Which option describes an NVMe backplane with a switch?

• A. A front panel USB hub.
• B. A management network path.
• C. A blade chassis.
• D. A midplane using PCIe switching to fan out PCIe lanes to multiple NVMe drives.

Answer: (D)

An NVMe backplane with a switch is a midplane that contains PCIe switching to fan out PCIe lanes to multiple NVMe drives. The switch sits in the backplane and routes the host PCIe signals to each NVMe device, enabling several drives to be connected and accessed through a single backplane while preserving bandwidth and scalable expandability. The other options describe unrelated components—USB hub is for USB devices, a management network path is for remote control, and a blade chassis is an enclosure type—not the PCIe-based fan-out architecture that defines an NVMe backplane with a switch.