Hello,
I would like to know if the fusion cards are compatible with PCI-e expansion modules like the Magma EB7-x8.
Thanks in advance,
You may want to look at Dolphin's product StorExpress, I looked at it a while back. In theory it should work, these guys have a lot of PCI-E experience.
Basically it extends the PCI-E bus outside the chassis of a server to a separate enclosure. It was originally developed to work with Texas Memory Systems but I've been told it's vendor agnostic operating at the PCI-E bus level:
http://www.dolphinics.com/solutions/storexpress_fast_pcie_ssd_storage.html
http://www.dolphinics.com/userfiles/files/Whitepaper/StorExpress_101_Whitepaper_090604.pdf
http://www.dolphinics.com/userfiles/files/StorExpress_Usage_Paper_Rev_1_2.pdf
http://www.dolphinics.com/products/DSE2XM_StorExpress.html
Here is our point of contact, he was very helpful:
Keith Murphy
Dolphin Interconnect
O: 818-597-2114
You may want to speak with Keith and do some due diligence. I've personally not used their hardware but it was looking promising.
Thanks,
Darren
Thanks for the reply Darren. Very informative. My client already has a Magma and I was wondering if there were any known issues with PCI-e expansioning. Looks like it's solid for now.
Thanks again,
Gary
The Fusion-io ioDrive and ioDrive Duo are PCI Express compliant, so in theory, any PCI Express chassis should work. However, don't forget about the other part of the equation - the server. Ask your expansion chassis vendor which servers have been qualified with their particular expansion chassis. If your server hasn't been tested with an expansion chassis, you may encounter BIOS limitations when adding external cards to the system.
By the way, here's a press release from NextIO, a vendor of an expansion chassis that has been tested with the ioDuo:
http://www.nextio.com/show.php?page=news98
I realize this isn't EXACTLY what you were looking for, but we use HP C-Class blades, and we use the PCI-E sidecars so that we can put up to a total of four FusionIO boards on one blade. (Two mezzanine boards and two PCI-E).