Half-height PCIe carrier board carries up to four M.2 PCIe SSD modules

Amfeltec Corporation announced the launch of its latest addition to the Squid Carrier Board family: the cost-effective, half-height (2U) PCIe Gen 3 Carrier Board supports up to four M.2 PCIe SSD modules.

Bifurcation allows you to use the x16 PCIe interface by splitting it into four x4 PCIe interfaces (x4/x4/x4/x4) in the motherboard. Each of x4 PCIe interfaces then connects to the respective M.2 module, mounted on the carrier board. The new carrier boards themselves are based on the same patented assembly concept as the entire Squid family (U.S. Pat. 9,996,494, additional patent pending). The board is one-slot-wide, and it is located in the middle of the (x16) PCIe slot. Four M.2 circuits (M-key) can be mounted on both sides of the carrier boards (component and soldering), and can accommodate any standard M.2 SSD with x4 PCIe Gen 3.

Once the motherboard is configured (in BIOS) to split the x16 PCIe bus four ways, the operating system will recognize each module as an individual hard disk, and can combine them as a RAID. Any M.2 PCIe SSD (solid state drive) modules with M-key can then be placed on the carrier board; supported sizes are 2260, 2280 or 22110.

Amfeltec’s Squid family also includes these other M.2 Carrier Boards:

• SKU-086-34  (x16 or x8 PCIe Gen 3, for up to four M.2 SSD modules)(2U)
• SKU-086-32  (x4 or x8 PCIe Gen 3, for up to two M.2 SSD modules)(2U)
• SKU-086-31  (x4 or x1 PCIe Gen 3, for one M.2 SSD module) (1U)
• SKU-086-01  (x16 or x8 PCIe Gen 2, for up to four M.2 SSD modules for Mac Pro, 1st generation)(2U)