Computing Requirements in Multiple PXI Chassis System

[KarlJason]

Hi Maggie,

Is there a difference between MXI cable and MXI express cable?  Can the MXI cable act like a GPIB bus wherein it can cater several chassis connected in parallel?

I have attached a powerpoint here to hopefully clarify my concerns.

[MaggieAggie]

Hello, 

Thanks for the powerpoint! It does make it more clear to me. 

There are different types of MXI cables that provide different connectors and different bandwidths. MXI express is denoted by the different bandwitdths, either x1, x4, or x8. For your express card, you can only use MXI x1.  If you have an older, non-MXIexpress MXI cable, it will not work with the MXIexpress cards. 

For both of your current setups, they are using a MXIexpress card to communicate with the laptop. 

For your expansion set up, the ExpressCard 8360 only has one connection. In the power point, it looks like you are trying to use a star configuration, which would only work if you had multiple expresscard slots. To control all three chassis' from your laptop, you will have to daisy chain them. This will require additional PXIe MXIexpress cards as shown in the figure below. 

Since the chassis' will have the 6556, the constraint will be on bandwidth. All of the data generated by your different chassis must be less than 250 MB/s. If you are going to be generating large amounts of data, the MXI connection may not be adequate to transfer it to the PC. 

[KarlJason]

Thanks Maggie for the response.

We'll take this into consideration.

[MaggieAggie]

You're very welcome! 

Please let us know if you have anymore questions!