Dell PowerEdge R820 R720 storage upgrade Part 3 | How to upgrade with NVMe U.2 SSDs!

This video is the third and last in a series of 3 videos where I will show you how you can upgrade the storage subsystem of the Dell PowerEdge R820. And, since the R820 shares the chassis with the R720, this upgrade will also work with the PowerEdge R720.

In this third part, I will take our upgrade path to the next level with NVMe PCIe SSDs in the R820 and R720 that originally only came with SAS-2 hardware. This upgrade kit is an official Dell kit that installs 4 NVMe U.2 SSDs in one of the 2.5" 8-bay drive cages with an NVMe backplane. We will install this kit, which includes a new drive cage, backplane, cables, and a PCIe switch expansion card. I will also re-run the same benchmarks I ran in the previous videos for comparison to show you what performance benefits can be gained with this NVMe upgrade.

Along the way during this upgrade, I also discover some facts about this NVMe upgrade kit that I was not expecting.

In case you missed any of the previous videos, checkout the playlist here:
   • Dell PowerEdge R820 series  

Video index:
0:00 - Introducing the NVMe upgrade path
0:48 - Difference between U.2 vs SAS connector
2:13 - Introducing Dell NVMe upgrade kit
7:15 - Begin NVMe kit installation in R820
9:58 - U.2 drive cage installation fail!
10:53 - U.2 drive cage installation success!
26:19 - Examining the hardware within the OS (CentOS 7 Linux)
29:36 - Unexpected discovery about the PCIe switch!
39:02 - Describing the benchmark methodology
41:09 - Setting up single NVMe PCIe SSD
42:49 - Running I/O benchmarks on single NVMe PCIe SSD
46:38 - Discussing single SAS-3 SSD benchmark results
49:01 - Setting up 4x RAID-0 NVMe PCIe SSDs
51:31 - Running I/O benchmarks on 4xRAID-0 NVMe PCIe SSDs
54:59 - Discussing 4x RAID-0 NVMe PCIe SSD benchmark results
57:09 - Setting up 4x RAIDZ1 NVMe PCIe SSDs
58:39 - Running I/O benchmarks on 4x RAIDZ1 NVMe PCIe SSDs
1:00:25 - Discussing 4x RAIDZ1 NVMe PCIe SSD benchmark results
1:07:12 - My diversion to software RAID-5
1:11:15 - Running I/O benchmarks on 4x RAID-5 and total failure!
1:15:23 - Final wrap

Dell NVMe PCIe SSD upgrade kit part numbers:
N2R9K 4-bay 2.5” U.2 cage (http://ebay.to/3tod9Fm)
4V3T9 4-bay 2.5” filler blank (http://ebay.to/3eNK7uN)
693W6 4-bay 2.5” U.2 backplane (http://ebay.to/3eJ7Gou)
YPNRC PCIe switch expansion card 4-port (http://ebay.to/30LAFQ9)
123W8 backplane power cable (http://ebay.to/2NlEAQJ)
KV109 backplane signal cable (http://ebay.to/38EDo2c)
GKTHG backplane to PCIe expansion card 4x SAS cables (http://ebay.to/3tpLC6u)

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