Intel SSD DC P4510, SSD With 64-Layer TLC 3D NAND

In 2017, Intel Corp. brought to market of products designed to tackle the growing stockpile of data.

Intel CEO Brian Krzanich called data an “unseen driving force behind the next-generation technology revolution,” and Rob Crooke, SVP and GM of the NVM solutions group, Intel, recently outlined his vision for how storage and memory technologies can address all that data.

In the past year, Intel introduced Intel Optane technology-based products and will continue to deliver fast solutions based on this technology, with announcements later this year.

The company also brought leading areal density to storage for consumers and enterprises, driving both capacity and form factor innovation with 3D NAND storage products.
 
Intel is re-imagining how data is stored for the data center. By driving the creation and adoption of new form factors, like the EDSFF 1U long and 1U short, and delivering advanced materials, including densest NAND with 64-layer TLC 3D NAND, it is enabling capacities of 8TB and beyond in an array of form factors that meet the performance needs of data centers.
 
Introducing Intel SSD DC P4510 and P4511 Series
Intel announced the SSD DC P4510 Series for data center applications.

The P4510 Series uses 64-layer TLC 3D NAND to enable end users to do more per server, support broader workloads and deliver space efficient capacity. It enables up to four times more terabytes per server and delivers up to 10 times better random read latency at 99.99% QoS than previous generations. The drive can also deliver up to double the IO/s/TB. The 1 and 2TB capacities have been shipping to CSPs in volume since August 2017 and the 4 and 8TB capacities are available to CSPs and channel customers. All capacities are in the 2.5-inch 15mm U.2 form factor and utilize a PCIe NVMe 3.0 x4 connection.

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To accelerate performance and simplify management of the P4510 Series PCIe SSDs, and other PCIe SSDs, Intel is also delivering two new technologies that work together to replace legacy storage hardware. Xeon Scalable processors include Intel Volume Management Device (VMD), enabling management such as surprise insertion/removal and LED management of PCIe SSDs directly connected to the CPU. Building on this functionality, Intel Virtual RAID on CPU (VROC) uses VMD to provide RAID to PCIe SSDs. By replacing RAID cards with VROC, customers are able to enjoy up to twice the IO/s performance and up to a 70% cost savings with PCIe SSDs directly attached to the CPU, improving customer’s ROI in SSD-based storage.
 
The firm is also bringing innovation to the data center with new low-power SSDs and the Enterprise and Datacenter SSD Form Factor (EDSFF). The SSD DC P4511 Series offers a low-power option for workloads with lower performance requirements, thus enabling data centers to save power. The P4511 Series will be available later in the first half of 2018 in M.2 110mm form factor. Additionally, the vendor continues to drive form factor innovation in the data center and the SSD DC P4510 Series will be available in EDSFF 1U long and 1U short with up to 1PB of storage in a 1U server rack in the future.
 
EDSFF Momentum
At Flash Memory Summit 2017, the firm introduced the ‘ruler’ form factor for Intel SSDs, purpose-built for data center efficiency and free from the confines of legacy form factors. The new form factor delivers storage density, system design flexibility with long and short versions, thermal efficiency, scalable performance (available x4, x8 and x16 connectors) and easy maintenance, with front-load, hot-swap capabilities. EDSFF is also future ready and designed for PCIe 3.0, available, and PCIe 4.0 and 5.0, when they are ready.
 
Recently, the Enterprise and Datacenter SSD Form Factor specification was ratified by the EDSFF Working Group, which includes Intel, Samsung, Microsoft, Facebook and others. Intel has been shipping a pre-spec version of the SSD DC P4500 Series to select customers, including IBM and Tencent, for more than a year, and theSSD DC P4510 Series will be available in EDSFF 1U long and 1U short starting in the second half of this year.

The industry has shown a positive response to the Intel-inspired EDSFF specifications, with more than ten key OEM, ODM and ecosystem members indicating intentions to design EDSFF SSDs into their systems. Additional SSD manufactures have also expressed intent to deliver EDSFF SSDs in the future.
 
IBM Corp. has deployed the P4500 Series in this new form factor to the IBM cloud.

Tencent Technology (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd, provider of value-added Internet services in the world, has incorporated SSD DC P4500 series in the ‘ruler’ form factor into its newly T-Flex platform, which supports 32 ‘ruler’ SSDs as the standard performance storage resource pool.

“Ruler optimizes heat dissipation, enhances SSD serviceability and delivers storage capacity that will scale to 1PB in 1U in the future, thereby reducing overall storage construction and operating costs,” said Wu Jianjian, product director of Blackstone product center, Tencent Cloud. “We are very excited about this modern design and encourage its adoption as an industry standard specification.”
 
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