Old HGST PCIe Flash cards?

[rvassar]

Has anyone tried a HGST FlashMax PCIe Flash card for any purpose? These have massive over-subscription, but I'm not sure there's any kind of driver for FreeBSD.

Something along the lines of this:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/HGST-Virid...Internal-SSD-VIR-HW-M2-LP-550-1B/222897355227

 

[Chris Moore]

I looked into the device a little and found this thread over at servethehome that you might want to read:
https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/hgst-550gb-virident-flashmax-ii-650-obo.5103/

From what I gather, the performance is not that good.

 

[HoneyBadger]

Odds are pretty low on there being a FreeBSD driver for these; although there are references to the original vendor (Virident) in the kernel.

 

[rvassar]

From what I gather, the performance is not that good.

It's a 5+ year old card at this point. I was on the QA team for its successor for a while. From what I remember, the later cards could do upwards of 2.5Gb/sec., but the 550mb was maybe half that, or a little less. Still almost double most of the retail SSD's of today.

The reason I brought it up, is I believe they have the PFP needed for SLOG use. I have a retail SSD in use as a SLOG as an experiment at the moment, but it can't stay, it has no PFP.

there are references to the original vendor (Virident) in the kernel.

Interesting... I'm going to have to go digging after Thanksgiving.

 

[Chris Moore]

Still almost double most of the retail SSD's of today.

I imagine it would be better than the average SSD. If you decide to get one, please let us know how it works out.

 

[rvassar]

I imagine it would be better than the average SSD. If you decide to get one, please let us know how it works out.

On the fence... They were interesting cards back in the day, and the massive wear levelling over-subscription should make them serviceable even now, but without a driver it's a no-op.