Samsung has developed an SSD with a SNIA-based E1.S form factor and full PCIe Gen 4 support to Utilise  TLC  V-NAND.

It has introduced a comprehensive reference design for its E1.S-based storage system.

‘We see it eventually becoming the most sought-after storage solution on the market for tier one and tier two cloud datacenter servers, and one of the more cost-effective,” says Samsung’s Jongyoul Lee.

The E1.S drive form-factor combines major benefits of 2.5-inch U.2 SSDs, with what is widely considered the optimal storage design for 1U servers today.

For M.2 SSD users, the E1.S SSD will expand the SSD power budget, accommodate PCIe Gen 4, and allow datacenter managers to add more SSDs per rack-unit.

The newly announced PM9A3 drive, to be available in three versions**, is expected to feature a PCIe Gen 4 (x4) interface for more than twice the sequential read performance of PCIe Gen 3 (3200MB/s), and include dedicated hardware accelerators for nearly twice the random writes (180,000 IOPs) of the previous generation.  Capacities will range from 960 GB to 7.68 TB.

The PM9A3 SSD’s E1.S design with an industry-standard EDSFF connector is set to enhance the industry’s most popular SSD lineup, one that includes the leading SSD for datacenter applications (PM983).

For datacenters now using U.2 SSDs, the E1.S form factor will allow hardware engineers to add more SSDs per server, freeing up additional 1U space and lowering the total cost of ownership.

Samsung is also providing a collaborative server reference design, made by Inspur,  to assist datacenter managers in quickly adopting and deploying its E1.S-based storage system.