Fastest motherboard for multiple M.2s

[andrew_manager]

I need to build a new machine to manage a very large database which will be stored on M.2s. This will be a linux machine. I need the fastest motherboard that has the fastest support for M.2s. It also needs to have enough expansion slots so that I can insert multiple 4x M.2 cards. In other words each M.2 card holds 4 M.2 SSDs, and I need to put in multiple cards. Can anyone recommend a very very fast motherboard?

 

[USAFRet]

With PCIe drives, you quickly run out of PCIe lanes.
With SATA drives, there is no performance different over regular SATA drives.

I know you state "very large database", but what is the real requirement?
Why does this need to live on "multiple m.2 drives", and how have you determined this need?

 

[andrew_manager]

2 TB of data that needs to be split over several M.2 devices so that if one device ever fails, it will not affect all of the data. To do this we want a motherboard that can handle enough PCIe cards at the maximum speed. This needs to be a VERY FAST machine, hence the need for the fastest motherboard. Any suggestions?

 

[USAFRet]

2 TB of data that needs to be split over several M.2 devices so that if one device ever fails, it will not affect all of the data. To do this we want a motherboard that can handle enough PCIe cards at the maximum speed. This needs to be a VERY FAST machine, hence the need for the fastest motherboard. Any suggestions?

So then some sort of RAID level.
That is what RAID is for...protection against loss of a physical drive.
So you actually need multiples of "2TB"

I'm still not convinced of the need for NVMe vs SATA drives for this.
CPU and motherboard performance, regarding database throughput, is only partially related to actual drive speed.

How many transactions per second?
Is the data all internal, or is this thousands (millions?) of users outside?

Seeing as there is nothing new under the Sun, what do others in this same usage pattern use?

 

[kanewolf]

Personally, I would look for a server chassis that has 2.5in NVMe drives with front access. That way when a drive fails, you don't have to power down to change a drive. You also need to look at your read vs write profile and decide what write endurance you are willing to live with. 3 disk writes / day or 15 disk writes / day ?

BUT I believe you should look at having sufficient memory that the disk speed is not an issue. 2TB RAM would be expensive, but for a 2TB production database, 512GB would not be unreasonable. RAM, a good UPS, and 4 1TB or 2TB 2.5in NVMe drives would be my recommendation. That is a much more standardized implementation. It is more supportable in the long run. You will have to have backups anyway so plan for them.