HHHL · FHHL · x4, x8 and x16 cards
Add-in card SSDs sit in a desktop or server slot. Some are a single enterprise controller on a card, such as Samsung's PM1725-series HHHL cards or Intel's Optane 900P and 905P. Some are carrier cards holding two or four M.2 drives in a software or hardware RAID, and some are older multi-controller designs such as OCZ's RevoDrive. A single-controller card is priced as a single SSD at £300 + VAT; a card that is really a RAID of several drives is a multi-drive set from £500 + VAT. The fixed figure is written down after the free look.
Rather talk it through? An engineer answers the bench line
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| What is going on | The usual reason for it | Where that leaves you |
|---|---|---|
| Nothing in the BIOS or lspci | The card is not enumerating on PCIe | Controller or power work |
| The RAID volume is degraded or missing | A member failed, or the array's metadata did | Image every member; rebuild in software |
| An Optane card reports errors | Media or controller | Assessed honestly; not every one can be taken |
| The card works in one machine and not another | Bifurcation or lane settings | Compatibility, not failure |
A case number goes on it the day the parcel is opened, and an engineer settles what has actually failed before anything else happens. The drive is read on our own equipment, never in a computer that might send it a TRIM command. Back to you come two things together: a straight note of what is liftable and what is not, plus one figure, fixed and written down. Accept it, or decline and owe us nothing.
Every power-on gives a failing SSD another chance to run its own housekeeping. Here the drive is brought up in the controller's diagnostic state instead, which lets the bench speak to the flash directly and keeps damaged firmware out of the conversation.
A single-controller card is worked on like any enterprise SSD: diagnostic state, service area, map rebuild, full image. A carrier card is taken apart into its members, each imaged on its own, and the RAID put back together in software from the images and the card's own metadata.
Nothing is worked on live. The whole drive is imaged once, weak pages retried in their own passes, and the file system is put back together on the image. Encrypted volumes are unlocked there too, with the key you supply, and never on the original.
What was recovered is listed for you first, and only then does a bill exist. Approve the list and it is invoiced; turn it down and it is not — and where nothing has come back, most jobs carry no charge at all. Recovered data travels home on fresh media bought in for your job, with the postage at our end. Your case is not closed until you have opened the files on a machine of your own.
A video workstation's scratch and project drive was four 1TB NVMe sticks on a carrier card, striped. One stick stopped enumerating and the volume vanished. Each stick was imaged on its own, the quiet one in the controller's diagnostic state, and the stripe was reassembled in software from the card's metadata. The project files were complete.
Illustrative example — replace with a genuine caseCase by case. 3D XPoint has little third-party tool support and the line is discontinued. We assess honestly at the free look and only take on what we can finish.
The whole card, with a note of its RAID settings. If sticks have been removed, note which slot each came from.
A single-controller card is £300 + VAT. A carrier card holding several drives is a multi-drive set from £500 + VAT. The figure is written down after the free look.
Quoted with the figure; a single card is typically 3–5 days at the bench.
Looking at it is free. Back comes a list of what opened and what did not, together with a single price to finish, set down in writing while you are still free to say no. On most jobs an invoice only follows the data. Until that list reaches you, leave the drive switched off.