4x NVME to PCIE with PLX

[pimposh]

Call me somewhat blind, but I see three (and not four) M.2 slots there. Where is the fourth?

3 on top, 4th on bottom.

 

[niekbergboer]

.. looks at second eBay photo ...

Yeah... Ok. Thanks!

 

[Jaket]

Call me somewhat blind, but I see three (and not four) M.2 slots there. Where is the fourth?

On the bottom side

 

[nilfisk_urd]

Too bad that shipping from the US is so damn expensive, in addition to import tariffs etc.

 

[V_H]

Depending on what you're doing, something like this might make more sense Viking Enterprise Solutions U20040-02 2.5" High Performance U.2 NVMe SSD Module | eBay

Got one of those in my Dell T7820 flex bay. Unfortunately that limit the speed to the onboard SAS controller.

 

[bvd]

I just read the Viking's product brief and realized: the damned thing is dual ported

The ability to utilize cheaper 2280 (not cheap... just 'less wallet killing' / cheap-'er' lol) within a dual-host storage solution seems quite appealing imo. The fact that the thing is gen 3 is actually a benefit to me, as (at least with all the PCIe storage I've worked with) it uses significantly less power; enough that I don't necessarily have to worry so much about beefing up cooling nearly as much. All U.2 typically necessitates some form of cooling, so most systems with such slots will usually have *something* to deal with that to some degree, and not having to mess with anything more on whatever platform I'm using than the storage itself is kinda nice.

For me at least, I'd almost rather have more gen 3 lanes at their lower rated speeds than fewer gen 4/5 at their faster rates, even if the sum of all the gen 4/5 lane have higher overall throughput...

The move from HDD to SATA SSD was tectonic, world changing even. Then from SATA SSD to NVME was quite significant, just not the 'omg I'm in the future now' sort of feeling. The improvements since then, while not insignificant at all (quite the opposite), just aren't 'felt' as much (to me at least), and I've found that as long as there's ample gen 3 lanes, I don't really feel like I'm lacking much in the way of performance / responsiveness in day to day usage (well, not for the systems/applications I've delt with anyway).

 

[mrpasc]

Too bad that shipping from the US is so damn expensive, in addition to import tariffs etc.

Have some (think up to 8) laying around and open to sale. Located Europe (Germany). Drop me a pm if interested.

 

[mrpasc]

For those in Germany:

Viking U20040-02 2.5" U.2 NVMe SSD Module | eBay

Mit seiner fortschrittlichen Architektur und umfangreichen Spezifikationen bietet es herausragende Leistung und Zuverlässigkeit. Es ist sofort einsatzbereit und bietet eine zuverlässige Speicherlösung für anspruchsvolle Anwendungen.

www.ebay.de

 

[niekbergboer]

For those in Germany:

Doesn't ship to Switzerland

 

[mrpasc]

Doesn't ship to Switzerland

That’s why I wrote Germany and not DACH or EU.
Have still some for sale and would ship to CH, although shipping costs from GE to CH are insane. Drop me a pm if interested

 

[fohdeesha]

I just read the Viking's product brief and realized: the damned thing is dual ported

The ability to utilize cheaper 2280 (not cheap... just 'less wallet killing' / cheap-'er' lol) within a dual-host storage solution seems quite appealing imo. The fact that the thing is gen 3 is actually a benefit to me, as (at least with all the PCIe storage I've worked with) it uses significantly less power; enough that I don't necessarily have to worry so much about beefing up cooling nearly as much. All U.2 typically necessitates some form of cooling, so most systems with such slots will usually have *something* to deal with that to some degree, and not having to mess with anything more on whatever platform I'm using than the storage itself is kinda nice.

For me at least, I'd almost rather have more gen 3 lanes at their lower rated speeds than fewer gen 4/5 at their faster rates, even if the sum of all the gen 4/5 lane have higher overall throughput...

The move from HDD to SATA SSD was tectonic, world changing even. Then from SATA SSD to NVME was quite significant, just not the 'omg I'm in the future now' sort of feeling. The improvements since then, while not insignificant at all (quite the opposite), just aren't 'felt' as much (to me at least), and I've found that as long as there's ample gen 3 lanes, I don't really feel like I'm lacking much in the way of performance / responsiveness in day to day usage (well, not for the systems/applications I've delt with anyway).

well it says it can dual-port "with a custom pci-e driver", not sure how much of a PITA OS / kernel support / finding the actual driver would be>?

 

[ru me]

well it says it can dual-port "with a custom pci-e driver", not sure how much of a PITA OS / kernel support / finding the actual driver would be>?

I also saw a mention of a utility to go with it, anybody has that?

 

[zdude]

It looks like these guys are a PM8531 under the hood, does anybody have any documentation or configuration utilities to change their port configs? I am currently playing with it in a dual port system, working to figure out how everything is connecting through the crazy complicated backplanes.

EDIT: I found an official micro-semi config utility that seems to be able to completely re-configure the devices. It is on github here: GitHub - Microsemi/switchtec-user: Userspace code for the Microsemi PCIe switch