Kioxia's XD6 is built for datacenters, PCIe 4.0 SSD pumps 6.5GB/sec

Kioxia has just unveiled its new XD6 SSDs, an industry-first family of SSDs on the EDSSF E1.S 'ruler' form factor on the PCIe 4.0 x4 interface allowing it to have seriously high brute speeds.

The new Kioxia XD6 SSDs have been made to address the specific requirements of hyperscale applications, something Kioxia notes including performance, power, and thermal requirements of the Open Compute Platform (OCP) NVMe Cloud SSD Specification.

Sequential read and write performance of up to 6500MB/sec (6.5GB/sec) and 2400MB (2.4GB/sec), respectively. Kioxia is packing in its 3D TLC NAND flash memory, and a new controller that has everything it needs from an NVMe 1.3c-compliant hyperscale-optimized chip.

Kioxia guarantees reliability in intensive 24/7 environments, while the company will make the XD6 series SSDs in E1.2 9.5mm, 15mm, and 25mm form factors. We're looking at power consumption of around 15W, with a large heatspreader that will keep it cool when the drives are being thrashed in datacenters across the world.

Ross Stenfort, hardware storage engineer, Facebook explains: "Developing and deploying flash-based products is very challenging, and the OCP-based NVMe Cloud SSD Specification helps by aligning SSD providers with hyperscale needs. EDSFF E1.S is the next generation of flash form factors, delivering superior thermals, performance, serviceability, and scalability when compared to current solutions. KIOXIA's support of EDSFF is a great step forward and lays the groundwork for the future".

Neville Ichhaporia, senior director, marketing and product management, Data Center and Client SSD Division at KIOXIA America, Inc added: "Hyperscale data centers are the heart of the internet, and the OCP platform will power future generations with SSDs optimized for server platforms. KIOXIA is proud to work with industry leaders on innovative storage solutions, such as our XD6 Series data center NVMe SSDs, to power their critical applications".