2.5.2 Internal NVMe storage subsystem
The Power E1080 supports NVMe storage technology. The NVMe subsystem is available in each of the E1080 server node drawers. Four internal NVMe U.2 drive slots are present in each of the system nodes in the center of the rear of the system. The slots can be independently assigned to any of the partitions (see Figure 2-19).
Figure 2-19 Rear view of a E1080 server node highlighting NVMe slots
As of this writing, no feature codes support IBM i for the internal NVMe subsystem. An external drawer is needed in this case.
The internal 7mm NVMe devices support only one namespace. The primary use of the devices is to host Virtual I/O Servers.
The location of the NVMe U.2 drives in the system node is shown in Figure 2-20 on page 88.
Chapter 2. Architecture and technical overview 87
Figure 2-20 Rear view of a Power E1080 server node with NVMe slot location codes
Each slot is driven from a x4 PCIe connection, with 2 SSDs connected to the PHB on the P2 CPU socket and 2 SSDs connected to the PHB of the P3 CPU socket as shown in
Figure 2-18 on page 85. The busses are routed through system planar from the CPU to the NVMe slot interface card, and then up through the SSD riser card and into the SSD.
The NVMe slots support U.2 NVMe flash SSD drives. Four 2.5-inch 7 mm form factor SSDs or two 2.5-inch 15 mm NVMe SSDs can be used.
Slot locations P1-C2 and P1-C3 remain empty if #EJBD backplane is selected to allow for spacing of 15 mm option.
Choose the type of NVMe SSD drives carefully because some drives are intended to be used only as a boot drive and for non-data-intensive workloads.
Table 2-13 lists the internal NVMe adapters that are available as of this writing.
Table 2-13 Available internal NVMe SSD features codes
The (#EC5J/#EC5K/#EC5L) – 800 GB/1.6 TB/3.2 TB Mainstream SSDs are rated for a limited number of Drive Write per Day (DWPD) and as such are intended for use as a boot drive and for non-data-intensive workloads.
88 IBM Power E1080: Technical Overview and Introduction
Internal SSD plug order
For redundancy purposes, it is a preferred practice to distribute the NVMe drives across the system nodes if they are present as follows:
Ê Populate slot C0 in each system node starting with node 1 and then, other C0 slots if other nodes are present.
Ê Populate slot C2 in each system node starting with node 1 and then, other C2 slots if other nodes are present.
Ê Populate slot C1 in each system node starting with node 1 and then, other C1 slots if other nodes are present.
Ê Populate slot C3 in each system node starting with node 1 and then, other C3 slots if other nodes are present.
Each NVMe U.2 drive has two LEDs at the top of the drive that indicate the following status:
Ê A power and activity LED (green)
Ê An error and identify function LED (amber).
The location of the NVMe U.2 drive LEDs in the system are shown in Figure 2-21.
Figure 2-21 Rear view of a E1080 server node with NVMe slot LED location
Concurrent maintenance of the NVMe drives are supported.
You can find the remaining life on a NVMe device from the logical partition that owns the device.
Chapter 2. Architecture and technical overview 89
To determine the remaining life of an NVMe device, complete the following steps:
Ê For an IBM AIX operating system:
a. From the AIX command line, enter diag and press Enter.
b. From the Function Selection menu, select Task Selection ® NVMe general health information.
c. Select the NVMe device that you want to check the remaining life for and press Enter. d. View the Percentage of NVM subsystem life used field.
Ê For Linux operating system.
a. From the Linux command line, enter the following command and press Enter: nvme smart-log /dev/nvmeX -H
Where nvmeX is the resource name of the NVMe device.
b. View the Percentage used field.
The NVMe device that is nearing its end of life must be replaced. The device soon reaches the limit for the number of write operations that are supported. Write operations to the NVMe device become slower over time, and at some point the NVMe device becomes a read-only device. When the operating system writes data to a read-only device, the write operations are rejected, and the operating system considers the device as if a failure occurred. To support normal write operations, the NVMe device must be replaced.