FMS: Intel 3D NAND SSD DC P4500 With Up to 32TB for 12-Inch Ruler

Fast disappearing from data centers are power-hungry spinning HDD drives that hum, buzz, run warm (or even hot), require fans and expensive cooling systems, and can crash unexpectedly.

Ruler SSD stores 32TB

Intel Corp.‘s solid state drive, the SSD DC P4500, is about the size of an old-fashioned 12-inch ruler, and can store 32TB.

That’s equivalent to triple the entire printed collection of the U.S. Library of Congress.

SSD DC P4500 series

This SSD is the company’s densest drive, and is built on the firm’s 3D NAND technology, which stacks memory cells atop each other in multiple extremely thin layers, instead of just one. Memory cells in the P4500 are stacked 64 layers deep.

Older disk drives produce heat. In most data centers today, the single biggest cost is air conditioning to keep them cool. This is one of the reasons some of big companies – IBM, Microsoft, Tencent – are using the new ‘ruler’ SSD to support their cloud and data center operations.

In data centers, the no-moving-parts ruler-shaped SSDs can be lined up 32 side-by-side, to hold up to a petabyte in a single server slot. Compared with a traditional SSD, the ‘ruler’ requires half the airflow to keep cool. And compared with HDD storage, the 3D NAND SSD sips one-tenth the power and requires just one-twentieth the space.