Oddly enough, SSDs with a PCIe 4.0 interface have been with us for about two years now, and since their launch, new models have never stopped coming onto the market with increasingly better performance rates (there we have SSDs with more than 7,000 MB / s , the high-end ‘barrier’), and have already doubled what PCIe 3.0 SSDs offer. For this reason, with the PCIe 5.0 interface we can expect precisely twice the performance, and this is what KIOXIA has already proven.
Up to 14GB / s on 1st PCIe 5.0 SSD
The surprising thing about this revelation by KIOXIA is that, contrary to what has happened in previous generations, the first SSD prototype with a PCIe 5.0 interface already offers twice the performance than the best current PCIe 4.0 SSDs give. In past generations, getting to double the performance of the previous one was made to wait, and initially we had SSD that did improve performance but that of reaching double has not been until the years have passed. For this reason, that a prototype already offers twice what we had until now, is practically a historical milestone.
It is not surprising that this first PCIe 5.0 SSD has been shown by a manufacturer like KIOXIA, since it is not for nothing that it is the second largest manufacturer in the world in Flash memory products. The prototype they have presented will be part of the CD7 series and they will come both in 2.5-inch EDSFF E3S format and in the most standard M.2 format with NVMe protocol. The units will also be targeted at 8- and 16-channel controller data center segments, and these will surely hit the market sooner than consumer models as usual.
In terms of the capacity with which these drives will be available, they range from 1.6TB for the most “entry-level” model to 30TB for models designed for enterprises and data centers. Another interesting fact is that KIOXIA has said that its durability is 1-3 DWPD (in a 1,600 GB SSD and 5 years warranty this is equivalent to about 3,000 TBW, but it is still curious that the manufacturer has expressed its durability in DWPD instead of the more common TBW).
the interface PCI-Express 5.0 It will be available very soon, so it is normal that storage device manufacturers are already working on their first prototypes. KIOXIA has stated that they expect these first CD7 Series SSDs to hit the market sometime in 2022, as the new platforms from Intel and AMD hit the shelves (it would be absurd otherwise, imagine releasing a PCIe 5.0 SSD when there are no compatible motherboards).
Keep in mind that Intel Alder Lake-S CPU they will also support PCI-Express 5.0 (x4) links for SSDs, but it looks like the industry is waiting for it to be Phison Who moves tab with their new 5th generation controller (to take into account that practically all the current PCIe 4.0 SSD of 7,000 MB / s use a controller of this brand). Marvell It has also announced its Bravera SC5 PCIe 5.0 controller that will also hit the market in 2022 along with the solution itself. Silicon Motion; In short, SSD manufacturers are already actively moving to get the first SSDs with the new interface ready sooner rather than later.
