Hard disk drives, which fall far behind SSDs in terms of performance and stability, have maintained their vitality by touting their capacity advantages. While hard disk drives offer capacities of 20TB or more, most SSDs have capacities of less than 10TB and are much more expensive. However, the gap in capacity is gradually narrowing.
Solidigm announced the 122TB Solidim D5-P5336 data center SSD, the largest capacity PCIe drive ever. D5-P5336 has twice the storage space of Solidigm’s previous 61.44TB version, and Solidigm explains that it is the world’s first SSD to provide 5 years of unlimited random write endurance.
Solidigm is a leading manufacturer of QLC (quad-level cell) SSDs that store 4 bits per cell, boasting the highest density among existing SSD storages. SSD technology started with 1 bit per cell and gradually increased to 4 bits per cell. In the process, density increased, but the lifespan of the drive decreased. The more bits per cell, the more frequently writing to the cell occurs, and ultimately writing to the drive wears out the lifespan of the drive.
NAND endurance is measured in program/erase (P/E) cycles, with higher density (number of bits per cell) resulting in shorter lifespan. For example, SLC SSDs are known to withstand 100,000 P/E cycles, while QLC SSDs are known to be able to withstand approximately 1,000 P/E cycles.
However, Solidigm, which has been releasing QLC drives since 2018, claims to have extended the lifespan of the drive to the point where it can still operate after five years of non-stop use. “The drive will not wear out even after five years of random writes day and night,” Roger Correll, senior director of leadership marketing at Solidigm, said in a conference call with the media.
The specifications are also impressive. The maximum power consumption of the SSD is 25 watts, which is the same as a regular low-density PCIe SSD. Sequential reads of 7.4GB per second are possible, which can almost saturate the PCIe 4.0 interface.
Therefore, the D5-P5336, which stores 122TB in a 3.5-inch form factor, consumes up to 84% less storage power compared to existing hybrid hard disk drive TLC solutions when building NAS. Additionally, compared to existing hybrid solutions, the floor space is reduced by 1/4.
Solidigm plans to begin drive sampling in January next year and officially launch the product in the middle of next year.
Micron Technology announced that it has begun customer validation of the 6550 ION NVMe SSD with a capacity of 60TB. Micron emphasized that the 6550 ION is the world’s fastest 60TB data center SSD and the industry’s first E3.S and PCIe Gen5 60TB SSD.
The 6550 ION is designed for high-capacity NVMe workloads such as AI data lakes, data ingestion, data preparation and inspection, file and object storage, public cloud storage, analytics databases, and content delivery. It provides 12 GB/s throughput with 20 watts of power consumption, and only uses 4 watts of power in standby mode.
Micron highlights the power efficiency of the 6550 ION, with up to 179% faster sequential reads, 179% higher read bandwidth per watt, 150% faster sequential writes, 213% higher write bandwidth per watt, 80% faster random reads, and 99% faster random reads than competitors. It is claimed to deliver high read IOPS per watt.
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Source: www.itworld.co.kr
