NVIDIA Mellanox MSX6536-NR 648-port FDR 56Gb/s InfiniBand Director Switch System: The MSX6536-NR is the largest member of the SX6500 director family — a 29U chassis providing up to 648 QSFP+ FDR ports of non-blocking 56Gb/s InfiniBand connectivity in a single fabric. The unit ships as a complete system: 36 leaf line cards (MSX6001FR), 18 spine modules (MSX6002FLR), 1 management controller (MSX6000MAR), redundant power supplies (N+N), and chassis. This is a refurbished director switch system, not a 1U pizza-box or a leaf-only product.
Engineering Context
The MSX6536-NR delivers 72.52 Tb/s of aggregate non-blocking switching capacity at sub-1µs port-to-port latency. The fabric is a two-tier Clos built from SwitchX-2 ASICs, fully internalized within the chassis backplane. Port-to-port latency is below 1 microsecond. The system uses a single-management architecture (one active MSX6000MAR controller) with N+N redundant power. Total system weight is approximately 350 kg with all line cards installed.
Deployment & Use Cases
Core fabric switch for large-scale HPC clusters running MPI workloads at FDR. Single-pod aggregation switch for InfiniBand-attached parallel storage (Lustre, GPFS, BeeGFS, IBM Spectrum Scale). University and national-lab supercomputer fabrics. AI/ML training clusters built on the FDR generation that need a single non-blocking domain rather than a multi-switch leaf-spine.
Technical Specifications
OEM: NVIDIA Mellanox (MSX6536-NR / SX6536-NR)
System Type: Director (modular chassis) Switch
Port Count: 648 x QSFP+ (FDR)
InfiniBand Rate: FDR (56Gb/s per port)
Aggregate Bandwidth: 72.52 Tb/s, non-blocking
Port-to-Port Latency: sub-1µs
Switching ASIC: SwitchX-2
Form Factor: 29U chassis
Leaf Modules Included: 36 x MSX6001FR
Spine Modules Included: 18 x MSX6002FLR
Management Module: 1 x MSX6000MAR controller
Power Supplies: N+N redundant
System Weight: ~350 kg fully populated
Condition: Refurbished — Tested by T.E.S IT-SOLUTIONS
Compatibility & Hard Constraints
Compatible with Mellanox ConnectX-3 / ConnectX-3 Pro / ConnectX-4 host adapters operating in FDR or 56GbE mode. Cabling: Mellanox MC2207-series and MC2210-series QSFP+ DACs and active fiber cables. The chassis is FDR (56Gb/s) — it does not run EDR (100Gb/s), HDR (200Gb/s), or NDR (400Gb/s). Site requirements include 29U of rack space, three-phase power feed, and floor loading rated for ~350 kg. Crating and freight required for shipment. Not a 1U standalone switch.
Why Choose T.E.S IT-SOLUTIONS
T.E.S IT-SOLUTIONS powers and tests every director system on the bench — verifying chassis power-up, line card enumeration, spine link training, and management plane visibility — before crating. Visit tes-itsolutions.com for our director switch inventory. We provide expert consultation on multi-rack InfiniBand fabric design, freight logistics, and 1–3 day handling time.