HighPoint’s SSD7580B is the industry’s only true Hot-Plug and Hot-Swap capable NVMe RAID controller. It allows administrators to add or remove an entire RAID array, or individual SSDs for specific RAID related tasks, using either the HighPoint WebGUI or CLI storage management and monitoring software. Removing an SSD or RAID Array (aka Hot-Eject): Provided the array is not in use, administrators can use the CLI unplug command line, or the WebGUI “Unplug” button. The management utilities will then safely “park” each SSD (power off and unmount), then notify the host operating system of the change. Once the operating system storage/drive utility recognizes that the array or disk has been unmounted, the SSD(s) can be safely removed from the system. Adding an SSD: After the SSD is attached, Administrators can command the controller to scan its device ports for any changes, using the CLI rescan command, or the WebGUI’s Rescan button. Once the SSD is detected (this normally only takes a few seconds), it will immediately report this to the operating system. Example Screenshot (CLI): RAID arrays can also be unplugged or added to the controller while the system is live, but this requires an extra step, albeit a simple one. Administrators will have to use the SSD7580B CLI (Command Line Interface) and enter “Unplug” and the “Rescan” commands located on the left-side of the interface when adding or removing an array. Once the CLI carries out the command, it should only take a few seconds for the operating system to catch up. Learn More: How can I hot-swap individual NVMe SSDs (non-RAID)? SSD7580B Hot-Swap/Hot-Plug capable Cabling Options

The RocketU 1411C USB 3.2 HBA is the perfect partner for the RocketMate 110 external NVMe enclosure. The RU1411C’s Per-Port Performance architecture and PCIe 3.0 x4 host interface delivers 20Gb/s of transfer bandwidth (2000MB/s). Works with: · Windows 11/10, Windows Server 2022/2019/2016, Hyper-V · Linux kernel v3.10 and later RocketU 1411C The RocketU 1411C is the fastest single-port USB controller in today’s marketplace. The compact, half-height PCIe controller can be easily added to any PCIe Gen3 or Gen4 platform, and delivers uncompromised host to device 20Gb/s USB 3.2 bandwidth. While it is capable of supporting any industry standard USB 3.x device (USB 3.2/3.1/3.0), it has been fined tuned to interface with storage devices. RocketMate 110 The RocketMate 110 is stand-alone NVMe to USB 3.2 20G enclosure, and can support any off-the-shelf 2242/2260/2280 form factor M.2 NVMe SSD (including PCIe Gen4 models). RocketMate 110 RocketU 1411C The RocketU 1411C and RocketMate 110 are available as a kit, or separately. Hot-Swap Your NVMe Drives! Due to the industry standard USB 3.2 interface, you can hot-swap a RocketMate when paired with a RocketU 1411C (or any other RU1400 series controller, such as the4-port RocketU 1444C and 8-Port RocketU 1488C).

The RocketU 1444C is the first commercially available USB HBA that is capable of functioning as a true Thunderbolt™ 3 replacement. Although each USB port is slightly slower than a Thunderbolt™ 3 port (up to 2,500 MB/s vs. approximately 2,800MB/s), each of the RocketU 1444C’s ports can operate simultaneously! While it is true that Thunderbolt™ 3 is nothing to sneeze at, many do not realize that only a portion of the 40Gb/s bandwidth is available to storage devices. A single Thunderbolt™ 3 controller can allocate up to 2.8Gb/s of usable transfer bandwidth to storage media. However there is a major potential bottleneck to consider; many if not most Thunderbolt™ 3 capable host platforms only provide a single Thunderbolt™ 3 controller. This is also true for the majority of Thunderbolt™ 3 AIC’s (add-in cards), hubs and PCIe expansion devices. If you need a device or platform capable of providing four dedicated TB3 controllers, it will not come cheap. The RocketU 1444C on the other hand, provides four dedicated USB 3.2 controllers via a single PCIe 3.0 host connection. Each port is 100% independent, and can operate at 2,500MB/s 100% of the time (10,000MB/s total bandwidth). This is due to the controller’s unique “Per-Port Performance” architecture. Essentially, the controller design assigns a dedicated USB controller to each USB port (the controllers are highlighted blue, above). Combine this with our controller’s generous PCIe bus bandwidth (PCIe 3.0 x16 in the case of the RocketU 1444C), and it’s clear how our Rocket U HBA’s are capable of living up to their performance claims.

Superior Cooling System for Industrial Applications The cooling fan can be disabled by unplugging this power connector from the PCB. The 8-port RocketU 1388D (RU1388D) features the improved cooling system first developed for our 20G RocketU 1400 Series. The full-length anodized aluminum heat sink now features an integrated low-noise cooling fan to help ensure the USB controller hardware does not overheat, even when installed into crowded hardware environments, or custom-built chassis required for industrial applications. The fan however is an optional component. If the RocketU 1388D has been installed into a platform capable of maintaining the recommended temperature thresholds, the fan can be safely disabled (simply unplug the power connector from the controller’s PCB). The heat sink’s passive cooling ability is more than adequate for your average computing environment. This feature is useful for sensitive working environments, such as a media editing or streaming platform, which are designed to minimize noise and vibration.

If you need bootable NVMe RAID storage for a VMware based virtual machine application, we would recommend our FnL BRD Series NVMe AIC RAID drives. BRD Drives are true plug-and-play RAID solutions and are available with 1-8TB of preconfigured RAID 1 or 0 storage. FnL BRD series AIC drives are fully compatible with PCIe 3.0 and 4.0 host platforms, and are natively supported by current versions of VMware; no driver, or separate application is required! Just install VMware per standard procedure; it will automatically recognize the BRD RAID volume as a standard disk. Tuned for Virtual Machine Platforms BRD series NVMe AIC RAID drives are tuned to deliver exceptional random I/O performance - ideal for bootable configurations and Virtual Machine solutions. Each OS hosted by the VMware server is known as a Virtual Machine – virtual machines are designed to function as remote workstation platforms – essentially as virtual replacements for physical computers. A single BRD6204PB, equipped with four Samsung 980PRO Series SSD’s is capable of delivering and astounding 1,579,000 IOPS! However, The BRD6204PB is also capable of delivering over 7000MB/s of sequential transfer performance – basically, maxing out the PCIe 3.0 x8 bus. Benchmarking Each Virtual Machine We recently tested a VM platform configured to manage four virtual machines, using the BRD6202P and BRD6204P AIC drives. The Windows 10 and Server 2019 VM’s were benchmarked using CrystalDiskMark. FIO was used to test the RHEL and Ubuntu server VM’s. The BRD AIC Drives were configured as RAID 0 arrays in order to maximize transfer throughput. The results show how well equipped the BRD series are for a VM platform even with only 4 NVMe SSD’s (maximum) and a PCIe 3.0 x8 host interface. Note: The IOPS results (I/O’s per second) are lower than the base test shown above, as they were generated for each individual virtual machine (while these virtual machines were in use), as opposed to the virtual machine platform itself (VMware). Test Platform: ASUS WS X299 (Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-7900X CPU @3.30GHz / 32GB) Virtual Machine #1: Windows 10 BRD6202: BRD6204: Virtual Machine #2: Windows Server 2019 BRD6202: BRD6204: Virtual Machine #3: Ubuntu server 20.04.2 Virtual Machine #4: RedHat Enterprise 8.3

What is VDI? Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) is a form of desktop virtualization. An administrator can install multiple instances of a desktop operating system (such as Windows 10) to a server, which clients can then access via a local network or more commonly, a cloud-based service. These desktop images reside within a server that is running a Virtual Machine (VM) platform (such as Citrix Hypervisor or VMware). The VM platform manages client access to each desktop mage. VDI solutions are sometimes referred to as “Desktops on Demand” and are ideal for clients that are often on the move, or away from the office. It enables inexpensive, compact portable devices such as a tablet, laptop or thin client terminal, to utilize applications normally restricted to a physical, high-performance workstation. Virtualization solutions are becoming increasingly popular with modern workforces, especially in the wake of the Covid-19 Pandemic. How Does VDI benefit from NVMe Storage? While the speed of the network or internet connection is paramount to a successful VDI deployment, the host server storage environment should not be ignored. NVMe technology provides significant performance advantages over SAS or SATA based media, and the compact form factor allows it to be easily integrated into just about any modern computing platforms. A single NVMe SSD can outperform an entire array of platter disk drives or SAS/SATA SSD’s. NVMe RAID storage is even faster. Introducing the FNL BRD Series: NVMe RAID solutions for VM Platforms HighPoint FNL BRD Series NVMe RAID controllers and FnL BRD series AIC RAID Drives can be easily configured to host a wide-spectrum of VM (Virtual Machine) platforms, and are universally compatible with both PCIe 3.0 and 4.0 capable motherboards. The compact, half-height BRD6202P is available with up to 4TB of preconfigured RAID 0 or 1 storage. The full-height SSD6204 doubles storage capacity up to 8TB, and features our Silent Running, fan-less cooling system. Both models combine native boot support with excellent random and sequential transfer performance, and are capable of supporting a wide range of virtual machine platforms. IOP RAID Architecture BRD 6200 AIC drives employ IOP RAID architecture to support RAID 0 and 1 configurations. As a result, BRD AIC RAID drives are natively supported by all major PC-compatible operating systems, and will be automatically recognized as ordinary “drives”. This includes current VM platforms, such as VMware, Citrix Hypervisor, Proxmox, and Hyper-V, amongst others. As a result, BRD AIC RAID drives are essentially plug-and-play storage devices; users will not have to install any device driver, software application or manually configure the device before use. Seamless Software Updates: Native hardware support enables you to update the VM platform and virtual machine images as needed, using standard update procedures. You will not need to compile a driver, or patch the kernel in order to continue using the BRD RAID drive. Which VM Platform is right for my application? Future posts will take a closer look at today’s leading VM platforms, and how they can benefit from NVMe RAID technology.

USB 10Gb/s USB 3.2 Drive Dock with Dual Independent Drive Bays! We are set to launch a new USB drive dock later this month - the RocketStor 3112D. The RocketStor 3112D (RS3112D) provides 2 vertically oriented hot-swap capable SATA drive bays that can support either 2.5” or 3.5” hard drives and SSDs via a 10Gb/s USB 3.2 connection. The key distinction between the RS3112D and the vast majority of drive docks out in the wild are the dual-independent drive bays. Each bay has a dedicated SATA channel, and is fully independent – each can be used separately or concurrently, without having to sacrifice transfer performance. For example, a backup session to an SSD won’t suddenly slow to a crawl because you decided to install a standard hard drive to access a series of archived documents. This may sound trivial, but why spend money on a 10Gb/s enclosure if it won’t let you use that 10Gb/s? Learn More…

Dedicated vs. Shared Architecture HighPoint manufactures a range of four and 8-port USB HBA’s (Host Bus Adapters). There are two classes (Dedicated and Shared), which are organized via USB generation (20G, 10G, 5G). Dedicated Architecture Dedicated Series HBA’s feature our Per-Port Performance Architecture, and are the fastest USB controller cards in today’s marketplace. Per Port Performance: Each USB port has a dedicated USB controller to ensure maximum performance. The RocketU 1444C shown above also features a PCIe switch chipset which ensures each port has dedicated PCIe 3.0 x4 bandwidth. Each port is fully independent, and all can operate at full speed, simultaneously. The design also ensures each port is provided with 7.5W for power/charging purposes. Built for Professionals RocketU Dedicated Series HBA’s were built for professional solution providers, especially those catering to customer bases that need to move vast quantities of data for extended periods of time, from multiple sources, concurrently. Examples include Security Systems, Motion Capture platforms, imaging and capture solutions. 3D Photo Scan Solution Dedicated Series USB HBA’s Shared Architecture Shared Series HBA’s utilize a more conventional layout which assigns a single USB controller to pair of USB ports. However, this does not in any way mean these type of HBA’s are slow – they are still considerably faster than your average USB controller card, which are often equipped with just a single USB controller (regardless of how many USB ports are provided). Intelligent USB Switch Shared Series HBA’s feature an intelligent USB switch; it can assign full bandwidth to a USB port if the second port is unoccupied (as shown above). Standard USB controllers will simply split the bandwidth between each port, regardless if any devices are attached. As a result, RocketU Shared Series HBA’s are excellent USB connectivity upgrades for PC platforms – they support any industry standard USB device, are affordable, fast, and thanks to native xHCI support, simple plug-and-play solutions. Shared Series USB HBA’s

HighPoint manufactures several half-height (low-Profile) NVMe AIC RAID drives for both PCIe Gen3 and Gen4 platforms. These terms refer to the form factor of the controller PCB (the physical height). As the name suggests, half-height PCIe controllers are approximately ½ the height of a standard PCIe card (determined by the standard PCIe bracket height of 4.70 inches). Half-height PCIe cards can be no taller than 2.5 inches. Half-height NVMe RAID AICs (Add-in-Cards) are ideal for compact desktops, mini-PCs and many factory made workstation platforms, which may have unique clearances. Some platforms, such as those built around 1U and 2U rackmount chassis, require low-profile PCIe devices (and they must often be paired with a riser card). PCIe Gen3 Half-Height NVMe RAID Solutions FnL BRD6202 Series (Bootable & Driverless) FnL SRD6202 Series (Driverless) FnL SRD7202 Series PCIe Gen4 Half-Height NVMe RAID Solutions FnL BRD7502 Series (Bootable, High-Performance) FnL SRD7502 Series (High-Performance)

Driverless, High-Performance Boot Solutions Bootable RAID AIC Drives are expertly tuned to deliver exceptional random I/O performance, and are ideal for professional applications that require secure, rapid boots and high-speed workspace. FnL Bootable RAID AIC series solutions can be used to boot a wide-spectrum of modern operating systems and VM (Virtual Machine) platforms, and are universally compatible with both PCIe 3.0 and 4.0 capable motherboards. Your Choice; Tune for Maximum Security or Performance RAID 0(Rapid Boot): Customers looking to minimize boot times while maximizing response time can opt for RAID 0 striping. This mode delivers Maximum Performance and capacity by linking multiple NVMe SSD's together to act as a single storage unit. RAID 1(Secure Boot): Customers that need an extra layer of data security, and maximize uptime can request their BRD AIC drive be preconfigured as a RAID 1 Mirrored array. RAID 1 creates a secure, hidden backup of your AIC drive is that will automatically take over in case of a hardware failure. Optional: Pre-Formatted for Windows or Linux As a service to FnL Customers, AIC drives can be shipped pre-formatted and ready for immediate use for either Linux Distributions Windows 10 & 2019 operating systems. Hassle-Free Installation The FnL Bootable RAID series are essentially pre-configured, ultra-high-performance plug-and-play RAID drives. The RAID configuration is fully transparent to the operating system, and will automatically be recognized as a single volume. In addition, FnL BRDL series AIC drives are supported natively by all modern operating system platforms – no drivers are required! Driverless OS Upgrades Unlike many NVMe RAID solutions in today’s marketplace, BRD Series AIC drives are natively supported by the in-box NVMe drivers included with all modern operating system platforms. BRD AIC drives require no special procedures or additional software when installing patches or updates. BRD Series AIC drives are designed for use with all major operating systems, including Windows 10, Windows Server 2019, Microsoft Hyper-V, FreeBSD and Linux based distributions, and VM Platforms such as VMware, Proxmox, and Citrix Hypervisor FnL Monitor FnL Monitor is an intuitive, web-based monitoring utility that is Full Fan control with active temperature monitoring is ideal for applications that require low-noise working environments. Fan speed can be lowered or raised as conditions change, or even completely disabled if silent operation is required. In addition, a built-in Event log and configurable Email notification enables customers to monitor their AIC Drive from outside the workplace.

The FnL BRD6200 Drive series has been upgraded with new AIC designs. Now designated as the “BRD6200A” series, each of the new RAID drive models sport enterprise-class features designed for Industrial and Server Applications, and will soon be available with up to 15.63TB of pre-configured DC-Class M.2 NVMe storage. The bracket side of each BRD6200A AIC drive series drive now features a row of LED indicators and an external port that accepts USB-C monitors. OOB (out of bounds) RAID Management – BRD6200A Series NVMe AIC drives feature an OOB port (accepts USB Type-C monitor connections) and a built-in CLI (command line utility) which allows users to manage and monitor RAID storage without an operating system. OOB is a handy troubleshooting tool for professional applications, as it allows administrators to examine and diagnose the status of a RAID configuration or NVMe SSD while the host system is unresponsive. Status LEDs - BRD6200A series AIC drives now provide a series of LEDs, which enable administrators to quickly determine the status of the NVMe SSDs, RAID array, and PCIe host connection. DC Class AIC RAID Storage Solutions BRD6200A series AIC drives will soon be available with DC-Class NVMe SSDs. DC-Class BRD6200A RAID drives are ideal for applications designed to run for extended periods of time, such as cloud storage servers, hardware virtualization platforms, databases, and security systems. DC-Class AIC drives sport Enterprise class features at an entry level price point. For starters, the DWPD (disk writes per day) ratings are considerably longer (400% or more). This allows DC-Class RAID storage to accommodate applications designed to handle 24-7-365 operational schedules. In addition, DC-class AIC RAID drives benefit from a robust PLP (power loss protection) system. DC Class NVMe media include specialized capacitors that can be used to flush in-transit data (data still stored in the cache) to permanent storage in the case of a power outage. BRD6200ADC drives will begin shipping on August 27th.

20Gb/s USB technology is still fairly new, and most systems have yet to incorporate USB 3.2 Gen2x2 connectivity. Systems with built-in USB 3.2 Gen2x2 support are extremely expensive, and Intel-exclusive. To make matters worse, AMD users are plain out of luck; AMD has yet to integrate USB 3.2 Gen2x2 controllers into their platforms. However, do-it-yourselfers don’t have to wait for the market to catch up. HighPoint has introduced a true 20Gb/s USB to NVMe storage solution for PC-based workstations and servers. The RM110-120P bundles our new 20Gb/s USB to NVMe Enclosure, RocketMate 110 and our new USB controller, RocketU 1411C. This bundle allows you to add a USB 3.2 Gen2x2 port on any system as long as there is an open PCIe 3.0 x4 slot and deliver true host-to-device 20Gb/s connectivity. The controller can be easily installed into any PC system with a free PCIe 3.0 x4 port, and can support just about any USB device with a Type-C port. The RocketMate 110 supports any off the shelf M.2 NVMe SSD (2242/2260/2280 for factors) and has zero capacity limitations. RocketU 1411C The RocketU 1411C is the fastest single-port USB controller that can be easily added to any PCIe Gen3 or Gen4 platform. The RocketU 1411C delivers uncompromised host to device 20Gb/s USB 3.2 bandwidth. Learn More How to use RM110-120P 1. Find an open PCIe 3.0 x4 slot on your motherboard 2. Connect RocketU 1411C to PCIe slot 3. Connect RocketMate 110 to RocketU 1411C Works with: · Windows 11/10, Windows Server 2022/2019/2016, Hyper-V · Linux kernel v3.10 and later RM110 Performance video