Smartmontools NVMe support

About NVMe

VM Express, NVMe, or Non-Volatile Memory Host Controller Interface Specification (NVMHCI), is a logical device interface specification for accessing non-volatile storage media attached via PCI Express (PCIe) bus. Some links related to the standard and vendor-specific implementations provided below:

• ​Official specifications
• ​Intel NVMe documentation with Intel-specific log pages (CAh, C5h, DDh, C1h/C2h).
• ​OCZ Z-Drive specification, with vendor-specific smart log page (E0h)

NVMe support in the different OS

OS and driver	Supported by OS	Supported by Smartmontools	Native management tools	Notes
Linux, since kernel version 3.3	✓	✓	​nvme-cli, ​nvme-user
FreeBSD 9.2 or later	✓	✓	​nvmecontrol
OSX 10.10.3 native NVMe support	✓	✗		Only Apple-branded NVMe devices are supported, monitoring API is implemented (NVMeSMARTClient) but not documented
OSX with ​MacVidCards NVMe driver	✓	✗	nvme-cli tool distributed with the driver	IOCTL format is not documented
Solaris NVMe support	✓	✗	​nvmeadm	Interface is not documented
IllumOS NVMe support	✓	✗	not yet implemented	​no management interface/tool yet implemented
Windows with ​OpenFabric based driver	✓	✓	??	Devices are accessed via NVME_PASS_THROUGH I/O-control. This should work (at least) with NVMe drivers from Intel, OCZ and Samsung.
Windows with a Microsoft NVMe driver	✓	✗	??	??

Development notes

Development and debugging could be performed using ​QEMU fork which can emulates NVMe device with most of the features supported, including SMART log pages, namespaces, etc. Tested with Linux and FreeBSD, full list of the options could be found in the ​source code.