NOT A DEAL, but a question: was this a good deal?

[BLinux]

sorry, not one of my usual great deal posts, but I was reading a mailing list thread today about ZFS support for QAT, and saw that the latest ZoL 0.8.x has support for Intel's QuickAssist Technology for SHA256 checksums and gzip compression. so, i went looking for a QAT adapter and found Intel QAT 8950 card for $145 each and ended up buying 3 of them. Was that a good deal?

I know the 8950 is an older card now, but there aren't many of these on the market so I don't even know what they go for. I see the newer 8960 and 8970 cards going for $800-$1000, so I figure $145 for older QAT wasn't bad, and gives me a chance to play with ZFS acceleration.

what price points have you deal hunting guys seen for Intel QAT adapters like the one I got?

 

[kapone]

I think...you've got too much time on your hands...

Might I suggest Golf or something non-techie related?

 

[Samir]

I think...you've got too much money on your hands...

Fixed it for you.

I'm interested to know the answer as well since that's a huge price difference for the older version.

 

[Philmatic]

@Patrick may know

 

[hatchi]

would be really interesting to see the performance difference between a machine running with those cards and using gzip to compress data
and compressing the data without those card using LZ4

I am interested to know how much extra space you will gain and if the offloading will be way more efficient than just using LZ4

 

[BLinux]

would be really interesting to see the performance difference between a machine running with those cards and using gzip to compress data
and compressing the data without those card using LZ4

I am interested to know how much extra space you will gain and if the offloading will be way more efficient than just using LZ4

that's exactly why i got interested... some of the numbers I saw mentioned indicated gzip+QAT would be faster than lz4 in software. but, i'm also really interested to see how the SHA256 checksum will perform in SW vs QAT. I'd also like to see how SW on say older Westmere vs IvyBridge vs Haswell would compare vs QAT.

 

[BLinux]

ok. this might actually turn into a great deal thread after all...

i'm not 100% certain, but I think this $65 card is actually re-branded Intel QuickAssist 8920 card:

Silicom PE2ISCO HW Accelerator Crypto Compression Server Adapter PCIe 8925 | eBay

The 8920 specs are here: Intel® QuickAssist Adapter 8920: Product Brief

Anyone know for sure if that Silicom PE2ISCO 8925 is similar or same as Intel QAT 8920?

EDIT: ok, looking at the specs at Silicom website, it is definitely a QAT card and the specs match the 8920 series, which is a 25Gbps capable card. (Silicom Ltd. | PE2ISCO Encryption Networking Card)

 

[Samir]

Well, I guess the only thing left to do now is some testing and let us know if the performance stacks up to what it should if you had 8920s.

Great sleuthing!

 

[BLinux]

Well, I guess the only thing left to do now is some testing and let us know if the performance stacks up to what it should if you had 8920s.

Great sleuthing!

i already ordered the 8950 cards, so i won't be taking that $65 8920... someone should pick it up now!! LOL

 

[newabc]

I don't know whether these are wrong listing, 5-pack 8960s are listed as $691(link) and 5-pack 8970s are listed as GBP 911.18 (link). I did know a single 8955 is listed as $650(link).