Pcie NVMe (and ahci) adaptor cards

[Inertia]

I've been looking at cards such as this one .. http://www.lycom.com.tw/DT-129.htm

 

Does anyone know the throughput offered if I put an NVME SSD into one of these compared to into an NVME slot? will it get the full benefit? or if not will it be much better than a SATA3 SSD ?

 

I've got a couple of spare NVME SSD's (256gb) after upgrading my desktop and laptop to 512gb ones, I wanted to utilise them in my server, I may use them as OS drives in a server, or may use them as SSD cache for Windows storage spaces.

 

Does anyone know if other brands / models perform worse or better ?

 

and better still.. does a card exist where I can fit 2 NVME SSD's and run them in RAID 1 for redundancy ?

 

Its 2 of these I have spare ...

 

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/256gb-samsung-sm951-m2-(22x80)-pcie-30-(x4)-nvme-ssd-mlc-nand-read-2150mb-s-write-1260mb-s-300k-100k

 

Thanks

 

 

[Jim K Global Moderator]

42 minutes ago, Inertia said:

I've been looking at cards such as this one .. http://www.lycom.com.tw/DT-129.htm

 

Does anyone know the throughput offered if I put an NVME SSD into one of these compared to into an NVME slot? will it get the full benefit? or if not will it be much better than a SATA3 SSD ?

 

I've got a couple of spare NVME SSD's (256gb) after upgrading my desktop and laptop to 512gb ones, I wanted to utilise them in my server, I may use them as OS drives in a server, or may use them as SSD cache for Windows storage spaces.

 

Does anyone know if other brands / models perform worse or better ?

 

and better still.. does a card exist where I can fit 2 NVME SSD's and run them in RAID 1 for redundancy ?

 

Its 2 of these I have spare ...

 

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/256gb-samsung-sm951-m2-(22x80)-pcie-30-(x4)-nvme-ssd-mlc-nand-read-2150mb-s-write-1260mb-s-300k-100k

 

Thanks

I cannot speak regarding that particular product ... but it appears that it meets all the requirements so you'll have full NVMe performance.  After all, it list the 4-lane PCIe 3.0 ... which is really all the NVMe slot is.

 

It will be so much better than SATA which is around 550MB/s ... you should get full reads of 2150MB/s from the 950 you listed as having spares.

 

I do not know of such a PCIe card that will hold two NVMe drives (not saying they don't exist...I just don't know of any).  I also don't know if it would be practical as you may hit a bottleneck (the PCIe 3.0 x4 transfer rate of ~4GB/s)

 

You should be able to put two of these PCIe adapter cards in and use software RAID  .... but ....

 

Couple of concerns though.  What motherboard are you planing on putting these in?  Will it boot from PCIe?  

[Inertia]

18 minutes ago, jjkusaf said:

I cannot speak regarding that particular product ... but it appears that it meets all the requirements so you'll have full NVMe performance.  After all, it list the 4-lane PCIe 3.0 ... which is really all the NVMe slot is.

 

It will be so much better than SATA which is around 550MB/s ... you should get full reads of 2150MB/s from the 950 you listed as having spares.

 

I do not know of such a PCIe card that will hold two NVMe drives (not saying they don't exist...I just don't know of any).  I also don't know if it would be practical as you may hit a bottleneck (the PCIe 3.0 x4 transfer rate of ~4GB/s)

 

You should be able to put two of these PCIe adapter cards in and use software RAID  .... but ....

 

Couple of concerns though.  What motherboard are you planing on putting these in?  Will it boot from PCIe?  

Thanks, the performance side is good to know.

 

The motherboard is a Dual xeon board donated from a retired server I need ot fire it up to get the exact model, it can certainly boot from PCIe RAID cards, but this is more native so it possibly wont! I may end up using them as Windows storage spaces cache instead of the OS.

 

I didn't think that RAID 1 would require any more bandwidth if the raid took place on the card itself. the OS would only send 1 set of data back and forth and the card would duplicate it onto the 2 SSD's in theory. of course I don't think there is a product to do this (yet)

[chrisj1968]

21 minutes ago, jjkusaf said:

I cannot speak regarding that particular product ... but it appears that it meets all the requirements so you'll have full NVMe performance.  After all, it list the 4-lane PCIe 3.0 ... which is really all the NVMe slot is.

 

It will be so much better than SATA which is around 550MB/s ... you should get full reads of 2150MB/s from the 950 you listed as having spares.

 

I do not know of such a PCIe card that will hold two NVMe drives (not saying they don't exist...I just don't know of any).  I also don't know if it would be practical as you may hit a bottleneck (the PCIe 3.0 x4 transfer rate of ~4GB/s)

 

You should be able to put two of these PCIe adapter cards in and use software RAID  .... but ....

 

Couple of concerns though.  What motherboard are you planing on putting these in?  Will it boot from PCIe?  

you got my curiosity up and  I found this http://www.trentonsystems.com/applications/pci-express-interface/ being curious what the data throughout is

 

Summary of PCI Express Interface Parameters:

Base Clock Speed: PCIe 3.0 = 8.0GHz, PCIe 2.0 = 5.0GHz, PCIe 1.1 = 2.5GHz
Data Rate: PCIe 3.0 = 1000MB/s, PCIe 2.0 = 500MB/s, PCIe 1.1 = 250MB/s
Total Bandwidth: (x16 link): PCIe 3.0 = 32GB/s, PCIe 2.0 = 16GB/s, PCIe 1.1 = 8GB/s  man that's fast.. 32GB/s vs SATA 550MB/s massive difference.
Data Transfer Rate: PCIe 3.0 = 8.0GT/s, PCIe 2.0= 5.0GT/s, PCIe 1.1 = 2.5GT/s

[Circaflex]

OP I have the intel AIC (PCI-Express Card) in my system. I can run a benchmark if you want

[Jim K Global Moderator]

5 minutes ago, Inertia said:

Thanks, the performance side is good to know.

 

The motherboard is a Dual xeon board donated from a retired server I need ot fire it up to get the exact model, it can certainly boot from PCIe RAID cards, but this is more native so it possibly wont! I may end up using them as Windows storage spaces cache instead of the OS.

 

I didn't think that RAID 1 would require any more bandwidth if the raid took place on the card itself. the OS would only send 1 set of data back and forth and the card would duplicate it onto the 2 SSD's in theory. of course I don't think there is a product to do this (yet)

Sorry!  I should have asked if the board could boot from NVMe (it'll need a UEFI BIOS which supports boot from NVMe).  If it is a older server board ... probably not.  If you are using a Windows Server ... I believe you'll need 2008 or higher.

 

With regards to bottleneck ... I was talking mostly in part as to why I think it'll be hard to find a PCIe card which supports two NVMe drives.  Once again, not saying they don't exist ... but I believe the potential bottleneck is why I don't think they do.

[+Tantawi Subscriber²]

I am using this particular model: DeLOCK controller: https://www.proshop.se/Controller/kontrollerkort-PCI-E-30-x4-1xM2NGFFi/2458494 and the 128GB version of the Samsung NVMe drive that you have. The performance is up to specs with no issues at all, also booting with it as a an OS drive using ASUS Z97-A motherboard with latest BIOS.

 

Actually I bought such card to be able to enjoy the full speed of my drive (using x4 PCI-E lanes)  vs. the built-in M.2 port in the motherboard which only operates in PCI-E x2 mode which would be a huge bottleneck.

 

Good luck with your purchase.

[HoochieMamma]

Slightly derailing this thread, but I want this exact thing in the form of a USB drive enclosure. I can't seem to find anything easily which will work for these newer PCIE NVMe style SSDs. Does anyone have any info that could help me?