Phison and Seagate have been collaborating on SSDs since 2017 within the consumer in addition to SMB/SME area. In April 2022, that they had introduced a partnership to develop and distribute enterprise NVMe SSDs. On the Flash Reminiscence Summit this week, the outcomes of the collaboration are being introduced within the type of the X1 SSD platform – an U.3 PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe SSD that’s backwards appropriate with U.2 slots.
The X1 SSD makes use of a brand new Phison controller unique to Seagate – the E20. It integrates two ARM Cortex-R5 cores together with a number of co-processors that speed up SSD administration duties. Phison is touting the development in random learn IOPS (claims of as much as 30% quicker that the competitors in its class) as a key driver for its slot in AI coaching and utility servers servicing hundreds of purchasers. The important thing specs of the X1 SSD platform are summarized within the desk beneath. The efficiency numbers quoted are for the 1DWPD 3.84TB mannequin.
| Seagate / Phison X1 SSD Platform | |
| Capacities | 1.92 TB, 3.84 TB, 7.68 TB, 15.36 TB (1DWPD fashions) 1.6 TB, 3.2 TB, 6.4 TB, 12.8 TB (3DWPD fashions) |
| Host Interface | PCIe 4.0 x4 (NVMe 1.4) |
| Type Issue | U.3 (15mm / 7mm z-height) |
| NAND | 128L 3D eTLC |
| Sequential Accesses Efficiency | 7400 MBps (Reads) 7200 MBps (Writes) |
| Random Accesses Efficiency | 1.75M IOPS & 84us Latency @ QD1 (4K Reads) 470K IOPS & 10us Latency @ QD1 (4K Writes) |
| Uncorrectable Bit-Error Fee | 1 in 1018 |
| Energy Consumption | 13.5W (Random Reads) 17.9W (Random Writes) 6.5W (Idle) |
Seagate equips the X1 with eTLC (enterprise TLC), power-loss safety capacitors, and contains end-to-end knowledge path safety. SECDED (single error correction / double error detection) and periodic reminiscence scrubbing is completed for the interior DRAM as a part of the ECC function. For the contents on the flash itself, the X1 helps the Knowledge Integrity Area / Knowledge Integrity Extension / Safety Data (DIF/DIX/PI) for end-to-end knowledge safety. Numerous different enterprise-focused options comparable to SR-IOV help, and NVMe-MI (administration interface) are additionally supported.
Seagate and Phison declare that the X1 SSD could be custom-made for particular use-cases, and it presents one of the best efficiency at school together with one of the best vitality effectivity. Seagate is advertising and marketing the X1 SSD beneath the Nytro branding – the Nytro 5050 NVMe SSD collection for knowledge facilities. The Nytro 5350 consists of the 1DWPD fashions, whereas the Nytro 5550 makes up the 3DWPD ones.
By way of competitors within the PCIe 4.0 / U.2 / U.3 area, the Nytro 5050 collection goes up in opposition to Micron’s 7450 PRO and 7450 MAX (PDF), utilizing their 176L 3D TLC flash, and Kioxia’s CD7-V / CD7-R knowledge middle SSDs. On paper, Seagate / Phison’s efficiency specs simply surpass these platforms which were delivery for greater than a yr now.
