The New PCIe Based SSD for Dell Poweredge 12th Generation Server
Latest 12th generation Poweredge servers offers Express Flash PCIe SSD based solution for extreme high IOPS application. Available in Q2, 2012, now you can plug a total of four PCIe SSDs to the front of R720 (PCIe doesn’t support R720xd) and the PCIe SSDs are connected to the server board PCIe 2.0 directly. There is a cable directly connect to the on board PCIe from the backplane of the PCIe SSD tray as shown in H710p manual, more information can be found in PowerEdge R720/R720xd Technical Guide.
Btw, the only features difference between H710p and H710 are H710p has 1GB cache and supports CacheCade and FastPath where as H710 only has 512MB cache and does not support CC and FP.
This is the same case as in Poweredge R710 H700 raid card, CacheCade and FastPath are only supported with 1GB NV Cache version.
SEQUENTIAL I/O (not RANDOM) bandwidth is no longer limited by Perc Raid Card as the PCIe SSD becomes a system device now. This means you got to have a corresponding driver for the installed OS underneath, I checked VMware is on the list. 
Hey, doesn’t this sound exactly the same as Fusion-IO?
The maximum bandwidth is up to 2GB/s for PCIe 2.0, 1.8GB/s for Read and 1.2GB/s for write as advertised by Dell for a single PCIe SSD. Well one thing I really don’t understand is, why Dell does not use the latest PCIe 3.0 connector which offers much higher bandwidth (3.2GB/s), it’s definitely strange!
In contrast, I can reach 1.3GB/s for Read and 1.2GB/s for Write (note both are sequential) as well using a consumer grade MLC based SSD (Crucial M4 128GB) through Perc H700 (that’s PCIe 2.0) on R710 anyway. Also for Random IOPS, I can reach 55,000 IOPS easily as advertised by Crucial, so what’s the point using PCIe SSD after all?
After reading the white paper Optimizing SQL Server Storage Performance with the PowerEdge R720, I figured out these new PCIe based SSDs (175GB and 350GB) are much more reliable now with SLC NAND (I smell $$$) and they required Perc H710P (I thought it’s not using the raid card anymore). In additional, One PCIe SDD drive resulted in 10.5x more IOPS (note Random) than 16 HDDs 10K array, that simply means a single PCIe SSD is equivalent to 10.5 PS6000X or 168 10K RPM spindles, excellent, but sounds unreal to me. I couldn’t find 107,518 IOPS is based on 4k or 32k, if it’s 4k, my consumer grade Crucial M4 128GB is definitely a much cost effective solution, probably at only 1/30 the cost.
Also remember SSD performance will degrade over time due to excessive write cycle and if you stress test it over a very long period of time continuously (that’s over 24 hours), the IOPS will drop to 1/10 of it’s starting value. However a SAS 15K RPM raid EQL box will sustain all the way. (Please correct me if I’m wrong)
Finally, something related, the SSD Dell used in their latest Equallogic is Pliant based SSD (e-MLC NAND as well), but those are 400GB.
Micron Announces 2.5″ PCIe SSD for Enterprise
Micron has announced the first 2.5″ SSD which utilizes PCIe interface instead of the more common SATA interface. The 2.5″ form factor allows for easy serviceability because the drives can be placed into the front end of servers. Traditional PCIe cards are harder to service and are not hot-swappable, requiring the server to be powered down. Furthermore, using PCIe instead of SATA eliminates the bandwidth bottleneck that SATA produces, maximum of 6Gb/s (or 750MB/s) versus 32Gb/s (or 4GB/s) for PCIe 2.0 x8.
The drive is essentially a 2.5″ version of Micron’s P320h SSD, which Micron announced in June last year. Both use 34nm SLC NAND and are based on the same in-house controller. According to Micron’s specifications, the controller is actually one of the fastest to date – providing read speeds of up to 3GB/s and write speeds of up to 2GB/s (yes, with a big B, i.e. bytes). Random 4KB read performance maxes out at 750K IOPS, while random read tops out at 341K IOPS (700GB version).
However, keep in mind that the controller features 32 channels. 2.5″ SSDs typically utilize 16 NAND packages, which means only half of the available channels would be in use with Micron’s controller. Micron couldn’t provide us with any detailed specifications or performance figures yet as this announcement was for promoting the new interface, not the actual drive, so we don’t know how much the performance differs from the FHHL sized PCIe card. The capacities are a bit smaller at 175GB and 350GB and at least random write performance should be slightly lower than what the FHHL card offers, but it’s certain that this will be one of the fastest (if not the fastest) 2.5″ SSDs.
Micron is currently sampling interested customers and an actual product announcement is going to follow later this year with more specific performance details. No pricing has been revealed, but Micron hinted that the price of the FHHL card would be over $16 per GB, which works out to be $2800 for 175GB and $5600 for 350GB if the 2.5″ version is priced similarly.
Update April 13, 2012
英特爾週四（4/12）推出910系列固態硬碟（SSD）產品，具備400GB和800GB兩種容量，並支援PCIe技術，可適用於雲端運算、虛擬化和線上交易等資料中心的儲存需求。
新產品採用最佳化的多層單元（MLC） 25奈米快閃記憶體，可提供5年內每天10次完整的硬碟寫入，與前一代標準型MCL快閃記憶體產品相比，耐用性提升了30倍。
英特爾表示，910系列具備高效能、耐久和可靠等特性，是用來取代I/O密集硬碟的理想選擇。它容易安裝，且無需修改既有的伺服器設計，可適用於儲存需要高效能處理和存取的分層和快取檔案。一顆910 SSD可取代多顆15K RPM的硬碟，不僅能節省空間和功耗，還能提升儲存擴充性，並同時降低時間延遲。
這是英特爾900系列產品的擴展，首度推出支援PCIe技術的SSD。800GB容量產品的速度為2GB/s持續序列讀取和1GB/s序列寫入，以及180,000 4K 隨機讀取IOPS（每秒輸入輸出運作）和75,000 4K隨機寫入IOPS。
樣品現已開始提供，量產時程訂於今年中。400GB容量價格為1929美元，800GB為3859美元，均提供五年保固。
Just a small comment.
The pliant drives in equallogic are eMLC drives.
Atleast it is in my Ps6100XS
Thanks for the update.
Btw, is it Lightning 6Gb MLC Models: LB 406M (400GB) to be exact?
It’s LB 400M in my case, I’m not sure if they are called 406M now.
If it’s LB 400M, then it’s Pliant Lightning 3Gb SAS SSDs.
Ah well im sure i’ll manage, they might have changed too, i know that the controller is 6gb in all the new Ps6100/4100 units, so its not really a hinderance to get better performance
I just came across a very interesting discussion about Dell’s latest 12 generation Rx10 server architecture, particular about the PCIe 3.0 lanes.
Just found another interesting PDF relating to PCIe SSD and R720: Achieving a High Performance OLTP Database using SQL Server® and Dell™ PowerEdge™ R720 with Internal PCIe SSD Storage
Some insight from Dell China:
Just wanted to inform you, that Storagereview.com has a review up of the sandisk LB406s http://www.storagereview.com/sandisk_lightning_enterprise_ssd_review_lb_406s