No, this is not a GPU card: unique SSD storage device contains 8 drives to achieve up to 55 GB/s
HighPoint’s first dual-slot NVMe RAID add-in card (AIC) accommodates up to eight SSDs in a single unit and reaches maximum speeds of 55 GB/s – making it arguably the fastest storage device in the world to date.
The company – a specialist in making PCIe cards – has built the SSD7749E mainly for industrial and edge server applications.
The device accommodates eight E1.S SSDs at speeds of up to 28 GB/s using a PCIe Gen4 x16 interface, though this goes up to 55 GB/s using HighPoint’s proprietary Cross-Sync RAID technology, two of which work together in a RAID-0 configuration.
HighPoint double slot boost
Priced at $1,499 per unit, and first launched in May 2023, it is marketed as a compact and easy-to-integrate RAID storage solution with high density and enterprise-class reliability. It is capable of interoperating with Intel and AMD CPUs on x86 architectures and Arm platforms.
These devices also come with an unconventional dual fan cooling system to keep the device running at optimum temperatures.
Two-slot cards are widespread in the consumer market; while common with graphics cards, they are almost impossible to find for storage cards. The two-slot design is intended to improve cooling in NVMe storage devices. Such drives do exist among consumers, but have not yet been widely adopted in servers.
While PCIe 5 SSDs are now on the market and may soon be considered one of the best SSDs money can buy, unfortunately the SSD7749E is only compatible with PCIe Gen 4 SSDs.
There is no question that HighPoint has theoretically built one of the fastest devices in the world. Tests last month showed that the Apex Storage X21 could be equipped with this 21 Samsung 990 Pro SSDs to achieve 27.4 GB/s 8K random reads and 28.7 GB/s 8K random writes.
The Phison PS5026-E26 Max14um Gen5 SSD also aims to become the best SSD in the world, with speeds of up to 14 GB/s. It also featured a unique cooling system designed to achieve maximum performance levels for longer.
Because HighPoint’s SSD7749E is no larger than modern double-width PCIe graphics adapters, it can be easily integrated into systems with a free PCIe 4 x16 slot. It is compatible with Macs and could be ideal for use in, for example Mac Pro workstations.