Western Digital: NVMe SSDs PC SN720 and PC SN520

Addressing the needs of a growing landscape of IoT and fast data applications at the edge, Western Digital Corporation announced two NVMe SSDs – PC SN720 and PC SN520 – powered by a NVMe storage architecture, scalable for a range of emerging implementations, from IoT and edge computing to mobile computing systems.

These NVMe client architecture and product portfolio will enable manufacturers of IoT devices, computing devices such as thin and light, 2-in-1 and embedded PCs and monitoring systems to enable the capture and transformation of the massive quantities of data in real-time at the edge of smart city, smart home and personal data environments.

Cisco GCI estimates that nearly 850ZB will be generated by all people, machines and things by 2021.

With the advent of high-bandwidth technologies like 5G, augmented reality and facial recognition, new applications can benefit from the performance, power efficiency and capacity of NVMe and Western Digital 3D NAND to deliver an optimal user experience.

“Performance demands on PCs continue to increase, thanks to new applications like VR and AI, as well as the growing requirements for gaming, 4K editing and more,” said Bob O’Donnell, president, TECHnalysis Research LLC. “This is driving PC makers to ensure that their storage subystems can meet these expanded requirements with technologies like NVMe and high-speed flash SSDs. We’re also seeing similar storage demands in other fields, including IoT applications in manufacturing, medical, video surveillance and more.“

The NVMe SSD firmware and controller architecture is purpose-built to maximize the performance and scalability benefits of the company’s 3D NAND, and is in lock-step with the company’s NAND evolution.

“With this new vertically integrated SSD platform, we are able to optimize the architecture to our NAND for low latency and power efficiency, and most important, for the growing range of applications benefiting from NVMe,” said Eyal Bek, senior director, client SSD, devices business unit, Western Digital. “The scalable architecture supports a range of capacity and performance points, while streamlining system qualification to improve time-to-market for our customers.“

SSDs deliver performance and power efficiency
The PC SN720 and PC SN520 are the first NVMe SSDs built with the new platform, which will deliver a portfolio of NVMe performance, form factor and power efficiency options.

The PC SN720 is currently sampling with select customers. It will be available in 256, 512GB, one and 2TB capacities on a single-sided M.2 2280 form factor. It delivers performance with sequential R/W speeds of up to 3,400MB/s and 2,800MB/s ^(*). Customers are supported with a five-year limited warranty.

Click to enlarge

The PC SN520 is also currently sampling with select customers. It will be available in 128, 256 and 512GB capacities. For design flexibility and one of the lowest power draws in the industry, the PC SN520 will be available as single-sided M.2 2280, M.2 2242, or M.2 2230 form factors.

Click to enlarge

^(*) For 1TB capacity model. 1MB/s = one million bytes per second. Performance will vary depending on hardware and software components and configurations.