16 NVMe drives in RAID 0 match DDR5 bandwidth for LLMs
carrigmat · x · 2026-08-27
Challenging the notion that NVMe can't compete with RAM for LLM inference speed, the author proposes a cost-effective local deployment strategy:
- Bandwidth Math: A single Gen5 NVMe drive offers 13GB/s. A 16-drive RAID 0 array achieves 208GB/s, equivalent to 4-channel DDR5.
- Storage Strategy: Most model weights stay off RAM. Only 'hot' weights reside in memory, while the majority—intermittently accessed 'experts' in MoE models—remain on NVMe.
- Drive Longevity: Relying on modern SSDs' virtually infinite read lifespan. Weights are copied once and then strictly read, avoiding wear-out issues.
The approach aims to build a storage pool with near-memory bandwidth using consumer hardware to run massive models.
Related event: $6,000 CPU-only server runs trillion-parameter open models locally(14 posts)→
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