Solidigm launches industry's largest capacity eSSD for AI data centers

Solidigm, an SK hynix-affiliated NAND flash memory solutions provider, said Wednesday it is launching a new enterprise solid-state drive boasting the industry's largest capacity of 122 terabytes for AI data centers.

According to the memory chip maker, the new eSSD solution D5-P5336 has been developed based on its quadruple-level cell technology, storing four times more data than conventional eSSDs.

"We were the first chip firm to commercialize the QLC-based high-capacity SSDs, supplying over 100 exabytes of these products since 2018. The new D5-P5336 doubles the capacity of our previous product with 61.44TB," Solidigm said. Exabyte is equivalent to 1 billion gigabytes of data, which is approximately 1 million TB.

"With its unrivaled capacity and power and space efficiency, the 122TB eSSD is expected to be a major asset for global customers building AI infrastructure, including data centers."

Solidigm said it is currently working with global customers on certification for the D5-P5336 and plans to start sales in the first quarter of next year.

The company said the new eSSD solution has been designed specifically to address the intensive data workloads in AI processes and be capable of unlimited random writes for five years.

The customers using the product in their network-attached storage will be able to reduce storage footprint by a quarter and power consumption by up to 84 percent when compared to using mixed HDD and SSD configurations, the company explained.

In addition, when customers deploy the latest product in space-constrained edge servers, it can store 4 times more data in the same area compared to the commonly used TLC-based 30TB SSDs, with power density per terabyte improved by 3.4 percent, Solidigm added.

"Data center designers are actively working to improve energy and space efficiency as AI application cases are increasing," said Greg Matson, senior vice president of strategic planning and marketing at Solidigm.

"Our new product will be a game changer, proactively addressing the pain points of our customers."

Travis Vigil, senior vice president leading Portfolio and Product Management for Dell Technologies said, "Solidigm's eSSD maximizes energy efficiency and spatial utilization. While we continue to increase data center density through our own solutions, we also look forward to ongoing innovations in storage, such as the latest release from Solidigm."