Massive 61 TB NVMe SSD for data centers arriving later this year

Forward-looking: As PCIe 5.0 SSD speeds rapidly increase and the PCIe 4.0 SSD prices continue to tumble, the enterprise market is pushing new boundaries for storage. Data centers are starting to see fast 30 TB SSDs, with models doubling that capacity coming later this year.

Solidigm has revealed an enterprise-focused PCIe SSD that it aims to offer in sizes ranging from 7.68 TB to 61.44 TB. These higher capacities can reduce the physical size and cost of current data center drive arrays.

The PCIe 4.0 D5-P5336 is the world’s first quad-level cell SSD, with a 7GB/s sequential read speed and a 3.1GB/s sequential write speed. The product page indicates that those numbers allow a little over 1 million 4K read IOPs and 31,000 16K write IOPs. Solidigm first revealed its plans to make 61.44 TB storage devices at Tech Field Day 2022 last November.

The drive is available now in the E1.L form factor in 15.36 TB and 30.72 TB capacities. The company plans to ship E1.L and U.2 models with 61.44 TB later this year, with a 30.72 TB E3.S variant coming sometime in the first half of 2024.

Solidigm designed the D5-P5336 to meet the growing demands of AI, machine learning, and content delivery workloads. All of these tasks require storing and moving enormous data sets.

Larger-capacity drives can reduce the physical size and energy footprint of drive arrays. The company claims the D5-P5336 significantly diminishes both compared to TLC and HDD arrays.

With power and cooling costs down by 125 percent on a rack a little over half the size, Solidigm’s new drives could decrease the total cost of ownership (TOC) by 17 percent compared to an all-TLC array, assuming both deployments are 100 PB. In contrast with an all-HDD array, the D5-P5336 could cut energy and cooling expenses by almost five times with a rack one-sixth the size for a 47 percent lower TOC. The savings are the most dramatic against hybrid arrays – an up to 600 percent power and cooling cost reduction on a rack one-seventh as the size – resulting in a 61 percent lower TOC.

The currently available 30.72 TB model puts Solidigm in direct competition against Micron, which released a similarly-sized data center SSD in May (compared in the chart above). Solidigm’s drive has slightly faster read speeds but uses 20 percent more power.