HighPoint Ultra-High Performance Flexible NVMe U.2 RAID Controller

Similar to video cards, the SSD7120 delivers dedicated PCI 3.0 x16 bus bandwidth to enhance performance. Unlike onboard DMI 3.0 based NVMe solutions, which are forced to share a single PCIe 3.0 x4 lane with the motherboard’s SATA and USB ports, SSD7100 series RAID Controllers feature dedicated PCI 3.0 x16 bus bandwidth. This architecture allows each SSD to interface directly with the platform’s CPU, shattering the constrictive performance bottleneck imposed by DMI 3.0 and unlocking the true potential of your NVMe storage.

The SSD7120 RAID controller is a fully independent NVMe RAID solution, and is not tethered to specific motherboards or chipset families. Any system sporting a free PCIe 3.0 x16 slot with direct access to the CPU is fair game, making this RAID controller suitable for use with a wide variety of high-end desktops, custom gaming PCs, and media workstations.

The U.2 ports provide flexibility when selecting a hardware platform. The connectors are compatible with a wide selection of 2.5″ form-factor rackmount chassis. In addition, the industry-standard SFF-8639 connectors accept cables of varying length, allowing the SSD7120 RAID controller to be easily integrated into custom chassis. This design simplifies field upgrades and maintenance sessions, and is ideal for chassis that require removable drive trays for quick access to storage devices.

The SSD7120 aims at making NVMe storage expansion quick, painless, and intuitive for users of any experience level.

Multiple SSD7120 NVMe RAID controllers can be linked and installed into a single system to deliver up to 256 Gb/s of performance—eight times faster than NVMe drives locked behind the Intel DMI 3.0 architecture. A single SSD7120 controller can aggregate multiple NVMe SSDs at PCIe x16 bandwidth, and double that when used in dual configurations.

The NVMe Manager portion of the RAID Management interface features TRIM support, and S.M.A.R.T. monitoring with total Terabyte Written (TBW) tracking. TRIM support promotes the longevity and endurance of NVMe storage by enabling each SSD to handle garbage collection more efficiently, which helps eliminate write speed degradation. S.M.A.R.T. monitoring allows you to check a variety of physical attributes of each NVMe SSD, including temperature readings, voltage, and TBW. The interface updates attribute data in real time, and can be even be configured to notify you by email in the event of an error condition or threshold warning.