Apex Storage, a new player in the storage industry based in Utah, has unveiled its latest product, the X21, an Add-In-Card (AIC) that can accommodate up to 21 PCIe 4.0 M.2 SSDs.
With the X21, consumers can build configurations with capacities of up to 168TB and enjoy impressive speeds up to 31 GBps. The X21 is the only product currently listed on Apex Storage's website, and the company seems to specialize in AIC products. Mike Spicer and Henry Hill are believed to be the team behind Apex Storage, with Spicer having previously kickstarted the Storage Scaler expansion card that accommodates up to 16 M.2 SATA drives in 2021. The X21 seems to be a beefed-up version of the original Storage Scaler, but Apex Storage opted for PCIe 4.0 instead of PCIe 5.0, which is already available on the retail market.
The X21 has a double-width full-height full-length (FHFL) form factor with a single-slot PCI design, and it measures 274.2mm long. It communicates through a standard PCIe 4.0 x16 expansion slot and is backward compatible with PCIe 3.0, although performance may be affected. To handle up to 21 M.2 SSDs, Apex Storage bonded two PCBs together in a sandwich, giving the X21 a significant advantage over rival options such as the Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus Destroyer 2. The concept is similar to the one Nvidia used for the prehistoric GeForce 7900 GX2, with ten PCIe 4.0 M.2 slots and a massive heatsink that covers the controller in the X21's interior.
The remaining eleven PCIe 4.0 M.2 slots are located on the exterior of the PCBs. Given the significant number of SSDs that the X21 can support, the AIC can't receive all its power from a single expansion slot. As a result, Apex Storage included two regular 6-pin PCIe power connectors to provide auxiliary power, allowing for up to 225W. The X21 features a passive cooling design, but the manufacturer recommends a minimum airflow of 400 LFM for optimal operation.
The X21 supports only M.2 2280 drives and can handle Samsung 990 Pro SSDs and Intel's Optane M.2 SSDs, like the H20. However, there aren't many Optane drives available since Intel axed its Optane business. The manufacturer confirmed that the X21 offers 100 PCIe lanes, suggesting the presence of a PCIe switch. In a single-card configuration, the X21 can deliver sequential read and write speeds of up to 30.5 GBps and 28.5 GBps, respectively. The random performance consists of 7.5 million IOPS reads and 6.2 million IOPS writes. In a multi-card setup, consumers can enjoy sequential reads up to 107 GBps and sequential writes up to 80 GBps. The random performance also receives a significant boost, with over 20 million IOPS reads and 10 million IOPS writes. The AIC has an average read and write access latency of 79us and 52us, respectively.
With 8TB SSDs such as the Corsair MP400 or the Sabrent Rocket Q, the X21 can provide up to 168TB on a single card, supporting higher-capacity drives once future 16TB M.2 SSDs hit the market, consumers can have up to 336TB of storage on the X21. The X21 supports RAID configurations in Windows and Linux environments, although the type of RAID arrays isn't exposed, neither was pricing.
Unmatched Speeds and Capacity with Apex Storage's X21 AIC: Accommodating Up to 21 PCIe 4.0 M.2 SSDs
