Aplicata Quad M.2 NVMe SSD PCIe x8 Adapter Review

[Guest]

An Open Compute initiative to pack more M.2 storage into servers has trickled down from the enterprise to the workstation market. Aplicata is one of the first to market.

Aplicata Quad M.2 NVMe SSD PCIe x8 Adapter Review : Read more

 

[dudmont]

Ram, when the dongle shows, will you be doing a test with this and similar products, with 32gb Optanes?

 

[daglesj]

I hope the 3 or so of you that can actually exploit this performance have fun using it.

 

[dudmont]

I hope the 3 or so of you that can actually exploit this performance have fun using it.

While I wholeheartedly agree with you, there's a certain kid in a candy store kind of thing about articles like this.

 

[takeshi7]

I would have loved to see this with 4 of the Intel Optane 32GB drives installed. That would be the fastest 128GB SSD ever.

 

[AnimeMania]

I was too stupid to understand anything the article said, but not too stupid to have questions. Are you allowed to mix and match the four M.2 SSDs with different brands and capacities? Do the four M.2 SSDs appear as 4 different drives (with different drive letters) or does that depend on if they are RAIDed?

 

[PancakePuppy]

I was too stupid to understand anything the article said, but not too stupid to have questions. Are you allowed to mix and match the four M.2 SSDs with different brands and capacities? Do the four M.2 SSDs appear as 4 different drives (with different drive letters) or does that depend on if they are RAIDed?

Functionally, the card is just a carrier for the PCIe packet switch, associated support components, and M.2 connectors. It should be completely unaware of NVMe, so you could plug in 4 of the same SSDs, or 4 completely different ones, or 2 SSDs and 2 M.2 to PCIe edge connector adapters, all fair game.

 

[DerekA_C]

curious as to why this isn't added to the backside of eatx or atx boards or even matx boards with some kind of heansink plate particularly to the x299 and x399 boards that support enough pcie lanes.

 

[bit_user]

Running a RAID-0 of 4 drives mostly makes sense if you're using it for caching or scratch space. I wouldn't use this to hold the primary copy of any data I really care about.

Now, if they included a RAID-5 controller that could keep up with these drives, that would be very interesting.

 

[bit_user]

curious as to why this isn't added to the backside of eatx or atx boards or even matx boards with some kind of heansink plate particularly to the x299 and x399 boards that support enough pcie lanes.

Hmmm...

• 
  ■ Cost - high end motherboards are already quite expensive. They couldn't add something like this without driving away nearly all the customers who didn't want this specific feature.
  ■ Cooling - most cases don't direct much airflow to the underside of mobos.
  ■ Accessibility - most cases require motherboard removal to access the bottom, except for a cutout under the CPU.
  ■ Small market - it's not uncommon to find 2x M.2 NVMe slots on higher-end motherboards. What % of the market for a given motherboard really wants > 2?

Need we go on?

IMO, this is the best option: easily accessible, likely to have good airflow, and can be paired with many different motherboards. You could even install multiple, if you're doing something particularly crazy. Like trying to host big files over 100 Gbps Ethernet.

BTW, if a motherboard did add something like this, then it would make more sense to place the M.2 boards perpendicular to the motherboard and add a bracket to hold the other ends. This could take the place of one of the expansion card slots, so you'd have some airflow moving across them.

 

[alan.campbell99]

I'm interested in trying this but it seems it won't ship to New Zealand, ah heck.

 

[photonboy]

GAMES LOADING much faster than what an SSD can already do is highly unlikely considering an SSD that is 4x faster than another SSD show little difference in loading times.

Games still have CPU and GPU tasks that take up a big bulk of that loading time which a faster drive will not help with.

 

[deenie1219]

Alan, there are middlemen shippers that could work you, depending how badly you want the item(s).

 

[alan.campbell99]

Thanks for the tip, I'll give it some consideration. I have US relatives I was thinking about asking.

 

[AgentLozen]

Say I buy one of these things and stick 4 NVMe SSDs in it. Will it still take 15 minutes for Windows to update when I try and shut it down?

 

[TheOtherOne]

Most of that time is spent uploading stuff back to MS for adver purpose ....

So yeah, Windows will still take time to spy on you.

 

[AnarchoPrimitiv]

ACtually, the FIRST one of these cards brought to the market is the Highpoint Technologies SSD7101A-1 that's ALREADY been on Newegg for a while, come on Tom, get your stuff together

 

[dudmont]

ACtually, the FIRST one of these cards brought to the market is the Highpoint Technologies SSD7101A-1 that's ALREADY been on Newegg for a while, come on Tom, get your stuff together

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/highpoint-ssd7100-ssd7101-vroc-ssd,35004.html

If I was standing next to you, I'd offer you a rag to wipe the egg off your face.....

 

[MRFS]

> BTW, if a motherboard did add something like this, then it would make more sense to place the M.2 boards perpendicular to the motherboard and add a bracket to hold the other ends.

See the ASUS DIMM.2 slot.

 

[MRFS]

Here's a photo of that DIMM.2 slot:

http://i.imgur.com/c0J7YOd.jpg

https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/418/32336476952_79b4a83e7a_c.jpg

 

[James Mason]

Damn, if this thing was like $50-70, it's be a real nice way to get more M.2 slots in a desktop PC. But at that price point, it's really only going to work for Workstation class systems where you use them to make money.

 

[bit_user]

Damn, if this thing was like $50-70, it's be a real nice way to get more M.2 slots in a desktop PC.

There are plenty of products like what you're describing.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIAA6W4827476

 

[MRFS]

> There are plenty of products like what you're describing.

Yes, indeed: the market is flourishing with NVMe solutions.

Our focus here has been to promote RAID controllers
with x16 edge connectors and 4 x M.2 ports.

The main reason for this preference is the MAX upstream
bandwidth that is imposed by Intel's DMI 3.0 link
(exact same bandwidth as a single NVMe M.2 port).

There is an engineering elegance that obtains from
4 x NVMe M.2 SSDs @ x4 PCIe 3.0 lanes = x16 PCIe 3.0 lanes.

What many prosumers would prefer is a bootable RAID controller
that supports all modern RAID modes with 4 x NVMe M.2 SSDs.

One User at another Forum has reported success getting the
driver software for the Highpoint SSD7110 to work with the
Highpoint SSD7101. And, Highpoint has said they are working
on making the SSD7101 "officially" bootable.

I'm assuming, without proof, that Highpoint are also working
on making their SSD7120 bootable.

 

[jn77]

I am a little concerned about this type of product in respect to the fact that I primarily use laptops these days that are maxed out i7's with 32 or more gb of ram.

I have been considering building a new desktop (the last one I build was a socket 775 with a Q6600 in it).

If I don't really "need" a desktop right now and started from scratch, I would love to put one of these it in it, but I am also needing to consider that PCIe 3.x is going out soon for PCIe 4 and PCIe 5 is maybe 4 years out, so:

Do I build a PCIe 3.x based system now with DDR-4, massive i9's or thread ripper processors and put one of these in, or do I wait for the speed advantage of PCIe 4 or 5? Considering the laptops are working just fine for now.

 

[MRFS]

> "We're testing the older Quad M.2 NVMe SSD PCIe x8 Adapter. Aplicata released the x16 card a few days ago for systems that support bifurcation, but the Quad x8 has broader compatibility."

The x8 edge connector explains why the sequential READ speeds
are hovering around 6,000 MB/second.

With an x16 edge connector, sequential READ speeds are
exceeding 10,000 MB/second with similar add-in cards.