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- Description
- Specifications
IBM feature #AF3C is the 16 Gb FC-NVMe Interface for the IBM FlashSystem 900 Model AE3, machine types 9840 and 9843 (models 9840-AE3 and 9843-AE3). It is a high-speed 16 Gb Fibre Channel NVMe over Fabrics interface adapter card, and it supports both Fibre Channel and FC-NVMe at the same time on the same port.
Read latency is reduced by 15% to 85 microseconds with the card. All four ports on the card can be used, whereas the standard 16 Gbps Fibre Channel card uses only ports 1 and 2. A fully populated system has 16 ports of 16 Gbps FC-NVMe, and these ports also support 8 Gbps and 4 Gbps. The four-port 16 Gbps FC-NVMe adapter does not support the Fibre Channel arbitrated loop (FC-AL) protocol.
#AF3C is the base adapter card and needs optics: ordering it requires quantity 2 of #AF19, the 16 Gb FC 4 Port Host Optics, which supplies the 16 Gb SFP modules. Each AE3 canister takes two Fibre Channel interface cards, four in the system, and the interface cards are ordered two feature codes at a time. An existing FlashSystem 900 AE3 can have the card added as an MES, and it needs firmware 1.6 or higher.
| Feature code | #AF3C |
| Description | 16 Gb FC-NVMe Interface |
| Machine types | 9840, 9843 |
| Models | 9840-AE3, 9843-AE3 |
| System | IBM FlashSystem 900 Model AE3 |
| Protocols | Fibre Channel and FC-NVMe on the same port |
| Speed | 16 Gbps (also 8 Gbps and 4 Gbps) |
| Usable ports per card | 4 |
| Ports per fully populated system | 16 |
| Read latency | 85 microseconds |
| Required optics | 2 x #AF19 16 Gb FC 4 Port Host Optics |
| Minimum firmware | 1.6 |
| FC-AL | not supported |