Tag: M2

Posted on

2020 Holidays Seasons Greetings from StorageIO

2020 Holidays Seasons Greetings from StorageIO

2020 Holidays Seasons Greetings from StorageIO. Here’s a video link from our compansion sister site Pictures Over Stillwater featuring drone based aerial footage from downtown Stillwater Minnesota on the St Croix river and inaugural lighting of the nearly 100 year old historic lift bridge, along with Stillwater Lights.


Downtown Stillwater Lights Night Bridge Lighting

In addition to being an FAA part 107 certified (e.g. licensed) commercial drone operator, Im also authorized for night flying in the U.S with a daylight waiver (107.29). Thus the following night drone images were captured using my daylight waiver. The first 30 seconds or so of the following video was shot in 4K, the remainder in 6K rendered down for subsequent posting.

The following sunset aerial view is from downtown St Paul over looking Rice Park across from the Landmark Center with the Minnesota State Capital in the background (top left). Note that this location is a “0” zero altitude drone no fly zone due to proximity to downtown St Paul Airport, however I have an FAA airspace authorization and applicable state licenses to fly in this area.

Rice Park Landmark Center Downtown St Paul
Rice Park Landmark Center Downtown St Paul

You might wonder what do the above images other than having a holiday theme to them have to do with StorageIO?

Simple, all of the primary big data captured by the IoT devices, sensors, cameras and associated telemetry and metadata need to be moved, stored, processed, and protected somewhere which is one of the focuses of StorageIO. Meanwhile Pictures Over Stillwater has as one of its focuses, capturing and generating  data including 6K video, 360 still and video images, VR, photogrammetry (2D/3D ortho models) among other rich content.

Where to learn more

Learn and view more via the following links:

Additional learning experiences along with common questions (and answers), as well as tips can be found in Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials book.

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What this all means

2020 Happy Holidays Seasons Greetings from StorageIO

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Cheers GS

Greg Schulz – Multi-year Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, former ten-time VMware vExpert. Author of Data Infrastructure Insights (CRC Press), Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Also visit www.picturesoverstillwater.com to view various UAS/UAV e.g. drone based aerial content created by Greg Schulz. Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO. Visit our companion site https://picturesoverstillwater.com to view drone based aerial photography and video related topics. All Rights Reserved. StorageIO is a registered Trade Mark (TM) of Server StorageIO.

Posted on

Part V – NVMe overview primer (Where to learn more, what this all means)

server storage I/O trends
Updated 1/12/2018
This is the fifth in a five-part mini-series providing a NVMe primer overview.

View Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V as well as companion posts and more NVMe primer material at www.thenvmeplace.com.

There are many different facets of NVMe including protocol that can be deployed on PCIe (AiC, U.2/8639 drives, M.2) for local direct attached, dedicated or shared for front-end or back-end of storage systems. NVMe direct attach is also found in servers and laptops using M.2 NGFF mini cards (e.g. "gum sticks"). In addition to direct attached, dedicated and shared, NVMe is also deployed on fabrics including over Fibre Channel (FC-NVMe) as well as NVMe over Fabrics (NVMeoF) leveraging RDMA based networks (e.g. iWARP, RoCE among others).

The storage I/O capabilities of flash can now be fed across PCIe faster to enable modern multi-core processors to complete more useful work in less time, resulting in greater application productivity. NVMe has been designed from the ground up with more and deeper queues, supporting a larger number of commands in those queues. This in turn enables the SSD to better optimize command execution for much higher concurrent IOPS. NVMe will coexist along with SAS, SATA and other server storage I/O technologies for some time to come. But NVMe will be at the top-tier of storage as it takes full advantage of the inherent speed and low latency of flash while complementing the potential of multi-core processors that can support the latest applications.

With NVMe, the capabilities of underlying NVM and storage memories are further realized Devices used include a PCIe x4 NVMe AiC SSD, 12 GbpsSAS SSD and 6 GbpsSATA SSD. These and other improvements with NVMe enable concurrency while reducing latency to remove server storage I/O traffic congestion. The result is that application demanding more concurrent I/O activity along with lower latency will gravitate towards NVMe for access fast storage.

Like the robust PCIe physical server storage I/O interface it leverages, NVMe provides both flexibility and compatibility. It removes complexity, overhead and latency while allowing far more concurrent I/O work to be accomplished. Those on the cutting edge will embrace NVMe rapidly. Others may prefer a phased approach.

Some environments will initially focus on NVMe for local server storage I/O performance and capacity available today. Other environments will phase in emerging external NVMe flash-based shared storage systems over time.

Planning is an essential ingredient for any enterprise. Because NVMe spans servers, storage, I/O hardware and software, those intending to adopt NVMe need to take into account all ramifications. Decisions made today will have a big impact on future data and information infrastructures.

Key questions should be, how much speed do your applications need now, and how do growth plans affect those requirements? How and where can you maximize your financial return on investment (ROI) when deploying NVMe and how will that success be measured?

Several vendors are working on, or have already introduced NVMe related technologies or initiatives. Keep an eye on among others including AWS, Broadcom (Avago, Brocade), Cisco (Servers), Dell EMC, Excelero, HPE, Intel (Servers, Drives and Cards), Lenovo, Micron, Microsoft (Azure, Drivers, Operating Systems, Storage Spaces), Mellanox, NetApp, OCZ, Oracle, PMC, Samsung, Seagate, Supermicro, VMware, Western Digital (acquisition of SANdisk and HGST) among others.

Where To Learn More

View additional NVMe, SSD, NVM, SCM, Data Infrastructure and related topics via the following links.

Additional learning experiences along with common questions (and answers), as well as tips can be found in Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials book.

Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

What this all means

NVMe is in your future if not already, so If NVMe is the answer, what are the questions?

Ok, nuff said, for now.

Gs

Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2017 (vSAN and vCloud). Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved. StorageIO is a registered Trade Mark (TM) of Server StorageIO.

Posted on

Various Hardware (SAS, SATA, NVM, M2) and Software (VHD) Defined Odd’s and Ends

Various Hardware (SAS, SATA, NVM, M2) and Software (VHD) Defined Odd’s and Ends

server storage I/O trends

Ever need to add another GbE port to a small server, workstation or perhaps Intel NUC, however no PCIe slots are available? How about attaching a M2 form factor flash SSD card to a server or device that does not have an M2 port, or, for mirroring two M2 cards together with a RAID adapter? Looking for tool to convert a Windows system to a Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) while it is running? The following are a collection of odd’s and end’s devices and tools for hardware and software defining your environment.

Adding GbE Ports Without PCIe Ports

Adding Ethernet ports or NICs is relatively easy with larger servers, assuming you have available PCIe slots.

However what about when you are limited or out of PCIe ports? One option is to use USB (preferably USB 3) to GbE connectors. Another option is if you have an available mSATA card slot, such as on a server or workstation that had a WiFi card you no longer need to use, is get a mSATA to GbE kit (shown below). Granted you might have to get creative with the PCIe bracket depending on what you are going to put one of these into.

mSATA to GbE and USB to GbE
Left mSATA to GbE port, Right USB 3 (Blue) to GbE connector

Tip: Some hypervisors may not like the USB to GbE, or have drivers for the mSATA to GbE connector, likewise some operating systems do not have in the box drivers. Start by loading GbE drivers such as those needed for RealTek NICs and you may end up with plug and play.

SAS to SATA Interposer and M2 to SATA docking card

In the following figure on the left is a SAS to SATA interposer which enables a SAS HDD or SSD to connect to a SATA connector (power and data). Keep in mind that SATA devices can attach to SAS ports, however the usual rule of thumb is that SAS devices can not attach to a SATA port or controller. To prevent that from occurring, the SAS and SATA connectors have different notched connectors that prevent a SAS device from plugging into a SATA connector.

Where the SAS to SATA interposers come into play is that some servers or systems have SAS controllers, however their drive bays have SATA power and data connectors. Note that the key here is that there is a SAS controller, however instead of a SAS connector to the drive bay, a SATA connector is used. To get around this, interposers such as the one above allows the SAS device to attach to the SATA connector which in turn attached to the SAS controller.

SAS SATA interposer and M2 to SATA docking card
Left SAS to SATA interposer, Right M2 to SATA docking card

In the above figure on the right, is an M2 NVM nand flash SSD card attached to a M2 to SATA docking card. This enables M2 cards that have SATA protocol controllers (as opposed to M2 NVMe) to be attached to a SATA port on an adapter or RAID card. Some of these docking cards can also be mounted in server or storage system 2.5" (or larger) drive bays. You can find both of the above at Amazon.com as well as many other venues.

P2V and Creating VHD and VHDX

I like and use various Physical to Virtual (P2V) as well as Virtual to Virtual (V2V) and even Virtual to Physical (V2P) along with Virtual to Cloud (V2C) tools including those from VMware (vCenter Converter), Microsoft (e.g. Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter) among others. Likewise Clonezilla, Acronis and many other tools are in the toolbox. One of those other tools that is handy for relatively quickly making a VHD or VHDX out of a running Windows server is disk2vhd.

disk2vhd

Now you should ask, why not just use the Microsoft Migration tool or VMware converter?

Simple, if you use those or other tools and run into issues with GPT vs MBR or BIOS vs UEFI settings among others, disk2vhd is a handy work around. Simply install it, tell it where to create the VHD or VHDX (preferably on another device), start the creation, when done, move the VHDX or VHD to where needed and go from there.

Where do you get disk2vhd and how much does it cost?

Get it here from Microsoft Technet Windows Sysinternals page and its free.

Where to learn more

Continue reading about the above and other related topics with these links.

  • Server storage I/O Intel NUC nick knack notes – Second impressions
  • Some Windows Server Storage I/O related commands
  • Server Storage I/O Cables Connectors Chargers & other Geek Gifts
  • The NVM (Non Volatile Memory) and NVMe Place (Non Volatile Memory Express)
  • Nand flash SSD and NVM server storage I/O memory conversations
  • Cloud Storage for Camera Data?

    • Via @EmergencyMgtMag Cloud Storage for Camera Data?

  • Software Defined Storage Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) Algorithms + Data Structures
  • Part II 2014 Server Storage I/O Geek Gift ideas

    • What this all means

    While the above odd’s and end’s tips, tricks, tools and technology may not be applicable for your production environment, perhaps they will be useful for your test or home lab environment needs. On the other hand, the above may not be practically useful for anything, yet simply entertaining, the rest is up to you as if there is any return on investment, or, perhaps return on innovation from use these or other odd’s, end’s tips and tricks that might be outside of the traditional box so to speak.

    Ok, nuff said (for now)

    Cheers
    Gs

    Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
    twitter @storageio

    All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2023 Server StorageIO(R) and UnlimitedIO All Rights Reserved