Kioxia Demos Next-Gen Enterprise and Datacenter SSD Form Factor E3.S NVMe SSD

Kioxia Corporation has developed and started shipment of engineering samples of next gen Enterprise and Datacenter SSD Form Factor (EDSFF) E3.S ⁽¹⁾ which is being standardized by the SNIA SFF TA Technical Work Group.

E3.S SSD evaluation samples being mounted on 2U-size rack
mounted server prototype that can install 48 units of E3.S SSDs

E3.S is a new form factor standard for NVMe SSDs in cloud and enterprise data centers, especially targeting PCIe 5.0 and beyond. It will contribute to the design and development of next gen systems, such as cloud, hyper-converged and general-purpose servers and AFA systems in cloud and enterprise data centers.

The E3.S spec allows for size, power and capacity options, all with a common connector. Designed for future PCIe gens that offer higher power budgets, EDSFF E3.S delivers improved performance, cooling and flexibility over other form factors.

The company’s E3.S engineering samples, based on CM6 Series PCIe 4.0 NVMe 1.4 SSD in a 2.5-inch form factor, demonstrated approximatery 35% greater performance with the same controller and BiCS Flash 3D TLC flash memory in the EDSFF E3.S form factor with x4 lanes and 28W (+40%) of power.

EDSFF E3.S benefits include:

Higher density of flash storage for more efficient use of power, storage footprint and system rack deployments
Supports PCIe 5.0 and beyond through improved signal integrity
Better cooling and thermal characteristics
Performance and benefits beyond the 2.5-inch form factor version
Drive status can be shown by LED indicators
Supports x8 PCIe lane configurations

^[1] EDSFF Working Group promoters include enterprise server system and cloud-service providers such as Dell EMC, Facebook, HPE, Lenovo and others. Kioxia participates as a contributor.

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