Amfeltec PCI Express Gen 3 Carrier Board for 4 M.2 SSD modules

Notice: Page may contain affiliate links for which we may earn a small commission through services like Amazon Affiliates or Skimlinks.

larryexchange

Active Member
Dec 27, 2016
86
128
33
48
After reading "Supermicro X10SDV-12C-TLN4F+ Review – 12C Xeon D with SFP+ 10GbE", I found it's perfect match the hardware requirement of Azure Stack PoC. The only issue is how can I put 4 drives into the small chassis like Supermicro CSE-E300.

Then Amfeltec PCI Express Gen 3 Carrier Board for 4 M.2 SSD modules shows up on my radar. I have to say the "Carrier Board" is not cost effective at all (USD540 incl. shipping and handling). But in order to put 4 NVMe drives into CSE-E300 seems I have no other option here.

Yesterday I got the package from Amfeltec.
IMG_0763 (Custom).JPG

IMG_0764 (Custom).JPG

IMG_0765 (Custom).JPG

IMG_0766 (Custom).JPG

Previously I used a Intel 910 800GB SSD, which can give me 4 200GB SAS SSD. However 800GB capacity is a little bit small to run Azure Stack PoC. So I decided to replace it with 4 480GB SM953 NVMe drives (They are still on the way).
IMG_0767 (Custom).JPG

Plug the carrier board into the SuperMicro x16 Riser. I have to remove the FAN from the carrier board because of the size of CSE-300.
IMG_0769 (Custom).JPG

Then I plug in the PCIe Riser into CSE-300. I also insert two NVMe drives on the carrier board to validate its function.
IMG_0770 (Custom).JPG

Power On the machine. System recognized both of the two 960GB NVMe drives.
Devmgmt.png
 

nitrobass24

Moderator
Dec 26, 2010
1,087
131
63
TX
When you get a chance, can you post Latency #s? I am curious to see how much additional latency is caused by the PCIe switch on the AIC.
 

larryexchange

Active Member
Dec 27, 2016
86
128
33
48
When you get a chance, can you post Latency #s? I am curious to see how much additional latency is caused by the PCIe switch on the AIC.
Which tool do you prefer (fio, iometer, diskspd,etc) and more important, what's the test case? I assume you want me the same M.2 drive in the same box.
 

nitrobass24

Moderator
Dec 26, 2010
1,087
131
63
TX
Test case for me is synchronous NFS writes. IOMeter with 33%write 66%read random IO would be ideal if you can.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Oliver__

New Member
Jun 28, 2017
2
0
1
40
It would be great if you can test a Raid0 (windows stripe) between all 4 SSD an what results you get, with CPU load. AS SSD should work just fine.
 

larryexchange

Active Member
Dec 27, 2016
86
128
33
48
It would be great if you can test a Raid0 (windows stripe) between all 4 SSD an what results you get, with CPU load. AS SSD should work just fine.
I did a quick test today. Here are the results for single SM953 and a simple storage space w/ four SM953 drives.
SM953-CDM.png

SM953x4-CDM.png
 

larryexchange

Active Member
Dec 27, 2016
86
128
33
48
Test case for me is synchronous NFS writes. IOMeter with 33%write 66%read random IO would be ideal if you can.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I use a different test case but similar one. Hope it's helpful.

Test1: SM953 in Amfeltec PCI Express Gen 3 Carrier Board
-------
PLX-1.png
PLX-2.png
PLX-3.png

Test2: SM953 in PCIe slot directly
--------
Riser-1.png
Riser-2.png
Riser-3.png