ScaleFlux CSD5000 NVMe SSD Series Up to 123TB Physical Capacity and Up to 256TB Logical Capacity with FX5016 PCIe 5 Controller for AI Era

ScaleFlux, Inc. marks its 10th anniversary by sampling its latest NVMe SSDs, the CSD5000 series. Purpose-built for the AI Era, CSD5000 is designed to alleviate bottlenecks in the AI/ML, cloud, and data center computing infrastructure. Getting jobs on and off the GPUs and CPUs rapidly is crucial to reaching optimal utilization of the infrastructure for AI/ML, HPC, AI analytics, and cloud-native computing.

“To enable high xPU utilization levels, the storage devices must be up to the tasks of reliably delivering massive amounts of data at blinding speeds and of rapidly and securely storing the checkpoints and outputs, all in a power-efficient manner – exactly what the CSD5000 was designed to do,” said Hao Zhong, CEO.

Coinciding with the company’s 10th anniversary, this release highlights a decade of remarkable achievements and sets the stage for an exciting future of continued growth and technological advancements.

Introducing CSD5000: new chapter in SSD storage

FX5016 PCIe 5 SSD controller

Built on the company’s FX5016 PCIe 5 SSD controller, the CSD5000 series sets a new bar for SSD performance, capacity density, efficiency, and feature set. Expanding upon the write reduction technology and capacity expansion features from the previous-gen of the firm’s drives, CSD5000 brings unrivaled capabilities to data storage.

FX5016 processor preliminary specs
Click to enlarge

“To enable high xPU utilization, storage must deliver massive data at blazing speeds and securely store checkpoints efficiently—precisely what the CSD5000 achieves,” states Zhong.

• Unmatched Performance: Sustained sequential throughput 14GB/s reads and 11GB/s writes; and sustained random IO/s over 3 million reads and 430,000 writes – scaling to an astounding 1.2 million random write IO/s and 13GB/s sequential write throughput with compression. Leveraging proprietary write reduction and write optimization technologies, the CSD5000 offers superior random IO/s and sequential throughput with reduced latency, making it for data-intensive applications. These technologies enable infrastructure and operations teams to utilize the drives’ entire capacity while maintaining maximum performance.

• Scalable capacity density: To meet the need for greater and greater storage density, the CSD5000 will support data storage capacities from 4 to 256TB in a single, standard form factor drive. U.2, E3.S, E1.S, and E1.L form factors are all in development

• Enhanced power efficiency: CSD5000 will achieve up to 3x the performance/watt of competing PCIe 5 SSDs from Samsung and Kioxia.

• Feature set: including NVMe 2.0b, OCP 2.0, OCP Telemetry logging, Latency Monitoring, Flexible Data Placement (FDP), Zoned Namespaces (ZNS), Dual-port, TCG Opal, self-encrypting drives (SED), AES-256 encryption, Key/IO, transparent data compression/decompression, NVMe Thin Provisioned Namespaces, capacity expansion, endurance multiplier, and other standard data center SSD features.

CSD5000 PCB board

“Our goal with the CSD5000 has been to redefine what’s possible in SSD functionality to accelerate the data pipeline for the AI, Cloud, and data center computing infrastructure,” said Zhong. “This product represents a major milestone in our decade-long commitment to innovation and excellence. We are excited to help our customers overcome the challenges they face in scaling their infra and start a new chapter in storage evolution.”

Celebrating 10 years of innovation
2024 marks the ScaleFlux’s 10th anniversary.

Since its inception in 2014, the company has consistently set new benchmarks in the storage industry with its innovative product families:

• CSD 1000: (2018) introduced the concept of Computational Storage Drives (CSD), integrating compute with storage for data acceleration and system efficiency.

• CSD 2000: (2020) the first commercially available drive with transparent data compression and capacity expansion.

• CSD 3000 and SFX 3016 SSD controller: (2022) the 3000 series marked the company’s transition to its own custom SSD controller, designed in-house and combining traditional SSD controller functions with computational storage engines into a single chip fully compliant with NVMe standards.

• CSD5000 and FX5016 extending beyond the capabilities introduced in the 3000 series to new levels of performance, efficiency, and capacity density to satiate the growing demand for faster access to larger datasets of the AI era. With its second self-developed SSD controller, ScaleFlux has cemented its position as a silicon design and development player. Sampling now to select customers.

Origins of ScaleFlux: From research to reality
Reflecting on the formation of ScaleFlux, Zhong shared: “When I was doing my Ph.D. research, I often wondered how that research could be used in real products to address real problems. Once I was in the industry, it was very rewarding to commercialize my own research in products for some of the most impactful storage and memory companies of our time. But I always wanted to contribute more to the industry.“

He continued: “Leveraging the experience we had gained both from established industry leaders and from revolutionary storage and memory start-ups, my co-founders, Tong Zhang, Fei Sun, and I struck out together to build a new build a new company. We envisioned building up a more efficient development engine for converting our research and innovations into enterprise-ready products to address the challenges of the evolving data infrastructure.“

This vision culminated in the formation of ScaleFlux, where the founders have built a global team to turn groundbreaking research and innovative IP into practical, market-ready solutions to address the challenges of the data-centric and now GPU-centric world. At every turn, the leadership asks, ‘how can we do this better?’, driving continuous improvement in efficiency and execution.

Looking ahead: Future of ScaleFlux
As ScaleFlux launches the CSD5000 and celebrates this decade of innovation, the company is more committed than ever to pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in storage and memory solutions.

“We are incredibly proud of what we have achieved over the past 10 years,” said Zhong. “Our journey has been defined by a relentless pursuit of innovation, and we are excited to continue this journey with our latest products and solutions. The future holds immense potential, and we are ready to seize it.“

Resources:
Video: ScaleFlux CSD5000 Product Release
CSD5000 DS
Video: Introducing CSD5000: Revolutionizing Efficiency and Performance   
FX5016 controller DS
Video: SFX 3000 – Product Spotlights