Good sync writes m.2 nvme drives: are they exist?

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heathen

Member
May 30, 2015
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In addition to previous question I've got an another one.

I have Intel H2312JFFKR servers, which are 2U 4 nodes servers with Infiniband and three 3.5" HDD slots per node. I'm going to build a hyper converged platform for virtualization. One of the important parts is storage, of course. The problem is that I'm limited in HDD slots and would like to solve this in a one or another way.

First of all, it was an informed decision to get just 3x 3.5" HDD per node version. Each node serves for both compute and storage and the chosen distributed storage platform is pretty CPU-consuming (as I need a combination of fast all-flash and slow HDD storage pools), so I can't have too many drives in each node. But just 3 slots isn't enough (5 would fit much better, but...).

As nodes are very tight integrated, I have only 1 PCIe 3.0 x16 port. I found a number of PCIe m.2 adapters (up to four m.2 PCIe x4 ports). Don't know for sure if there is a PCIe switch chip available on s2600jff mainboard, but if it is, I can use these adapters for m.2 SSD drives and leave hot swap slots big slow HDDs . I actually don't need full nvme speed (as I have only 1 FDR infiniband port per node, and currently only QDR switches, so no more than 3.5GB\s overal), but want descent IOPS and it must be good in sync writes (i.e. it must suites for ZFS ZLOG\ceph journal). Durability is also pretty important parameter: better to have at least 1.5-3 DWPD.

So the question is: does anybody know about m.2 entry-enterprise level drives with capacities from 1.6TB? I wasn't able to find any, but still hope that my google skills just isn't good enough.

And thank you again!
 
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nkw

Active Member
Aug 28, 2017
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Did you ever find anything that fit your needs?

I'm not exactly in the same position, but would like to find an "enterprise" (i.e. w/PLP and real/fast sync writes) m.2 NVMe drive to do duty as a ceph journal. I located the SK Hynix PE3110 which, while not speedy, fit the bill. However, I have a few nodes that won't take the 110m length -- they need the 2280 or smaller. The nodes I have are 1U and the PCIe slot is otherwise occupied, so a PCIe carrier isn't an option.

I was hoping the consumer m.2 optanes might be able to fill this role, but apparently their write speed is awful.

I do have a free 2.5" bay in each node, so I guess I could do something like this m.2 to SFF.8643 and then get a P3700 or equivalent, but the m.2 form factor be less clutter.