High-Density Storage for Hyperscale Data Centers

Kioxia introduced its LD4-series solid-state drives in an E1.L form factor with capacities up to 122.88TB designed for high-density storage deployments in hyperscale data centers. The new drives use BiCS8 3D QLC NAND and are aimed at read-intensive workloads like AI data repositories and object storage, according to the manufacturer.

Specifications and Architecture

Kioxia's LD4-series SSDs rely on the company's proprietary platform complying with the NVMe 2.0e specification and featuring a single-port configuration along with select requirements of the Open Compute Project Datacenter NVMe SSD specification 2.6. Although Kioxia lists PCIe 5.0 compliance, the drives operate at PCIe 4.0 x4 speeds of up to 16 GT/s per lane, which provides a theoretical maximum bandwidth of approximately 7.88 GB/s in each direction. While the company currently offers lower initial capacities, it has validated an architecture capable of supporting 122.88 TB drives.

Performance and Endurance Metrics

Kioxia did not disclose performance characteristics of its LD4-series SSDs, including sequential read and write speeds, random read and write IOPS, or latency. The company also did not reveal their endurance ratings in drive writes per day or total bytes written, nor did it specify their power consumption. These characteristics are particularly important for hyperscale operators evaluating the cost, performance, and longevity of storage infrastructure.

Form Factor and OCP Compliance

The key selling point of Kioxia's LD4-series and its E1.L form factor measuring 318.75 mm length by 38.4 mm height by 9.5 mm thick is its ability to house numerous 3D NAND flash packages on an elongated printed circuit board. This enables multiple drives to be installed in a thin 1U server, offering vast capacities. This allows system manufacturers building OCP-compliant servers to maximize storage capacity without increasing rack space requirements, which is vital for large-scale storage deployments.

Availability and Sampling

Kioxia is currently sampling 15.36 TB and 30.72 TB LD4 drives to select customers. The company has not disclosed when 122.88 TB configurations will become available or when the series will enter mass production. The drives are scheduled for demonstration at the OCP Global Summit in San Jose.