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From the emergence of new flash storage server companies to more participation from the big players in flash, we are seeing FMS grow year after year as more and more gain interest in speedy memory. We see companies delivering break through products and solutions as well as industry wide trends forming. One of these trends seems to be revolving around newer technology that allows the SSD to offload controller tasks, such as managing the flash translation layer, wear leveling, and garbage collection, to the host system in order to help improve SSD performance and consistency and more. One of the companies doing this just happens to be LiteOn.
Not only are they working on their implementation of it, they are doing so with a high capacity AD2 U.2 Open Channel SSD. On display, this prototype NVMe SSD demonstrated just how their “Open Channel” technology helped to deliver very consistent IOPS under load. From the photo above we can see this 2TB variant was able to maintain a fairly consistent 240K IOPS profile.
Also, on display are a new enterprise M.2 NVMe SSD, the LiteOn EP3. The EP3 is similar to the EP2, but utilizes with TLC NAND. It is 2TB in capacity vs the 1TB maximum for the EP2. It is rated for up to 1DWPD, has power-loss protection, end to end data protection, and great performance numbers. Sequential reads and writes are rated for up to 2.2GB/s and 800MB/s respectively. For random reads and writes it is rated for up to 270K/35K.
Looking at their client product lines there is the new CA1 and CV5. Both of these drives feature TLC NAND can be ordered SED capable and support DevSleep. The CA1 is a M.2 NVMe SSD that utilizes a PCIe 3 x4 connection to deliver speeds of up to 2.3GB/s read and 900MB/s write as well as 189K/150K read/write IOPS. It will be available soon in capacities of 128GB to 1TB. The CV5 is a SATA SSD that is available in both a M.2 and 2.5″ form factor and capacities up to 512GB.
Covering the industrial segment, they were showcasing how the Dell Edge Gateway 5666 utilizes their J8 M.2 SSDs for The Internet of Things.
In addition to their enterprise brand, LiteOn, they also had on display some products from their consumer brand, Plextor. Obviously there is the PX-M8e. There are three sku’s as can be seen. There are two M.2 only models, one with and one without a heatsink as well as a model, utilizing a M.2 to PCIe HHHL adapter card. The M8e is now rated for up to 2.5GB/s read and 1.4GB/s write as well as up to 280K/240K IOPS read/write. It will be available in capacities up to 1TB and we will be reviewing it as soon as we get one in our hands!
Finally, on display at the booth was their EX1 portable SSD, which we seen before at Computex. Utilizing a USB 3.1 Type-C port, it supports speeds of up to 550MB/s read and 500MB/s write. Capacities will be available from 128GB to 512GB and it will come with a 5-year warranty.
That’s it as we wrap up our stay at FMS 2016! We look forward to covering the event next year!