Western Digital’s FMS 2024 demonstrations included a preview of their upcoming PCIe 5.zero x4 M.2 2280 NVMe SSDs for cellular workstations and client desktops. The Gen 5 shopper SSD market has been dominated by options primarily based on Phison’s E26 controller. The first era merchandise launched with slower NAND flash, whereas the more moderen ones have exceeded the 14 GBps barrier by using Micron’s 2400 MT/s 232L 3D TLC. Western Digital has been conservative over the past yr or so by focusing extra on the mainstream / mid-range market when it comes to new product introductions (such because the WD Blue SN5000, WD_BLACK SN770M, and the WD Blue SN580). Their SSD lineup is due for an replace with Gen 5 drives being sorely missed. The SSDs being demonstrated at FMS 2024 will find yourself doing simply that.
Western Digital’s know-how demonstrations on this section concerned two totally different M.2 2280 SSDs – one for the efficiency section, and one other for the mainstream market. They each make the most of in-house controllers – whereas the efficiency section drive makes use of a 8-channel controller with DRAM for the flash translation layer, the mainstream one makes use of a 4-channel DRAM-less controller. Both drives being benchmarked stay have been geared up with BiCS8 218-layer 3D TLC.
Western Digital is touting the ability effectivity of their platform as a key differentiator, promising south of 7W (efficiency drive) and 5W (mainstream DRAM-less drive) for the whole SSD beneath irritating site visitors. This makes it appropriate to be used in cellular workstations, however match for desktops as effectively.
Demonstrated efficiency numbers point out nearly 15 GBps sequential reads and 2M+ random learn IOPS for the efficiency drive, and 10.7 GBps sequential reads for the mainstream model. Western Digital might need missed the Gen 5 bus because it began out slowly. However, the know-how demonstrations with the in-house controller and NAND point out that WD has caught up simply because the Gen 5 market is about to take off.|
