Highpoint Announces 8-Port M.2 NVMe RAID Controllers

[btarunr]

HighPoint M.2 HPC Series RAID Controllers establish a new benchmark for NVMe performance: up to 55,000 MB/s for a single RAID array. HighPoint manufactures the industry's most comprehensive selection of M.2, U.2 and U.3 NVMe RAID controllers. The 8-Port SSD7540 and SSD7140A represent the best M.2 solutions available in today's marketplace. HighPoint 8-Port High-Port-Count (HPC) M.2 controllers deliver unbeatable performance and storage capacity in a compact PCIe device that can be easily integrated into any industry standard computing platform. Our SSD7540 PCIe Gen4 x16 controller can support up to 64 TB of storage at speeds up to 28,000 MB/s. Dual-Card Cross-Sync configurations can double performance and capacity thresholds - up to 120+TB at an astonishing 55,000 MB/s.

HighPoint's unique performance-focused NVMe architecture utilizes intelligent switch technology to allocate up to x4 lanes of bandwidth to each NVMe device port. This enables our 8-port controllers to fully saturate x16 lanes of host bandwidth using as little as four NVMe SSDs. However, additional SSDs can be added to maximize storage capacity, or fine tune the configuration for a specific application by optimizing a RAID array for sequential or random I/O.



Advanced NVMe RAID Engine
SSD7500 and SSD7000 Series 8-Port M.2 NVMe RAID controllers employ HighPoint's advanced NVMe RAID engine, which is capable of supporting one or more RAID 0, 1, or 10 arrays, JBOD (span) configurations, or individual SSDs. A RAID 0 array will maximize performance and storage capacity. RAID 1 "mirroring" adds a layer of data security - anything written to the target SSD is automatically duplicated to a second hidden SSD, which will immediately take control should the target fail or fall offline. RAID 10 is unique to HighPoint NVMe solutions, and blends performance with security. A RAID 10 array is comprised of two mirrored pairs striped together - it delivers performance on par with RAID 0, yet allows one member of each RAID pair to fail without the risk of data loss.

SSD7500 Series PCIe Gen4 controllers are also Windows & Linux boot capable - each card can host one or more bootable RAID arrays, or SSDs.

Cross-Sync RAID Technology: HighPoint's 8-Port M.2 RAID controllers are Cross-Sync capable; provided the host system has two free PCIe slots with x16 dedicated electrical lanes, administrators can link two 8-port cards to function as a single 16-port device! This will double your storage capacity and performance potential; a pair of Cross-Synced SSD7540 controllers can deliver over 55,000 MB/s of transfer performance - no other NVMe RAID solution in today's marketplace comes close!

HighPoint M.2 Series RAID Controllers
HighPoint's small-footprint 8-Port M.2 series controllers can support up to 64 TB of storage capacity using cost-effective, off-the-shelf M.2 SSDs.

M.2 controllers directly host the NVMe media - this makes for a much more compact and streamlined solution, as the host system does not need to provide internal drive bays or accommodate additional cabling accessories. At 11.22" in length, HighPoint 8-port M.2 RAID controllers are single-width and conform to full-length, full-height, specifications. As such, they can be easily installed into most desktop chassis and 2U+ rackmount servers.

The SSD7140A PCIe 3.0 x16 controller can support up to 64 TB at speeds up to 14,000 MB/s, and is the industry's fastest single-card PCIe Gen3 RAID solution. The SSD7540 PCIe Gen4 x16 RAID controller can support the same level of storage capacity but can double the performance envelope to 28,000 MB/s. If you need maximum performance, you need a Gen4- based solution. Gen4 controllers double the performance potential of Gen3 models. Gen4 SSDs are becoming the M.2 media of choice as they are readily available, affordable, and fully backwards compatible with Gen3 solutions. Recent refinements in caching technology enables Gen4 M.2 solutions to deliver a level of performance that was simply inconceivable just a few years ago.

HighPoint's revolutionary Gen4 NVMe RAID technology takes this a step further, and has established a new performance benchmark. For the first time ever, a single NVMe RAID array has broken the 48,000 MB/s barrier. Cross-Synced SSD7540 controllers can now deliver a mind blowing 55,000MB/s of transfer performance - nearly 4x what is possible with a Gen3 solution.

Target Applications: M.2 RAID solutions are ideal for applications that require a high-level of write performance for a specific task or duration in a compact, easy to install package. M.2 media deliver excellent random read and write performance, and in large configurations, can be tailored accommodate workflows that require long-term sequential write performance. Target applications include media editing and production, 3D rendering and design, media capture, high-speed data acquisition and security systems.

Pricing and Availability
The SSD7540 and SSD7140A are now available direct from HighPoint, and our Certified North American Retail and Distribution partners.

• SSD7540 - 8x M.2 (PCIe Gen4 x16): MSRP USD$1099.00
• SSD7140A - 8x M.2 (PCIe Gen3 x16): MSRP USD$729.00

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[westlake]

Interesting. 28000 MB/s is the speed of four 980 PROs, not eight. So the RAID controller halves the speed of the SSDs on RAID0?

 

[chrcoluk]

Interesting. 28000 MB/s is the speed of four 980 PROs, not eight. So the RAID controller halves the speed of the SSDs on RAID0?

16 lane limit on the slot I assume is the bottleneck there. 4 lanes for each drive so max combined throughput equivalent to 4 drives.

 

[DrCR]

Could this be used as a boot drive? If so, one of these filled with Hynix Platinums sounds more interesting than a $2k gpu.

 

[westlake]

16 lane limit on the slot I assume is the bottleneck there. 4 lanes for each drive so max combined throughput equivalent to 4 drives.

Maybe, but 28000 MB/s is only realistic if each SSD slot has only 2 lanes, not 4 (8*2=16).

 

[chrcoluk]

Maybe, but 28000 MB/s is only realistic if each SSD slot has only 2 lanes, not 4 (8*2=16).

Maybe thats how they achieved it then?

 

[JAB Creations]

Could this be used as a boot drive? If so, one of these filled with Hynix Platinums sounds more interesting than a $2k gpu.

A SATA SSD and an NVMe SSD will boot about the same time on a system since it's no longer just about loading stuff from the drive (short of booting from hibernation, that you likely would); you're only going to notice the difference when loading or moving files around

 

[Verpal]

I know it is not the same company, but Hi-Point legendary gun design still gives me PTSD.

 

[FavoriteColorIsBlue]

The fact that you could get something like 32 TB of super fast storage for about 5 grand is insane to me.

 

[Assimilator]

I honestly don't understand why they would put 8 drives on a card with only 16 lanes. That means each drive only gets 2 lanes, not the full 4, so you'll only be able to run all those drives at half the speed.

 

[kapone32]

Theoretically these can only work fully for Gaming on a HEDT setup. Could Direct Storage mitigate that to have AM4 users running their GPUs on the X4 slot? These would be great for the APUs but they have a maximum x8 interface currently.

I honestly don't understand why they would put 8 drives on a card with only 16 lanes. That means each drive only gets 2 lanes, not the full 4, so you'll only be able to run all those drives at half the speed.

It looks like the controller can add that as RAID 0 storage to whatever lane you use but it seems that your concern is also mitigated by the software. So instead of 2 drives at 2.0 the controller makes the OS see 1 huge drive at x4.

 

[trsttte]

I honestly don't understand why they would put 8 drives on a card with only 16 lanes. That means each drive only gets 2 lanes, not the full 4, so you'll only be able to run all those drives at half the speed.

The way they described it, it looks like they are using a pcie switch (aka PLX switch). That of course doesn't do any miracles but the drives should have access to their x4 full performance in most scenarios other than the extreme cases like hitting everything RAID 0 full bore.

 

[R-T-B]

The way they described it, it looks like they are using a pcie switch (aka PLX switch). That of course doesn't do any miracles but the drives should have access to their x4 full performance in most scenarios other than the extreme cases like hitting everything RAID 0 full bore.

That's exactly what highpoints products are. Software RAID codecs on PLX controller sticks.

 

[chrcoluk]

I honestly don't understand why they would put 8 drives on a card with only 16 lanes. That means each drive only gets 2 lanes, not the full 4, so you'll only be able to run all those drives at half the speed.

Flexibility.

NVME is way faster than what most actually care for, so this kind of like a dual purpose card, it can be seen as a means of setting up a very fast hardware assisted raid (although I think software raid is better these days), or it can be seen as a simple 8 port expansion card, in which case the overall 16 lane limit isnt really a problem.

You could e.g. have 6 drives attached, 4 in active use, the other 2 as hot swap replacements.