Determining PCIe Lane Assignment for your SSD7000 Series Controller

PCIe lane assignment is one of the most critical factors when tuning a system for Maximum NVMe performance.

There are three primary ways to verify PCIe lane assignment, and this applies to any platform:

1. First, consult your system/motherboard documentation. Identify which PCIe slots provide the required lanes (x16 for most products, x8 for the SSD7200 series).
2. The WebGUI software – the management interface can report how many lanes are assigned to each NVMe controller/enclosure. Check the Physical tab, under “Current Link Width” and “Current Link Speed”.
3. Third-Party utilities – a third party utility may be the best way to determine how many slots are actually assigned to the device. For Windows platforms, we recommend Hardware Info (HWInfo).

Checking PCIe Lane Assignment

You can check the PCIe lane assignment of the SSD7000 controller in a Linux environment using the WebGUI and CLI management interfaces.

WebGUI:

1. Start the WebGUI management software and click the Physical  Enclosure 1 tab
   1. SSD7100 Series RAID Controllers require a dedicated PCIe 3.0 x16 slot in order to perform optimally;
      
      
      
   2. SSD7200 Series RAID Controllers require a dedicated PCIe 3.0 x8 slot in order to perform optimally:
      
      
   3. SSD7500 Series RAID Controllers require a dedicated PCIe 4.0 x16 slot in order to perform optimally:
      
      
      
2. If you are configuring a Cross-Sync RAID array, repeat this procedure for Enclosure 2 to check the PCIe Lane assignment.
   

CLI:

1. Open a command terminal and enter the following command to start the CLI:
   #hptraidconf
   
   
2. Enter the following command to check the PCIe Lane assignment:
      HPT CLI>query enclosures
   1. SSD7100 Series RAID Controllers require a dedicated PCIe 3.0 x16 slot in order to perform optimally;
3.