HighPoint Technologies, a leader in PCIe storage and connectivity solutions, has announced the successful completion of a major performance benchmark in partnership with Graid Technology, innovators of GPU-accelerated RAID and creators of SupremeRAID, and Sandisk, a top provider of enterprise-grade NVMe SSDs.
The collaboration demonstrates a single-slot Gen5 parity storage solution achieving record-breaking performance, proving that ultra-fast, high-capacity, and secure storage is now possible for the most demanding workloads, including machine learning, deep learning, high-performance computing (HPC), media and entertainment, and large-scale data center operations.
Benchmark Performance Highlights
The solution delivered sustained top-tier Gen5x16 I/O performance:
Unified, High-Performance Architecture
The project was built around HighPoint’s Rocket 7638D, which was deployed to serve as a centralized PCIe Gen5 switching hub. The adapter’s PCIe Switching technology and unique port configuration – an external CDFP/CopprLink port and dual internal MCIO 8i ports – provided a robust and flexible hardware foundation, proving that massive capacity and performance can be consolidated into a minimalist, single-slot footprint.
HighPoint Rocket 7638D – The Centralized Gen5 Switching Hub
The adapter’s innovative design and 48-Lane PCIe Switching Architecture served as the core fabric, providing:
- A dedicated Gen5 x16 upstream link to the host platform
- A dedicated Gen5 x16 downstream data path to the SupremeRAID engine’s dedicated GPU via the external CDFP/CopprLink port
- Direct pathway to 16× Sandisk SN861 U.2 NVMe SSDs via the two MCIO 8i ports and a UBM backplane
HighPoint deployed a customized UBM firmware configuration for the Rocket 7638D, which enabled the 16 Sandisk NVMe SSDs to operate as a unified, high-bandwidth storage array with full PCIe Gen5 signal integrity.
SupremeRAID GPU-Accelerated RAID – Mass Storage and Data Redundancy at Full Gen5 Speeds
SupremeRAID’s GPU-accelerated RAID engine utilized a dedicated GPU installed into a Rocket 8631C enclosure, connected through the Rocket 7638D’s external CDFP/CopprLink x16 port. Graid’s proven technology provided:
- Full RAID-6 parity offload with near-zero CPU overhead
- Full utilization of all 16 7.68TB SANDISK SN861 NVMe SSDs via a direct Gen5 x16 PCIe pathway
- Ultra-low latency peer-to-peer performance essential for AI and HPC pipelines
This single-slot PCIe Gen5 GPU direct RAID storage solution addressed three critical industry demands simultaneously: ultra-fast performance, massive storage capacity (up to 16x NVMe devices), and critical data redundancy protection.
SANDISK SN861 Series Enterprise Class NVMe SSDs
The solution incorporated Sandisk’s cutting-edge PCIe Gen5 SN861 Enterprise NVMe SSDs. The storage media was connected to the Rocket 7638D’s dual MCIO 8i ports using HighPoint
CIO8-CI08-110 cables via two UBM backplanes, and configured into a RAID 5 array using the Graid RAID engine. The resulting configuration delivered over 100TB of storage capacity and astounding performance – nearly 57GB/s, and over 3,700K IOPS.
