Samsung launches a 15.36 TB SSD for professional environments

On a single SSD unit it is possible to achieve this level of storage by combining 512 Samsung 256Gb V-NAND memory chips.

Samsung has launched a 15.36 terabyte (TB) solid state drive. The PM1633a is based on a 12 Gb/s Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) interface, designed for use in enterprise storage systems. Because the PM1633a is a 2.5″ form factor, enterprise storage managers can fit twice the capacity of most standard 19″ form factor drives into a 2U rack compared to an equivalent 3.5″ storage unit.

Jung-bae Lee, vice president of memory product planning and application engineering team at Samsung Electronics, believes that "to meet the growing market need for ultra-high capacity SAS SSDs from leading enterprise storage system manufacturers, we are directing our greatest efforts to meet the SSD demand of our users. We will continue to lead the industry with the new generation of SSDs, using our advanced 3D V-NAND memory technology, with the aim of accelerating the growth of the premium memory market at the same time. "that we provide greater performance and efficiency to our users."

Storing an unprecedented 15.36TB of data on a single SSD is possible by combining 512 Samsung 256Gb V-NAND memory chips. The 256Gb dies are stacked in 16 layers to form a single 512GB package, with a total of 32 NAND flash packages in the 15.36TB drive. Using Samsung's third-generation 256Gb V-NAND technology, which stacks cell arrays in 48 layers, the PM1633a line provides significant performance and reliability improvements over its predecessor, the PM1633, which used Samsung's second-generation 32-layer 128Gb V-NAND memory.

Samsung's new SSP PM1633a gives the opportunity to significantly improve the efficiency of IT system investments thanks to its high storage capacity and exceptional performance. This performance gain is derived from Samsung's latest vertical NAND (V-NAND) flash technology, as well as the company's proprietary firmware and controller technology.

High read and write speeds

The PM1633a SSD achieves random read and write speeds of up to 200,000 and 32,000 IOPPS respectively, and offers sequential read and write speeds of up to 1,200 MB/s. Random read IOPS performance is approximately 1,000 times that of SAS-type hard drives, while sequential read and write speeds are more than double that of a typical SATA SSD. Inside the new SSD are Samsung's advanced controller units, which support the 12 GB/s SAS interface, along with a total of 16 GB of DRAM. Samsung also uses specifically designed firmware that can access large amounts of high-density NAND flash concurrently.

The PM1633a 15.36TB drive supports 1 DWPD (drive write per day), meaning 15.36TB of data can be written to a single drive every day without failure, a level of reliability that will improve the cost of ownership for enterprise storage systems. This drive can write between two and ten times more data than typical SATA SSDs based on flat MLC and TLC NAND flash technologies.

On the other hand, the unit stands out for a highly reliable metadata protection mechanism, in addition to including a data protection tool and restoration software in case of momentary power outages, which makes business systems more stable and manageable.

Starting with the 15.36TB density, Samsung will offer a wide range of capacity options in its PM1633a SSD line - 7.68TB, 3.84TB, 1.92TB, 960-gigabytes (GB) and 480GB - by the end of the year. By providing more options in storage capacity, Samsung is strengthening the competitiveness of its SAS SSD line. The Samsung PM1633a SSD line is expected to quickly become the preferred choice over hard drives for enterprise storage systems.