 SATA SSD drives in rear drive backplane. Unfortunately, PGV9F cable will not work for me because H750 has only one proprietary connector (cable RFGX3). I think XJHM0 should work.

DELL-Charles R · Answer

Hello,

We don't have a validated 4 x 3.5 Non NVME with rear backplane configuration.

You may try the XJHM0 and check your results.

You may need power and signal cables for the rear backplane:

CTCGN - ASSY,CBL,PWR,REAR BP,MB,R640

JM9YM - ASSY,CBL,I2C,REAR BP,MB,R640

I can't confirm this will work as it is not a supported configuration.

DELL-Charles R · Answer

Sorry I said 4x3.5 but we don't have a 4 x 2.5 Non NVME with rear backplane configuration either.

Rack Servers

Connect SATA drives via R640 Rear Flex Bay SFF Backplane

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