Looking for PMC/Microsemi NV-1616 NVRAM Drive Documentation/Tools

[Falsely]

Hello LevelOneTechs Users

I apologize if I’m in the wrong category, this is my first time posting here. I recently ordered a used PMC NV-1616 (part of the Flashtec NV1600 family, sometimes listed also as NVRAM 1616 EMC 16GB DDR MN TCA-00364-08-D) PCIe card that acts as a standard NVMe storage device, but uses DRAM modules as storage to give great performance (perhaps rivaling or exceeding Intel’s Optane), then backing up to onboard flash memory on shutdown.

Mine sadly doesn’t have the original supercapacitor backup power source, so there’s a high likelihood mine will be unformatted each time the system is restarted.

I was wondering if anyone knows where I could find documentation and CLI utilities for this device?

When PMC was acquired by Microsemi/Microchip, it seems downloads migrated to their website, but the pages and downloads mostly appear to have been taken down (I’m guessing since the product has been marked end of life). All I’ve found so far are basic datasheets.

Thank you so much for any guidance or help you can provide.

[jode]

Interesting tech. PCIe gen3 x8, no apparent way to extend storage capacity.

You can easily find cards on eBay (~$95 w/capacitator, ~$50 w/o).

The spec sheet talks about the card offering an NVMe interface to the OS. So, the nvme cli utility (on Linux) should allow querying the card, formatting it, etc.

As you said, in 2024 it seems to compete with the last available 58GB Optane 1600X, which I would consider more practical (arguably more durable).
The card offers potentially better latency (tbd) and bandwidth (8x PCIe lanes vs. 2x) but ultimately has limited use cases due to the hard storage capacity limit.

What makes this card (for me) hard to recommend is the relatively strong resource requirements (8x PCIe slot) with seemingly niche benefits. I’d have the nagging question if I could use these (rare and valuable) PCIe lanes (slot) for something more useful?

Please keep us updated with your experiences.

[Falsely]

That is a really good point, it definitely isn’t the most efficient use of PCIe resources to take up 8 lanes for only 16GB of fast storage. I hadn’t thought about that part.

Thank you! I’ll definitely give nvme-cli a try on it once it arrives. Hopefully I can find a way to access what it chooses to do with the 16GB of DRAM and 16GB of flash, or perhaps find a manual to see what modes are available. I can see on Archive.org that a manual and CLI tool definitely existed for these cards, but unfortunately none were saved.

I’ll definitely share the results once the card arrives. Thank you again!

[Falsely]

So far I have found a few more resources on the NV1600 cards.

While searching the other models of this card (the 4GB NV1604 and 8GB NV1608), I came across a guide for updating the firmware for the NV1604 from a company called Avere (now owned by Microsoft) who used them in their FXT 5000 servers. In the manual it contained a working link to download the NV1604 firmware!

Avere Documentation: Avere Legacy Documentation Home
NV1604 Firmware: https://download.averesystems.com/software/pmcnv_firmware_2.6.06.1

Sadly the tool used to install such firmware appears to have come already installed on the Avere servers, so not sure how useful the firmware is on its own. Also included in the documentation is the Avere FXT 5000 Series Field Service Guide, which shows the first record I’ve seen of any details on the operation of the NVRAM card. Below is a snapshot of the NVRAM page documenting the LED indicator behaviour for these NVRAM cards.

Lastly, I believe I’ve discovered what server the majority of these used cards were removed from. Most on eBay come with an extra adapter attached on the opposite side of the PCI slot cover labeled “HD Mini SAS To Internal SAS Adapter,” and the same sellers usually list at the same time an EMULEX LPE16304-M-E Fibre Channel card with an identical Mini SAS adapter on the PCI slot cover. That Fibre Channel card eventually lead me to the Dell/EMC XtremIO X2 server, which has both the NVRAM card and fibre channel card with the Mini SAS adapters on both brackets, as can be seen in pictures on this article: DellEMC XtremIO X2 – Part 2, The Hardware & Improved Data Reduction - Itzikr's Blog

Sadly all the XtremIO X2 downloads from Dell are locked behind having an account with access to those specific downloads, but perhaps a step in the right direction towards finding resources/tools for these NVRAM drives.

If anyone might have access to the tools for managing the NVRAM drives on either the Avere FXT 5000 or XtremIO X2 servers, I would greatly appreciate your help. Thank you again.

[Falsely]

Well, I got the card and… it hasn’t gone quite according to plan. Sadly the card does not show up as a storage device when connected to a PC.

In Linux the card is detected by lspci as “Non-Volatile memory controller: PMC-Sierra Inc. Device f117 (rev 06)” but does not show up as a storage device, and does not show up in nvme-cli either.
Strangely though, during bootup there is a long delay before an error shows up stating “nvme nvme0: Device not ready; aborting reset, CSTS=0x130df1”.

In Windows the drive is detected in Device Manager as “Standard NVM Express Controller” but with the error “This device cannot find enough free resources that it can use. (Code 12)”. It was the only device, aside from onboard devices, connected to the motherboard in this test. Testing was conducted on a 3rd gen Intel system with a B75 chipset.

I tried a separate machine in case of some strange motherboard conflict, but sadly my Dell T110 II’s motherboard is very picky and won’t detect the card on first boot, and will not POST with the card present on any successive boot attempts. I will have to take down another system to try it in one day.

As per the Avere guide, the card on boot will get to the flashing green state, indicating “Driver loaded successfully”. If one reboots the system without power cycling though, the light will go to solid green indicating “Firmware loaded successfully, ready for operation”. In either LED indicator case though, all results in both Linux and Windows are identical.

Has anyone encountered nvme not ready errors like this before and might have a solution? My guess at this point is that, since the card supports “Block Access Mode” and “Direct Memory Access Mode” (diagram from the datasheet below), perhaps the card was previously configured for the direct access to be read by a specifically built application, hence why it’s not showing up properly as an nvme device. Sadly without configuration tools, I can’t change that option and so far Microchip/Microsemi’s support team doesn’t seem able/willing to provide any documentation or CLI tools.

If anyone has any ideas, might have access to a tool that can configure the card, or know someone who might, please do let me know as I would greatly appreciate your help.

Thank you again. I will try to keep investigating the card and post if I make any progress.

[Radu91]

I tried on microchip site to request access for the device, I did not get a response. I opened a support case on the matter and the response I got is:
"Unfortunately, it seems that due to the nature of the product and the development required, we do not provide documentation on Flashtec devices.

Thank you for your understanding."

"
I discussed with the internal team. This product is very old and has been EOL’ed. The suggestion is to go back to the company, from where you bought the card from, and request for help. There is a good chance the drivers you needs are not available. The card should have come with software so something is wrong here and we can not support this request.

Thank you for your understanding."

And I found a person on reddit that claims that has the software and documentation but he does not want to share it because he says the pages are fingerprinted to him.