With such a rate of development... I wonder how soon will we see a SLI\Crossfire-like technology for PCIe SSDs.

With such a rate of development... I wonder how soon will we see a SLI\Crossfire-like technology for PCIe SSDs.

We already have that. It's called RAID.

We already have that. It's called RAID.

For PCIe drives - there's no such thing. There might be soft RAID solutions (which support PCIe drives), but I am not sure they exist. And I was talking about hardware solutions of course, as nothing beats HW.

I'm having hard time noticing the differences between my previous 500GB M.2 850 EVO and my current 256GB 950 PRO in day to day activities and even gaming, let alone a 10GB's PCIe SSD. Although I guess the difference would be more profound with that drive. And I would love to see in the near future PCIe SSD's becoming more common so more consumers would be able to buy supah fast PCIe SSD. 😀

For PCIe drives - there's no such thing. There might be soft RAID solutions (which support PCIe drives), but I am not sure they exist. And I was talking about hardware solutions of course, as nothing beats HW.

If wallet is not a problem...X99 and 2 Ultra M.2 PCIe 3.0 X4 slots eight in motherboard. ASRock X99 Extreme11 Motherboard Review – Quad X16 SLI/ Crossfire Gfx and 6.1GB/s Speeds http://tssdr1.thessdreview1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/ASRock-X99-Extreme11-Motherboard-M.2-slots.jpg

https://i.imgflip.com/10j4ng.jpg https://i.imgflip.com/10j55g.jpg

If wallet is not a problem...X99 and 2 Ultra M.2 PCIe 3.0 X4 slots eight in motherboard. ASRock X99 Extreme11 Motherboard Review – Quad X16 SLI/ Crossfire Gfx and 6.1GB/s Speeds [spoiler]http://tssdr1.thessdreview1.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/ASRock-X99-Extreme11-Motherboard-M.2-slots.jpg[/spoiler]

When "normal" mobo's Sata ports aren't enough... 😀

For PCIe drives - there's no such thing. There might be soft RAID solutions (which support PCIe drives), but I am not sure they exist. And I was talking about hardware solutions of course, as nothing beats HW.

SSDs like this are meant for enterprise and not home use. So, there is a strong chance Linux will be used, in which case mdadm would be readily available to do a software RAID configuration with relative ease. Anyway, if you want a ridiculous amount of disk performance these days, RAM drives are the way to go. With 128GB DDR4 DIMMs and quad-channel memory controllers readily available, it's pretty easy to get high-capacity disk performance so fast that your CPU would likely be a bottleneck. Again, Linux is the best option for this since it can do this for free, and just about every distro already comes with the program to do it. EDIT: As for hardware RAID, you would be mistaken about "nothing beats HW". That used to be true, back when CPUs couldn't handle arrays involving 8+ drives. But these days, hardware RAID controllers will actually hurt performance. Their processors can't keep up with SSDs, and CPUs these days are so fast that any disk activity is relatively negligible. Sure, there are hardware RAID controllers that can keep up with SSDs (or can handle as much as 32 drives at a time), but there's still a latency problem. Software RAID skips the middle-man, and therefore increases overall performance, or at the very least, response time. Software RAID is also platform agnostic, which is a huge benefit.

If wallet is not a problem...X99 and 2 Ultra M.2 PCIe 3.0 X4 slots eight in motherboard. ASRock X99 Extreme11 Motherboard Review – Quad X16 SLI/ Crossfire Gfx and 6.1GB/s Speeds

Mmmmm, ok, but not ok. There's no word (neither on provided website, nor on Asrock's) that RAID 0 of M.2 ports is a hardware feature... to me it looks to be a Soft RAID. I admit I do not know specifics of NVMe, may be the RAID can’t be realized via HW and requires only a SOFT implementation…

For PCIe drives - there's no such thing. There might be soft RAID solutions (which support PCIe drives), but I am not sure they exist. And I was talking about hardware solutions of course, as nothing beats HW.

there is Hardware solution already it just depend on the money you want to spend for it. some company even do unique build for specific needs (i can let you imagine the price...).

As for hardware RAID, you would be mistaken about "nothing beats HW". That used to be true, back when CPUs couldn't handle arrays involving 8+ drives. But these days, hardware RAID controllers will actually hurt performance.

it's all about the money you know 🙂... but of course a 100$ controler doesn't do the same job than a 2000$ one... and obviously you won't need a 2000$ one for home use. about software Raid it is a good choise right now VS the 100$ controler... it does just a few less for 100$ less 🙂

it's all about the money you know 🙂... but of course a 100$ controler doesn't do the same job than a 2000$ one... and obviously you won't need a 2000$ one for home use. about software Raid it is a good choise right now VS the 100$ controler... it does just a few less for 100$ less 🙂

To an extent, yes. When you spend $2000 on a RAID controller, you're not just buying a RAID controller. You're getting the advantage of literally dozens of SATA/SAS ports managed as a single drive. Some offer nice caches or buffering. You might get 100% of the advertised bandwidth (cheap controllers often lose bandwidth as you add more drives). Sometimes you get 24/7 customer support. There is a lot into buying a RAID controller, but if raw performance is what you seek, then software RAID with a decent CPU is the way to go, even if you buy a discrete controller. Remember, that's in terms of actual IOPS, MB/s, and latency. In the enterprise market, they would rather sacrifice a little bit of speed for a greater increase of reliability and integrity, so a proper hardware RAID controller is really the only option. For something like these PCIe SSDs, getting a hardware RAID controller would saturate more of the PCIe bus while also increasing latency and increasing the possibility of errors. Unless, the PCIe SSDs plug directly into the RAID controller.

Hopefully because there are no moving parts it will be more........ reliable.

Hopefully because there are no moving parts it will be more........ reliable.

Interestingly, enterprise-class SSDs have been notoriously unreliable. I think that has been fixed a while ago (like about year ago) but I do remember hearing about enterprise SSDs losing data after a matter of weeks of inactivity. For whatever reason, desktop parts didn't have this problem. But like I said, to my knowledge, this issue has been fixed. tl;dr, just because something doesn't move or create too much heat, that doesn't mean it's reliable.

tl;dr, just because something doesn't move or create too much heat, that doesn't mean it's reliable.

Sounds like something my wife might say about me.