Littleton, MA, USA — January 17, 2024 — SANBlaze Technology Inc., a leading worldwide provider of advanced storage test and validation technologies, today announced availability of a conformance test suite supporting Flexible Data Placement (FDP), an emerging NVMe® SSD technology for host data storage stacks and applications.  The new FDP capabilities, available on release V10.6 of the Certified by SANBlaze test suite allows SSD manufacturers to efficiently and accurately test FDP implementations on their drives in half the time it would take using home-grown or open-source tools.

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"Flexible Data Placement (FDP) is an innovative next generation SSD technology which enables improved performance, improved quality of service and reduction of SSD wear, enabling SSDs to last longer.  Having test suites to develop, validate and debug this technology is an important part of the ecosystem to enable deployment of high-quality products."  Ross Stenfort, Hardware Systems Engineer, Meta.

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“We are excited to announce that our Certified by SANBlaze test suite software now includes FDP conformance tests per the FDP specification for SSD validation and testing,” said Rick Walsh, Sr. Vice President, SANBlaze.  “The ability to test FDP ensures that SSD developers can meet FDP datacenter standards, achieving full compliance while meeting time-to-market and design objectives.”

 

SANBlaze Software IP

 

SANBlaze’s V10.6 software package incorporates multiple new Certified by SANBlaze test suites, including FDP and OCP, other important updates, and customer-requested enhancements.  The Certified by SANBlaze test suite runs on SANBlaze hardware, including the SBExpress-RM5 PCIe 5.0 NVMe Rackmount test system and the SBExpress-DT5 PCIe 5.0 NVMe Desktop test system.

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The sixth generation SBExpress-RM5 and SBExpress-DT5 are both evolutionary, growing from a successful family of widely deployed predecessors, and innovative, with advanced test capabilities, including Flexible Data Placement (FDP), Vendor Defined Messaging (VDM) testing support for NVMe-MI over PCIe, and both in-band and SMBus test capabilities.  All features of the Certified by SANBlaze Enterprise Test Suite are completely supported at PCIe 5.0 speed.  The system integrates seamlessly with SerialTek’s Kodiak™ PCIe 5.0 protocol analysis system, providing users with comprehensive test, debug, and analysis capabilities.

 

Riser Technology

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The SBExpress-RM5 (rackmount) 16-drive test system and the SBExpress-DT5 (desktop) test system both employ SANBlaze’s proprietary riser technology and conveniently use the same set of NVMe PCIe 5.0 risers.  All SANBlaze risers are capable of single- and dual-port operation and can switch on-the-fly under software control.  Risers are available for all NVMe form factors at PCIe 5.0 speed.

 

Features and Capabilities

 

The SBExpress-RM5 and SBExpress-DT5 support the following features and capabilities:

• U.2/E3 Single/Dual Port

• All EDSFF form factors

• Certified by SANBlaze test suite, with automated report generation and performance plotting

• Flexible Data Placement (FDP)

• L1.1 and L1.2 Low Power State testing with CLKREQ monitor

• Vendor Defined Message (VDM) testing

• SR-IOV and multi-root testing

• SMBus testing up to 1MHz

• MI/MCTP testing over SMBus, VDM, and in-band transports

• Power On/Off testing under SW control, all devices

• Clock disable testing to all devices

• Hardware PERST testing to all devices

• Single-/dual-port testing on-the-fly under software control

• SRIS/SRNS and SSC advanced clock mode testing (see our whitepaper)

• Power monitoring of each device under test

• Full PCIe 5.0 bandwidth (PCIe 5.0 x4) to each riser and PCIe 5.0 x16 to root complex

• Remote system control for power up/down/reset

• PCIe 5.0 x16 "Top Slot" for PCIe Add-In Card (AIC) testing (e.g., FPGA or PCIe Analyzer)

• Python APIs for full system control and integration into corporate test infrastructure

 

Capabilities are Ideal for Broad Variety of Teams

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The Certified by SANBlaze software, the SBExpress-RM5, and the SBExpress-DT5 prove useful for a wide variety of teams, including firmware, manufacturing, development engineers, systems engineers, and field application engineers.  Analysis tasks are easily automated with built-in error detection triggering, leading to fast and accurate problem resolution.  See more on this in the white paper, Triggering a PCIe Analyzer from your SBExpress System.

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Pricing and Availability

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SANBlaze’s V10.6 software package is available now, and the SBExpress-RM5 PCIe 5.0 Rackmount NVMe SSD Test System and the SBExpress-DT5 PCIe 5.0 Desktop NVMe SSD Test System are now shipping with minimal lead times.  Contact the SANBlaze sales team for more information.

 

About SANBlaze

 

SANBlaze, a member of the Symbiosys Alliance, is a pioneer in storage testing and validation technologies.  SANBlaze systems are deployed in the test and development labs of most major storage hardware and software vendors worldwide.  SANBlaze is revolutionizing the NVMe Storage Area Network (SAN) and PCIe device qualification markets by offering NVMe testing end-to-end.  We are first to market a solution that tests Native NVMe and NVMe over Fabrics (NVMe-oF™) for complete end-to-end testing of your entire system using single port or dual port drives.  More information is available on www.sanblaze.com.

 

SANBlaze | One Monarch Drive, Suite 204 | Littleton, MA | United States

We Test NVMe over Everything™

 

SANBlaze, the SANBlaze logo, SBExpress, SBCert, VirtuaLUN, NVMe over Everything, and GargantuLUN, are trademarks of SANBlaze Technology, Inc. PCI Express and PCIe are registered trademarks of PCI-SIG.  NVMe is a registered trademark of NVM Express, Inc.   Other trademarks and trade names are those of their respective owners.