Lite-On Debuts EP2 NVMe M.2 PCIe SSD and More – Flash Memory Summit 2015 Update

While officially announced last week, Lite-on debuted their latest addition to their enterprise SSD portfolio, the EP2. The EP2 is a PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 NVMe SSD that will be available in capacities up to 2TB!

That is right, by utilizing a M.2 110mm form factor, the EP2 will be available in capacities up to 2TB. Lower capacities will be in a 80mm form factor. It utilizes a Marvell controller and 15nm Toshiba MLC NAND as to be expected from their past products and can deliver random read and write performance of up to 250K IOPS/25K IOPS with latencies rated at 35/35 microseconds. Sequential speeds are also impressive at 2,200/1,300MB/s read/write. The EP2 also features power loss protection (PLP), scalability, end-to-end data protection, and is rated for up to 1DWPD with a 3-year warranty. It will be sampling by the end of the year and available soon after.

LiteOn also showcased their new ER1 and EM1 SATA SSDs. Designed to address the capacity and performance needs of hyperscale computing, virtualized data centers, and rigorous I/O server operations, both the ER1 and EM1 doubles the maximum capacity of its read intensive drive of up to 4TB in two compact form factor sizes, 1.8″ and 2.5.” The ER1 specifically is available in capacities up to 2TB and features a 3DWPD rating while EM1 is rated for up to only 1DWPD.

The NAS series SSDs show above as well carry a higher write endurance rating of 5DWPD over their 3-year warranty, however, to enable that, there is extra over provisioning.

Finally, we made our way to the client section of their display. Here we saw quite a few M.2 form factor SSDs that range in performance. At the high performance end of the scale is the CX2. It boasts a PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe interface, capacities up to 1TB, and a 1DWPD rating. It is available in 2260 and 2280 M.2 form factors. Next is the CX1, which is essentially the client variant of the M6e. Following that is the CV3 series. It is available in 2.5″ and M.2 form factors and SATA 6Gb/s connectivity. It features Toshiba’s latest 15nm TLC as well. The last series on display is the CV1 which is offered in M.2 and 2.5″ form factors as well as mSATA.

So there you have it, LiteOn has some interesting drives that we should learn more about as they hit the market. Stay tuned for more as we wrap up our coverage of FMS 2015!