PCIe4 x8 NVMe 1.6 TB Flash Adapter (FC EC7A, EC7B, EC7J, and EC7K; CCIN 594A)

Learn about the specifications and operating system requirements for feature code FC EC7A, EC7B, EC7J, and EC7K adapters. FC EC7A and EC7J are low-profile adapters and EC7B and EC7K are full-height adapters. FC EC7A and EC7B are supported on AIX® or Linux® operating systems. FC EC7J and EC7K are supported on the IBM® i operating system.

Overview

The PCIe4 x8 NVMe 1.6 TB SSD NVMe adapter is a Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe) generation 4 (Gen4) x8 adapter. The adapter can be used in either a x8 or x16 PCIe (Gen4) slot in the system and uses Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe). NVMe is a high-performance software interface that can read or write flash memory. Compared to a Serial-attached SCSI (SAS) or Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) SSD, the NVMe adapter provides more read or write, input or output operations per second (IOPS) and larger throughput (GB/sec). The type of workload has a great impact on the maximum write capacity. If a high percentage of more sequentially oriented write operations is used instead of random write operations, the maximum write capacity will be large. To extend the life of the NVMe device, the application that is using the device must convert small random write operations to larger sequential write operations. The write operations that exceeds the maximum write capacity of the adapter continue to operate for some time, but the performance will be slow. The life of the device is not affected depending on whether the application uses sequential or random read operations from the device. A Predictive Failure Analysis message is displayed when the adapter that is enabled by the system administrator must be replaced. To monitor the percentage usage of the adapter, see Checking the amount of remaining life in NVMe devices. You can monitor the percentage used for the adapter by using the fuel gauge command or fuel gauge tool that is available in the operating system. If the maximum write capability is achieved, the adapter's replacement is not covered under IBM warranty or maintenance. This adapter has protection against single Flash channel failures. To prevent the entire adapter from failing, software RAID should be used. For high-value applications where the content in the adapter must be protected, additional NVMe Flash adapters with OS mirroring or software Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) are recommended. This adapter is not supported in the PCIe Gen3 I/O drawer.
Figure 1. PCIe4 x8 NVMe 1.6 TB SSD NVMe Adapter
PCIe4 x8 NVMe 1.6 TB SSD NVMe Adapter

Specifications

Item
Description
Adapter FRU number
02DE956
I/O bus architecture
PCIe4 x8
Slot requirement
For details about slot priorities, maximums, and placement rules, see PCIe adapter placement rules and slot priorities and select the system you are working on.
Voltage
3.3 V, 12 V
Form factor
Short, low-profile (FC EC7A and EC7J)
Short, with full-height tailstock (FC EC7B and EC7K)
Maximum number
For details about the maximum number of adapters that are supported, see Adapter placement rules and slot priorities and select the system you are working on.
Attributes provided
1.6 TB of low latency flash memory
Non-Volatile Write Buffer
Hot Plug Capable

Operating system or partition requirements

If you are installing a new feature, ensure that you have the software that is required to support the new feature and you must determine any prerequisites that must be met for this feature and the attached devices. For information about operating system and partition requirements, see one of the following topics: