Kioxia Introduces PCIe 4.0 OCP NVMe Cloud Spec-Enabled SSD

Kioxia America, Inc. (formerly Toshiba Memory America, Inc.) announced technological contribution to cloud data center infrastructures.

The company expanded its portfolio of client, enterprise and data center SSDs with the addition of the XD6 Series. The firm‘s E1.S form factor XD6 SSDs are the first ^[1] Enterprise and Datacenter SSD Form Factor (EDSFF) E1.S SSDs to address the specific requirements of hyperscale applications, including the performance, power and thermal requirements of the Open Compute Platform (OCP) NVMe Cloud SSD spec.

Designed to maximize system density, efficiency and simplicity, the company‘s EDSFF E1.x SSDs represent the future of flash storage for servers in cloud and hyperscale data centers. As defined by the EDSFF consortium and leveraging the OCP NVMe Cloud SSD spec, the flexible, efficient, small form factor E1.S replaces the M.2 form factor and delivers greater density, performance, reliability, and thermal management. E1.S is also designed to be hot pluggable for increased serviceability, which is another benefit over M.2.

XD6 Series is PCIe 4.0 and NVMe 1.3c spec compliant, and is available in E1.S 9.5, 15, and 25mm form factors. Designed for consistent performance, latency and reliability in 24×7 cloud data centers, the XD6 Series brings performance of ~2x to ~4x compared to PCIe 3.0 SSDs ^[2].

Click to enlarge

Click to enlargeFeatures include:

• Sequential read and write performance up to 6,500MB/s and 2,400MB/s, respectively

• 15W power consumption

• Security options: non-SED and TCG-Opa ^l[3]

• Full end-to-end data path protection

• Power loss protection

• Expanded drive health information

• Excellent QoS

• New in-house-developed, hyperscale-optimized controller

The company is an active and contributing member to the industry development of EDSFF E1.S/L and E3.S/L solutions and is collaborating with leading server and storage system developers to unlock the full power of flash memory, NVMe and PCIe.

“Developing and deploying flash-based products is very challenging, and the OCP-based NVMe Cloud SSD spec helps by aligning SSD providers with hyperscale needs,” said Ross Stenfort, hardware storage engineer, Facebook, Inc. “EDSFF E1.S is the next gen of flash form factors, delivering superior thermals, performance, serviceability, and scalability when compared to current solutions. Kioxia’s support of EDSFF is a great step forward and lays the groundwork for the future.“

“Hyperscale data centers are the heart of the Internet, and the OCP platform will power future gens with SSDs optimized for server platforms,” noted Neville Ichhaporia, senior director, marketing and product management, data center and client SSD division, Kioxia America. “Kioxia is proud to work with industry leaders on innovative storage solutions, such as our XD6 Series data center NVMe SSDs, to power their critical applications.“

XD6 drives are sampling to select customers.

^[1] Based on a survey of publicly available information as of November 3, 2020.
^[2] Performance comparison based on specs and benchmark testing between Kioxia Corporation XD5 Series and XD6 Series SSDs, as of November 3, 2020. Subject to change.
^[3] SED: Self-Encrypting Drive option supports TCG-Opal.