The progress within the enterprise SSD (eSSD) market has outpaced that of the shopper SSD market over the previous couple of years. The necessities of AI servers for each coaching and inference has been the main impetus on this entrance. In addition to the same old distributors like Samsung, Solidigm, Micron, Kioxia, and Western Digital serving the cloud service suppliers (CSPs) and the likes of Facebook, quite a few firms have been at work inside China to service the burgeoning eSSD market inside.
In our protection of the Microchip Flashtec 5016, we had famous Longsys’s use of Microchip’s SSD controllers to organize and market enterprise SSDs below the FORESEE model. Long earlier than that, two firms – DapuStor and Memblaze – began releasing eSSDs particularly specializing in the Chinese market.
There are two drivers for the present progress spurt within the eSSD market. On the efficiency facet, utilization of eTLC behind a Gen 5 controller is permitting distributors to promote vital advantages over the Gen four drives within the earlier technology. At the identical time, a capability play is going on the place there’s a race to cram as a lot NAND as doable right into a single U.2 / EDSFF enclosure. QLC is getting used for this objective, and we noticed quite a few such 128 TB-class eSSDs on show at FMS 2024.
DapuStor and Memblaze have each been counting on SSD controllers from Marvell for his or her flagship drives. Their newest product iterations for the Gen 5 period use the Marvell Bravera SC5 controller. Similar to the Flashtec controllers, these are usually not meant to be turnkey options. Rather, the SSD vendor has appreciable flexibility in implementing particular options for his or her desired goal market.
At FMS 2024, each DapuStor and Memblaze had been displaying their newest options for the Gen 5 market. Memblaze was celebrating the sale of 150Ok+ models of their flagship Gen 5 resolution – the PBlaze7 7940 incorporating Micron’s 232L 3D eTLC with Marvell’s Bravera SC5 controller. This SSD (out there in capacities as much as 30.72 TB) boasts of 14 GBps reads / 10 GBps writes together with random learn / write efficiency of two.eight M / 720Ok – all with a typical energy consumption south of 16 W. Additionally, the help for a few of NVMe options reminiscent of software-enabled flash (SEF) and zoned identify area (ZNS) had helped Memblaze and Marvell to obtain a ‘Best of Show’ award below the ‘Most Innovative Customer Implementation’ class.
DapuStor had their present lineup on show (together with the Haishen H5000 collection with the identical Bravera SC5 controller). The firm incorporates YMTC NAND into the drives offered within the Chinese market. However, for different areas, BiCS flash is getting used. Additionally, the corporate had an unannounced proof-of-concept 61.44 TB QLC SSD on show. Despite the label carrying the Haishen5 collection tag (its present members all use eTLC NAND), this pattern comes with QLC flash.
DapuStor has already invested assets into implementing the versatile knowledge placement (FDP) NVMe function into the firmware of this QLC SSD. The firm additionally had an fascinating presentation session coping with utilization of CXL reminiscence enlargement to retailer the FTL for high-capacity enterprise SSDs – although that is one thing for the longer term and never associated to any present product out there.
Having established themselves inside the Chinese market, each DapuStor and Memblaze want to develop in different markets. Having merchandise with main efficiency numbers and options within the eSSD progress section will stand them in good stead on this endeavor.
