144L SLC NVMe Drive for Write-Intensive Workloads

Solidigm’s datacenter SSD choices have been clearly delineated into completely different classes – the D3- SATA choices for legacy servers, the D5- QLC-based choices (with completely different fashions providing completely different tradeoffs between value and endurance), and the D7- NVMe drives for the perfect efficiency and endurance scores. The corporate has been utilizing TLC NAND within the D7 drives to date. Final week, the corporate introduced a brand new member of their D7 lineup for very write-intensive workloads – the D7-P5810 utilizing their mature 144L SLC 3D NAND.

Storage-class reminiscence (SCM) choices reminiscent of Optane have been utilized by hyperscalers for a wide range of use-cases reminiscent of write-caching, HPC functions, journaling, on-line transaction processing (OLTP), and so on. With the winding down of the Optane product line, many alternatives have opened up for SSD distributors to carry near-SCM kind merchandise into the market. We noticed Micron introducing their XTR NVMe SSDs earlier this 12 months utilizing their 176L 3D NAND in SLC mode. The corporate had optimized the firmware on the drives and drawn up specs for near-Optane efficiency in Microsoft SQL Server analytics workloads. Solidigm is taking an analogous strategy with the D7-P5810, albeit with optimizations for a distinct use-case.

Solidigm took a have a look at the necessities glad by Optane drives in Alibaba’s (Optane + QLC) deployment for native disks of their cloud servers, and discovered that the Optane drives had been drastically over-engineered for them. For example, Alibaba’s workload solely demanded 37 DWPD, whereas Optane supplied 100. The 4K random write necessities was additionally solely 8K IOPS per tenant, whereas Alibaba’s configuration resulted within the Optane drive offering 20K IOPS per tenant. Solidigm has optimized the firmware of the D7-P5810 to satisfy these necessities by offering 50 DWPD worst-case endurance, and 10K IOPS per tenant at capacities just like the Optane drives utilized by Alibaba.

The specs of the D7-P5810 are summarized under. The 800 GB model of the drive is in mass manufacturing, whereas the 1.6 TB model is predicted to make an look within the first half of 2024.

The corporate had a number of fascinating shows at Storage Field Day 26, and in a type of, the corporate put out a slide evaluating the D7-P5810 in opposition to the competitors.

It isn’t troublesome to determine that Competitor A within the above slide is Micron’s XTR NVMe SSD, whereas Competitor B is Kioxia’s FL6 Series. Totally different enterprise SSD use-cases have completely different necessities by way of sequential speeds, random entry IOPS, endurance, and energy consumption. Because of this, we’re beginning to see distributors supply specialised drives with firmware optimized for a specific use-case. The variations within the above comparability could be attributed to the seller optimizing for various use-cases. Elementary variations within the flash packages aside (176L in Micron’s XTR vs. 96L BiCS in Kioxia’s FL6 vs. 144L in Solidigm’s D7-P5810), it’s doubtless that these distributors can obtain completely different tradeoffs with their drive’s firmware if required.

Solidigm acquired Intel’s Cloud Storage Acceleration Layer (CSAL) crew earlier this 12 months. At Intel, the group (which had open-sourced its work within the Storage Performance Development Kit) had been engaged on Optane as an accompanying drive for different slower media. After becoming a member of Solidigm, the corporate has shifted focus from Optane to SLC, with a give attention to utilizing drives such because the D7-P5810 as a complement to their high-density QLC drives.

Apart from the above use-case in deployment at Alibaba, the D7-P5810 will also be utilized in all kinds of eventualities reminiscent of metadata storage, caching, and information placement primarily based on service-level settlement (SLA) necessities.

With the inclusion of the D7-P5810, the Solidigm enterprise SSD product line has a product portfolio encompassing a variety of endurance scores with suitability for various functions and use-cases.

Optane could also be winding down quickly, however it’s heartening to see distributors like Micron and Solidigm stepping as much as present SLC-based options. By avoiding over-engineering for particular use-cases which might be at the moment being served by Optane drives, the distributors are additionally capable of current enterprise SSD customers with an economical resolution.