Mini Controller means sacrificing a x16 PCIe slot on the R740xd

On the DELL R740xd there are 3 variations of riser 1.

2 of these variations are incompatible with a mini controller because of their length, and the fact that they use up the slot on the motherboard required by the mini controller. To install the mini controller, an interposer must be installed first.

The interposer is essentially an interface between the controller and the motherboard.

There is only 1 riser compatible with the mini controller and unfortunately it only has 3 x8 PCIe slots. No x16.

The variations that do have x16 slots are too long and slot in to the same slot required by the interposer, as shown below:

So if you need a lot of x16 slots consider that you’ll need to use a PCIe RAID controller and not the mini.