Product need: External PCI Express breakout box

[AaronbSmith]

Hello, my apologies if this is in the wrong forum.

I'm looking for a product that will allow me to remotely locate a number of PCI Express card slots at least 300ft away from a host PC. I've spoken with a few manufacturers and asked them to build the unit but they don't feel there would be enough of a market for it, or they cannot get the price down to what I am looking for. I think there would be a market for it, but could be wrong. I for one think it would be nice to have the option to add another 5 native PCIe slots to your system. I can think of many solutions that could benefit from this. Some vendors that sell standard PCI versions:

Themis Computer makes a infiniband fed remote PCI box with 4 slots. Optional fiber or copper fed. A nice unit, but not PCIe as I am looking for. Also prices are higher than I can deal with right now. The fiber option is nice because I can reach 1000+ ft from the host.
http://www.themis.com/products/hardware/TPX4PCIExpan.html

IBP Instruments makes a 1-13 slot unit that is copper fed from the host. Price range I am looking for $900-$2000. Unfortunately, cable length only 1.5meters.
http://www.ibpmt.com/main.asp?area=usa&frame=PCICardBox

Magma mobility electronics makes 1-13 slot PCI. I haven't looked at them much yet. Looks alot like the IBP solutions. Prices are within range too. Supports Linux (I think others do too) which is what I need for my application.
http://www.mobl.com/expansion/

SBS has a few models. Haven't seen prices. Emailed them 3 times with no reply. grrrr.
http://www.sbs.com/products/349

The biggest problem I have with current solutions stems from the same reason that PCIe has come about. I need the ability for around 1gbit of throughput to each remote slot. With current limits of PCI (even 64bit PCI) I don't really get much throughput when the host PC's card is PCI based feeding 5+ remote PCI slots. This is why I'm looking to PCIe for my application. I'd like a 10gbit ethernet or fiber/infiniband connection to the remote PCIe breakout box so I can realize as much throughput as possible. I realize I'll never have full throughput on each remote slot, but if I can get at least enough to feed a gbit ethernet card, or a multi port high resolution (HDTV class), on each port I would be more than happy. I do plan to have all the cards in use at one time.

On another note, I've also read about a cable spec coming for PCI Express allowing a 7 meter/22.9ft remote pci e device to be connected. Anyone have input on this? http://www.eetimes.com/sys/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=20000090 I'm sure this has some kind of application for what I am trying to accomplish.

Here are the specs I've sent to a few vendors for the product. No luck so far:

[*]An external box with either 5-13 PCIExpress slots, or 5-13 ExpressCard54 slots.
[*] Small form factor if possible (can spec out later)
[*] Fiber connection to the host controller or possibly gigabit ethernet may work. The goal here is to get more distance from the host pc. We can deal with 3ft or so, but ideally our goal is to have a few hundred feet.
[*] High throughput to the remote box to enable around a gbit of throughput to each slot.
[*] Host controller card: Full speed PCI, or 8x-16x PCIExpress based for maximum throughput.
[*] Price between $800-$1500 depending on performance and number of slots + configuration.
[*] Time frame: hoping to have a solution in the 1st quarter of 05.

I appreciate any input anyone has. I have a general understanding of this kind of technology but am no expert. Hoping that some others may be able to sight uses for a low cost PCIe breakout box.

Thank you

 

[Peter]

You know that there's a specification for PCI-E _cables_ anyway? Just wait, it'll be a standard thing, no need to go vendor specific. Of course you'll need a vendor who builds one
Regarding SBS (the company I work for), exactly how did you try to contact us? I'd like to have someone figure out why your inquiry didn't get through. Thanks!

 

[AaronbSmith]

Hi Peter, thanks for the reply.. What a coincidence that you read my post and your from SBS.

First I sent an email off the address from SBS' website. Got no reply, so a month later I sent another. Still no reply so I sent a third and gave up. I'm certain my email was working fine at the time so I don't know what is up. I sent to info.commericial@sbs.com twice and info@sbs.com once.

I just did some searching and read up on the pci cable spec.. this is very cool.. from peripheral interconnect to server IO... and I did see where they note it will allow for PCIe expansion buses. However, what is the length limit on this spec? Is there any way to reach 50-100ft? Anything coming from your company?

You are correct, I'd like to stay away from vendor specific if possible. I'd rather have something standards based. Just wasn't sure what is available out there.

 

[Peter]

PCI-E cable specification isn't finalized yet, but IIRC they've been aiming for 10 meters roughly. Longer distances would have to be covered by things like our fibre-optic solutions with a PCI bridge chip on both ends. Please note that while the technology on the fibre link is proprietary, the setup looks to the system just like a chain of standard PCI-to-PCI bridges, with the middle "bus" being the fibre cable.

Similar things can be done with PCI-E terminal cards just as well. Technically. You'll just need a "fanout" chip (one uplink, many downlinks) on the far end.

I work in system boards engineering in Europe, so I can't comment on what the connectivity/system expansion teams over in the US are up to - and even if I knew, I wouldn't be able to comment on unannounced product.

But anyway, with the quite huge distance you're aiming for, I guess you'd be much better off making that remote thing an autonomous system with its own CPU, communicating with the the other box through bundled gigabit ethernet or even 10GBE cables, fibre or copper.

 

[Gaby]

Aaron,

I?m very interested in this topic and wonder if you find more info. I believe that the copper cable can be extended to 20-25m as done with 10GbEthernet using low cost transceivers. A proprietary fiber can extend the distance to hundreds (or thousands) of fits but will require transceivers that will add to the cost. Certain application may not work in a long distance. You will need bridges for the remote fan-out connectors. Bridges can provide you any PCI/PCI-X slots? combination. A non-shared bandwidth of 1 Gb/sec per slot is not a problem. Some members of the PCI-E cable work group are probably starting to develop systems and have advantage over non-members. I?m a little concern about the additional signals the WG is proposing and would like to see the interim spec. I hope you?re making progress. You can email me at g@pci-e.com

Regards,
Gaby

 

[KMThompson]

Dear Aaron B. Smith - I am very sorry your emails were not answered. I am the inside sales manager at SBS Technologies, Inc. and I would like you to call (651) 905-4700 and ask for Kim Thompson. I will help you with questions about PCI-Express Expansion.

 

[KalTorak]

$800 to $1500? How many units would you expect to build/sell?

 

[AaronbSmith]

Originally posted by: Gaby
Aaron, I?m very interested in this topic and wonder if you find more info. I believe that the copper cable can be extended to 20-25m as done with 10GbEthernet using low cost transceivers. A proprietary fiber <snip>

Copper is certainly an option if someone built the device to do it. 300ft 1gbit or 10gbit would certainly be useful to this project. Since I didn't find any options today, we've decided to go with disparet systems for now.. Meaning, gbit ethernet connected systems that run their own independant OS and exchange their data over standard TCP. By the middle of next year we will require more shared processing and I'd like the systems to act in a cluster. A single overall OS that can see all devices both local and on the remote systems.

Peter's comment got me thinking about the "server IO" port that some pci e systems are going to ship with. I really like this idea (as far as I understand it) because you can link 2+ machines to somewhat cluster them into one higher end computer. However, my real problem then becomes that I need someone to come up with a mini-itx.com form factor motherboard with a bit of soup to it that has a server IO port.. Not likely that Via or anyone is going to come out with that soon. Imagine the possibilities of merging a bunch of $300 cube PCs into a super computer cluster. This still doesn't get me over the problem that I need a long distance link abilitity for this high speed interconnect. I almost wish there was a new fiber interconnect standard as simple as a RJ45 with 4+ fiber strands in it. I've been thinking it would be nice to retro-fit the standard ethernet RJ45 cable with 4 fiber strands (while keeping the copper) and design a low cost 1 to 10gbit ethernet standard for it.

Originally posted by: KMThompson
Dear Aaron B. Smith - I am very sorry your emails were not answered. I am the inside sales manager at SBS Technologies, Inc. and I would like you to call (651) 905-4700 and ask for Kim Thompson. I will help you with questions about PCI-Express Expansion.

Not a problem, these things happen. I'll give you a call once a few more things get situated. We still may have a need for a fiber connected industrial (high/low temp) remote PCI/PCIe box. The cards we are currently using are MiniPCI but I expect them to go to ExpressCard at the end of 05 - so that may mean we actually need a PCIe to PCI/MiniPCI/ExpressCard/PCIe system. Very modular and most likely not too cheap to bring to market I'm sure.

Originally posted by: KalTorak
$800 to $1500? How many units would you expect to build/sell?

Well, I'm not sure how many I plan to use matters. I don't plan to sell them. I think there are many applications for this far beyond my application. Many powerful devices will come in expresscard format and it would be useful for them to be located far from a host pc..

On the topic of having the server io port running over fiber or a long distance link - say you had 5000 server io enabled PCs in an office.. Interconnect them all with some VMware style application and there you go, your corporation just topped the tpc.org list. ;-) That, and you could bank all the local storage together on the PCs. Say each of those PCs shipped with 160GB drives, the average office PC may use 10GB of that at most. With even triple redundancy you'd have about 400TB of storage across your corporation. Not sure what to use that for, but I guess you could hook your Tivo up to it or something.. ;-)

ok, I'll stop dreaming...

Anyway - I'll post an update if I get a solution figured out..

 

[Machupo]

if you need a managing OS.. i'm always a fan of linux / MOSIX

http://www.mosix.org/