SSD on a PCI card

  • Thread starter Thread starter Alek Trishan
  • Start date Start date
Alek said:
<http://www.pcworld.com/article/2104...a-sata-drive-and-not-much-more-expensive.html>

reviews an SSD mounted on a PCI card. Is there any way to boot from this?
Click to expand...

It's bootable. At least, this article claims it does,
and the boot prom is stored on that stick somewhere.
(To run as a PCI Express device, it has a config space,
and so the chip on the stick would be where that config
space could be populated with an Extended Int 0x13 code module.
We don't know the details though, of what it supports or
whether it can be updated. Or whether it could be
erased by accident.)

(November 2013)
http://www.thessdreview.com/our-rev...xtor-m6e-pcie-m-2-ssd-revealed-boot-features/

128, 256 and 512GB capacities.
based on the newest Plextor M6e M.2 NGFF PCIe SSD and performance is variable

all sizes are capable of 740MB/s read speeds [PCWorld results don''t match]

write speeds
640MB/s for the 512GB Read IOPS 105,000 Write IOPS ???
575 MB/s for the 256GB 95,000 75,000
330MB/s for the 128GB capacity. 95,000 ???

You'll want to plug that into a PCI Express Rev 2 or better slot.
If you have an older motherboard with PCI Express Rev 1.1 slots
or something, your benchmarks will be a little low.

Also, it should be noted, that PCI Express performance is gated
by the availability of large packet size in the mobo chipset. Even
when a "lane" is rated for 500MB/sec, there is also a scale factor
related to the size of PCI Express packets allowed. Intel never
puts max sized buffers on the host side of the chipset. And that
might be why the thing stops at a weird number like 704MB/sec.

http://www.plxtech.com/files/pdf/technical/expresslane/Choosing_PCIe_Packet_Payload_Size.pdf

The reason the card format has three LEDs on the front, is two are
status indicators, and indicate the type of module plugged into
the card adapter. There are x2 and x4 modules, so only one of the
two of those LEDs will light, and the light pattern won't
change on those (unless you change out the on-board module). So
in a sense, you can also treat the purchase as a two part thing.
If you find an x4 module for sale a year from now, you could pop
out the current one, and put in the new one.

The third LED is an error indicator (of some sort). Let's hope
it uses Morse code to tell us what the problem is :-) "SOS"

HTH,
Paul
 
Paul has written on 4/20/2014 8:16 PM:
Alek said:
<http://www.pcworld.com/article/2104...a-sata-drive-and-not-much-more-expensive.html>

reviews an SSD mounted on a PCI card. Is there any way to boot from this?
Click to expand...

It's bootable. At least, this article claims it does,
and the boot prom is stored on that stick somewhere.
(To run as a PCI Express device, it has a config space,
and so the chip on the stick would be where that config
space could be populated with an Extended Int 0x13 code module.
We don't know the details though, of what it supports or
whether it can be updated. Or whether it could be
erased by accident.)

(November 2013)
http://www.thessdreview.com/our-rev...xtor-m6e-pcie-m-2-ssd-revealed-boot-features/

128, 256 and 512GB capacities.
based on the newest Plextor M6e M.2 NGFF PCIe SSD and performance is variable

all sizes are capable of 740MB/s read speeds [PCWorld results don''t match]

write speeds
640MB/s for the 512GB Read IOPS 105,000 Write IOPS ???
575 MB/s for the 256GB 95,000 75,000
330MB/s for the 128GB capacity. 95,000 ???

You'll want to plug that into a PCI Express Rev 2 or better slot.
If you have an older motherboard with PCI Express Rev 1.1 slots
or something, your benchmarks will be a little low.

Also, it should be noted, that PCI Express performance is gated
by the availability of large packet size in the mobo chipset. Even
when a "lane" is rated for 500MB/sec, there is also a scale factor
related to the size of PCI Express packets allowed. Intel never
puts max sized buffers on the host side of the chipset. And that
might be why the thing stops at a weird number like 704MB/sec.

http://www.plxtech.com/files/pdf/technical/expresslane/Choosing_PCIe_Packet_Payload_Size.pdf

The reason the card format has three LEDs on the front, is two are
status indicators, and indicate the type of module plugged into
the card adapter. There are x2 and x4 modules, so only one of the
two of those LEDs will light, and the light pattern won't
change on those (unless you change out the on-board module). So
in a sense, you can also treat the purchase as a two part thing.
If you find an x4 module for sale a year from now, you could pop
out the current one, and put in the new one.

The third LED is an error indicator (of some sort). Let's hope
it uses Morse code to tell us what the problem is :-) "SOS"

HTH,
Paul
Click to expand...

Thanks.
 
John McGaw said:
Or you can use something like this

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Sonnet Technologies/TSATA6SSDE/?APC=XLR8YourMac13

which will allow you to install either one or two standard SSDs on a PCIe
card. There appear to be a few companies making something similar.
Click to expand...

While it looks pretty cool, keep in mind that this puts you back on the
SATA interface rather than getting the possible speed benefits of PCIe.

Not all SSDs can exceed the SATA interface's speed, but some can now.
 
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