GIGABYTE Launches CMT4030-Series PCIe 3.0 x8 and PCIe 3.0 x16 SSD Risers
by Anton Shilov on July 6, 2018 1:00 PM EST- Posted in
- SSDs
- Gigabyte
- Enterprise SSDs
- GIGABYTE Server
- SSD Risers
GIGABYTE B2B has launched two PCIe riser cards for M.2 SSDs designed to build ultra-fast storage sub-systems consisting of multiple M.2 drives. The CMT4030-series risers will be available through B2B channels, hence, to makers of servers, workstations, and high-end PCs rather than to DIY enthusiasts.
Neither of the GIGABYTE CMT4030-series cards use any PCIe switches and therefore rely on PCIe bifurcation supported by CPU or PCH (i.e., they will not work on cheap systems that have limited PCIe bifurcation capabilities) as well as on software RAID technologies supported by the platform. Both risers support M.2-2280 and M.2-22110 drives, they are equipped with their own thermal sensors and advanced VRMs to ensure quality power supply to SSDs.
GIGABYTE’s CMT4032 is a low-profile PCIe 3.0 x8 riser card that supports two M.2 drives and comes with an aluminum heat spreader. This card may be used inside higher-end consumer systems to build high-performance storage systems featuring two SSDs as well as a 6.5 GB/s throughput.
The CMT4034 low-profile PCIe 3.0 x16 riser card carries four M.2 drives on two PCBs that also has a passive cooling system. This riser is officially aimed only at GIGABYTE’s Purley generation servers, so their work on systems based on other Intel platforms (X299, X370, etc.) is not guaranteed. As for performance, maximum throughput supported by a PCIe 3.0 x16 slot is around 15.75 GB/s.
Pricing of GIGABYTE’s CMT4032 and CMT4034 SSDs risers is unknown, but since we are dealing with B2B products, it will vary depending on volumes and negotiations. The manufacturer plans to offer its 4-way Aorus PCIe x16 M.2 SSD riser for high-end desktops at some point in the future, but details are unclear.
Related Reading:
- GIGABYTE Aorus PCIe x16 M.2: For Four NVMe Drives, X399 Compatible
- Plextor Demonstrates 4-Way M9Pe Extreme SSD Solution: Up to 6.5 GB/s
- Marvell Launches New SSD Controllers And RAID-Capable NVMe Switch
- Kingston at CES 2018: A 6.4 TB U.2 Enterprise SSD with Four M.2 Behind a PEX Chip
- ASRock at CES 2018: Ultra Quad M.2 PCIe Card
- MSI Demos Prototype Hybrid Storage Card: M.2 & 2.5” SATA on a PCIe Card
Source: GIGABYTE
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MajGenRelativity - Tuesday, July 10, 2018 - link
I assume that someone willing to drop the significant quantity of money on a PLX based card knows what to do with it. It's true that some people have more money than sense, but it's a bit harsh to judge CheapSushi before he says anything indicating that he's using it for gaming or is an "enthusiast"CheapSushi - Wednesday, July 11, 2018 - link
I'm an enthusiast, gamer, content creator and a homelaber, playing around with machine learning and many other projects; I dabble in everything. I want to max out the 7 slots on all 6 of my whiteboxes rather than just put one x4 NVMe drive in a slot. I'd rather do more with what I have. It's "old" but plenty of people in the homelab world are using even older R710's for example. I want to make the most out of my gear (all X78 based). All of my boards have NVMe boot BIOS updates too. I'm waiting on Zen 2 before I make a larger change to my setup. And, I like to do this for fun as well. I actually ENJOY hardware. Not everything I do is pure practical and sterile.CheapSushi - Wednesday, July 11, 2018 - link
Before I switched to the medical field, I was a video editor and did music videos.Alexvrb - Saturday, July 7, 2018 - link
Also, if you want a great combination of blistering random performance and excellent sequential, there's non-M.2-based PCIe SSDs on the market.CheapSushi - Wednesday, July 11, 2018 - link
Only a few are x8, like Micron's. Most are x4 still.The_Assimilator - Saturday, July 7, 2018 - link
The CMT4034 is weird... why two PCBs? To prevent heat from SSDs on one side from leaking through to the other?kpb321 - Saturday, July 7, 2018 - link
I assume it's for clearance and PCB space for the 4 long M.2-22110 drives it supports. The back side of the PCI-E card doesn't have much clearance and you can't fit M.2 drives on that side without technically blocking part of the space for the slot behind it. Doing it on a single side of a single card would mean leaving behind the low profile form factor for the card. I assume that for their target market low profile was too important to loose leaving two stacked PCBs as the only reasonable option.rtho782 - Sunday, July 8, 2018 - link
Because it's low profile, and otherwise there is no room for SSDs on the back (as they would encroach on the space of the card above).If you look at the last two pictures, it's not two full PCBs.
Dug - Thursday, July 12, 2018 - link
Is there any bandwidth or other performance issues if you use one of these along with a video card at x16 and also 2 on board m.2 slots, due to limited pci-e lanes? (On consumer Intel and AMD motherboards)stevengerazdnn345 - Monday, July 16, 2018 - link
GIGABYTE B2B sounds well. I must buy one. The post is really useful.https://gmailhelper.com/gmail/gmail-sign-in