PMC PCA-00364-03-C NVRAM accelerator

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Javik50k

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Oct 11, 2018
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Just bought PMC PCA-00364-03-C NVRAM accelerator from this seller.

He have some more, i bought cheapest one. Seems to be NV1608 prototype card, mine is without bracket. Will test it later and post screenshots and maybe results. Also bought nice 4 port Intel NIC for my new OPNSense router project.
 

azev

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Jan 18, 2013
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Curious to see the result of the test. Been wondering if I should upgrade my ZIL from optane to this. I have been watching the RMS-200 thread and scanning ebay to find a good deal for one. If this microsemi works better since it is newer I would probably consider them as well.
 
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kroem

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Aug 16, 2014
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Just bought PMC PCA-00364-03-C NVRAM accelerator from this seller.

He have some more, i bought cheapest one. Seems to be NV1608 prototype card, mine is without bracket. Will test it later and post screenshots and maybe results. Also bought nice 4 port Intel NIC for my new OPNSense router project.
Hmm. What's the purpose of that card? Is that a 8GB module onboard?
 
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Rand__

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Mar 6, 2014
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Curious to see the result of the test. Been wondering if I should upgrade my ZIL from optane to this. I have been watching the RMS-200 thread and scanning ebay to find a good deal for one. If this microsemi works better since it is newer I would probably consider them as well.
I have some NV1616 results posted here: SLOG benchmarking and finding the best SLOG, they should be comparable to the 1608.
There are also some RMS results in the thread iirc;
if you need other tests with the NV1616 let me know, I have one still lying around...
 
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kroem

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Aug 16, 2014
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Memory is soldered. It's an NVDRAM accelerator - for cache etc, like NVDIMM, but with PCIe. Very fast on 4K and random ops.
Ok, nice. So you need the card + external cap? (If I wanna use this as say... ZIL)
 
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Javik50k

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Oct 11, 2018
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360-400 kIOPS, response time also ok.
Maybe i could use this to accelerate workstation? (Windows 10 Pro for WS).

Also - without BBU will lost partition after reboot. Should use CLI utils, but later.
About $40-60 on ebay, so total cost will be about $100. Not bad for almost 500K IOPS
with min. latency.
 

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Rand__

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Well 500K 4K IOPS at Queue Depth 64 ... with 12K @QD1 at only 1GB test size ...

Not sure you will be able to use it as cache for a regular windows build (but then I never used optane cache drives which would be similar except driver support)
 
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Javik50k

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Oct 11, 2018
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Microsemi wants registration, so later i'll register and get drive software and manuals. These was very preliminary "tests". At least, card is functioning and its larger than i thought. I am going to keep it. If not for workstation, then for new server project.
 
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Rand__

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Good luck with that :)
I couldnt find any drivers, manuals are scarce and they didnt even tell me if there was a firmware update at all (that I wouldnt get since they don't support EOL hardware any more).
But happy if you have more luck than I
 
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Javik50k

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Oct 11, 2018
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I think, i got access to firmare, etc. I will try to flash the card later. Maybe linux hardware setup will be needed to do that.
 
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Javik50k

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Oct 11, 2018
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Thanks for the benchmark. What cpu did you use?
I'm using two Xeon Gold 6148 ES on SuperMicro X11DPH-i motherboard. These are engineering sample CPUs, they have 3,5 GHz turbo instead of 3,7 GHz in retail version. Can achieve 2,8-2,9 GHz with full load.
 
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Rand__

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So I see similar info , mainly documentation but no actual firmware or cli files...
 
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