AB21-E1PCI: Unlock Enterprise E1.S NVMe SSD Performance

Modern enterprise storage is moving beyond the traditional 2.5-inch U.2/U.3 SSD form factor. New EDSFF SSDs, especially the E1 form factor, are designed to support higher density, better airflow, and scalable storage performance for data-center and enterprise systems.

However, evaluating an E1.S NVMe SSD on an FPGA platform is not always straightforward.

Why?

Because most FPGA evaluation boards provide PCIe interfaces through edge connectors or expansion slots, while E1.S SSDs use a dedicated EDSFF connector.

The result is a hardware connection gap between the enterprise SSD and the FPGA board.

That is where the AB21-E1PCI Adapter Board comes in.

This article demonstrates how AB21-E1PCI enables an E1.S NVMe SSD to connect directly to FPGA PCIe platforms, making it practical to evaluate enterprise SSD performance with Design Gateway’s NVMe-IP Gen5 solution.

🎥 Watch the Full Demonstration

See the full AB21-E1PCI demo with NVMe-IP Gen5 on real FPGA hardware.

🔍 What are E1 NVMe SSD?

E1 NVMe SSDs are part of the EDSFF family, developed for modern enterprise and data-center storage systems.

Compared with traditional 2.5-inch U.2/U.3 SSDs, E1 SSDs are designed to improve:

Space efficiency
Thermal performance
Storage scalability
Airflow inside server platforms

1️⃣ E1.S NVMe SSD

E1.S is a short ruler-style SSD designed for compact systems that require high storage density, efficient airflow, and good thermal performance.

It is suitable for enterprise servers where many SSDs need to be installed in limited space.

2️⃣ E1.L NVMe SSD

E1.L, or long ruler SSD, provides a larger form factor that can support higher capacity and greater power and thermal headroom compared with E1.S.

It is suitable for large-scale storage systems and data-center applications that require very high storage capacity per drive slot.

Together, E1.S and E1.L give system designers flexible options for balancing capacity, density, power, and cooling efficiency.

This makes E1 SSDs suitable for enterprise storage, data-center servers, and high-performance FPGA-based storage applications.

⚙️ The Challenge: EDSFF SSD vs. FPGA PCIe Interface

Although E1.S NVMe SSDs are attractive for high-performance storage systems, connecting them to an FPGA evaluation board can be difficult.

Typical FPGA boards provide PCIe interfaces through:

PCIe edge connectors
PCIe expansion slots
Board-to-board PCIe connectors

However, E1.S SSDs use a dedicated EDSFF connector.

An adapter is required to bridge the EDSFF SSD interface to the FPGA PCIe interface.

Without a proper adapter board, users may need to design custom hardware just to connect an E1.S SSD to the FPGA board.

This increases:

Development time
Hardware design complexity
Bring-up effort
Validation risk

For engineers who want to focus on NVMe performance evaluation or FPGA storage system development, custom adapter design can become an unnecessary barrier.

🔧 The Solution: AB21-E1PCI Adapter Board

The AB21-E1PCI Adapter Board is designed to solve this connection challenge by enabling E1.S SSDs to interface with FPGA platforms through PCIe.

It provides a practical hardware bridge for engineers who want to:

Evaluate E1.S NVMe SSDs on FPGA platforms
Test enterprise SSD performance with NVMe-IP
Build FPGA-based high-speed storage systems
Reduce custom adapter board development effort

AB21-E1PCI converts the EDSFF interface into a PCIe interface for FPGA-based NVMe evaluation.

🚀 Key Benefits of AB21-E1PCI

✅ Convert EDSFF into PCIe Interface

AB21-E1PCI bridges the physical connection between an E1.S NVMe SSD and the PCIe interface available on FPGA evaluation platforms.

✅ Support up to PCIe Gen5 Speed

The adapter board is suitable for high-speed NVMe testing, including NVMe-IP Gen5 evaluation.

✅ Support PCIe x16 Lane Connection

The board provides a flexible PCIe connection path for FPGA platforms that expose PCIe through expansion connectors.

✅ Suitable for NVMe-IP Demo Platforms

AB21-E1PCI helps users connect enterprise E1.S SSDs to FPGA hardware without designing a custom adapter board from scratch.

⚙️ NVMe-IP Gen5 Demo on Real FPGA Hardware

The AB21-E1PCI Adapter Board has been validated with Design Gateway’s NVMe-IP Gen5 demo on real FPGA hardware platforms.

In this demo, a Micron 9550 E1.S NVMe SSD is connected to the FPGA board through the AB21-E1PCI Adapter Board.

The setup demonstrates AB21-E1PCI with both major FPGA platforms:

Altera Agilex 7 I-Series FPGA board
AMD VHK158 FPGA board

AB21-E1PCI validated with Altera Agilex 7 I-Series and AMD VHK158 FPGA platforms.

This confirms that AB21-E1PCI can be used as a practical bridge between an E1.S NVMe SSD and FPGA systems.

🚀 Real Performance Result: Sustained 11 GB/s Write Performance

With AB21-E1PCI and Design Gateway’s NVMe-IP Gen5 demo, the system maintains around 11 GB/s write performance throughout the full 7.6 TB data transfer.

Measured result:

Current Write Performance: 11,143 MB/s
Average Write Performance: 11,221 MB/s
Peak Write Performance: 11,518 MB/s
Total Transferred Data: 7,681.501 GB

Sustained write performance result during full-drive data transfer.

These results show that the AB21-E1PCI Adapter Board can support high-speed E1.S SSD access from FPGA platforms while sustaining stable NVMe Gen5 performance.

✅ Final Takeaway

Connecting an E1.S NVMe SSD to an FPGA board is not just a software challenge. It also requires the right hardware interface.

AB21-E1PCI Adapter Board provides that bridge.

It enables E1.S NVMe SSDs to connect to FPGA PCIe platforms, supports high-speed NVMe-IP Gen5 evaluation, and helps engineers validate enterprise SSD performance on real FPGA hardware.

For anyone working with E1.S SSDs, FPGA platforms, and Design Gateway’s NVMe-IP solution, AB21-E1PCI is a practical adapter board for unlocking enterprise NVMe SSD performance.

📩 Contact Us

Interested in evaluating E1.S NVMe SSDs on FPGA platforms?

If you are developing an FPGA-based storage system and would like to discuss the suitable Design Gateway IP core solution for your application, please contact Design Gateway for more information.

Contact Design Gateway today