Suggestion for PCIe x16 Gen2 SSD

[SlipOSkull]

I have a Dell T5500 as my lab machine that has VMware ESXI 6.7.0 installed on it. I currently have a 240GB SSD as the host storage for my VMs and would like to install a PCIe SSD in one of the free PCI slots. From what I understand the PCIe slot is x16 Gen2. Does anyone have any suggestions for hardware that won't break the bank? I'm looking for either 250GB or 500GB. Thanks!

 

[COLGeek]

PCIe SSDs are quite expensive compared to their SATA counterparts. Do you not have any available SATA ports or SSD/HDD mounting points?

You could try this:

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA1JM1194254

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820156173

This will make your own 500GB PCIe based SSD.

 

[SlipOSkull]

I'm actually willing to spend around $300-500 for a good PCIe drive. Just wasn't going to go to the $1000 range. I figure it'll be something that will last a long time and can be cannibalized into a different build in the future. Mainly I want higher read/writes for my VMs once I start having 5-10 VMs running.

 

[william p]

I believe the T5500 has a built in RAID 0 controller, and some of the SATA ports can be configured as SAS in the BIOS. SAS is full duplex SCSI.
If you shop around in the surplus server market you may find a RAID or SAS SSD setups that will do what you want.
The reason I'm suggesting this is because PCIe drives didn't exist when that was built, so the BIOS and chipset drivers may not support it.
Here's what Dell offered for that.
https://www.dell.com/downloads/global/products/precn/en/dell_precision_t5500_specsheet.pdf