I use U.2 NVMe SSDs in my workstation which are directly connected to the slimline SAS ports on the motherboard using slimline SAS to u.2 cables.
Data Hoarder
We are digital librarians. Among us are represented the various reasons to keep data -- legal requirements, competitive requirements, uncertainty of permanence of cloud services, distaste for transmitting your data externally (e.g. government or corporate espionage), cultural and familial archivists, internet collapse preppers, and people who do it themselves so they're sure it's done right. Everyone has their reasons for curating the data they have decided to keep (either forever or For A Damn Long Time (tm) ). Along the way we have sought out like-minded individuals to exchange strategies, war stories, and cautionary tales of failures.
Gigabyte was putting U.2 ports on some consumer motherboards or a hot second. My z170 designare has one. Never used it though.