How to Connect 24 NVMe* Drives to the Intel® Server Board S2600WF

Steps for connecting 24 NVMe* drives to the Intel® Server Board S2600WF

1. The system needs to have 2 processors installed to be able to manage the 24 NVMe* drives. 
2. It is possible to connect 24 NVMe drives using different combinations of the following:
   • Onboard OCuLink Ports
   • 4-Port PCIe* Gen3 x16 Retimer AIC AXXP3RTX16040
   • 8-Port PCIe Gen3 x8 Switch AIC AXXP3SWX08080
   • 4-Port PCIe Gen3 x8 Switch AIC AXXP3SWX08040
     Example 1: 
     3 x 8-port PCIe switches
     Example 2: 
     2 x 4-port PCIe switches
     2 x 8-port PCIe switches
     Example 3:
     4 x Onboard OCuLink Ports
     1 x 4-port Retimer
     2 x 8-port PCIe switch
3. Refer to the Intel® Server Board 2600WF Configuration Guide (Chapter 4.7 2U 2.5-inch Front Mount Drive Bay Cable Guide) and consider the following for supported configurations and which riser slots to use that best meet your need:
   • Slot availability
   • RAID or non-RAID
   • Bootability (only RAID volumes that consist of drives connected to a single Intel® Volume Management Device (Intel® VMD) controller are bootable)
   • Performance
4. Refer to the Intel® Server Board 2600WF Technical Product Specification (Enabling Intel VMD support section) to enable the appropriate Intel VMD controllers based on the configuration you have chosen.