To provide greater storage efficiencies and value for customers managing data at scale, Samsung Electronics and Western Digital, two of the world’s largest storage providers, have recently partnered to help usher in the standardization of next-generation data placement, processing and fabrics storage technologies (D2PF), including Zoned Storage.

The two companies believe the adoption of next-generation storage standards is the most effective way to ensure that hardware and software can be effectively combined within the system stack to maximize performance and functionality while reducing costs. In bringing this vision to fruition, Samsung and Western Digital are encouraging a wide-ranging industry collaboration among storage stakeholders. Through collaboration, the companies can help assure customers that storage ecosystem vendors support the new technology standards and system architectures for efficiently handling today’s data workloads as well as tomorrow’s.

The Reality of Today’s Data Infrastructures

We are well into the zettabyte (ZB) era, a period characterized by quantities of data so vast that understanding it has become trickier than ever. The mind-numbing amounts of data being produced today emphasizes the urgency of rethinking how data centers and cloud infrastructures are designed and operated.   

Amid this backdrop of hypergrowth looms the potential for fragmentation around standards and systems that could delay the ecosystem’s efforts to meet growing storage demands.

“We have entered into a golden era for data consumption, analytics and storage. One of the surest ways to undo all that good would be if the industry were to implement conflicting systems and standards,” said Cheolmin Park, Vice President of Memory Global Sales & Marketing at Samsung Electronics. “From AC versus DC in the old electric wars to Betamax versus VHS, history teaches us that industries which lack clear standards and formats see periods of missed opportunities and wasteful spending. The adoption of effective standards will minimize complexity, drive out inefficiency and reduce the cost of products and services, which benefits vendors and end-users alike. If data storage is to meet the future needs of end-users, what the industry needs now is broad consensus on Zoned Storage.”

Focusing on the Future of Zoned Storage

As part of Samsung and Western Digital’s agreement, the companies are focusing their initial efforts on creating a healthy ecosystem and solid application support around Zoned Storage.

Currently, large-scale data infrastructure relies on tens of thousands of solid-state drives (SSDs) and hard-disk drives (HDDs). With such massive scale and the vast amounts of data that these systems manage, even the smallest data placement inefficiencies in system architecture or storage devices can result in burdensome costs.

Zoned Storage is an open-source, standards-based initiative that enables data center storage infrastructure to scale efficiently and effectively. For hyperscale cloud and enterprise vendors, some of which possess ZB-scale storage needs, Zoned Storage will help to improve asset utilization, lower latency and reduce costs.

Zoned Storage is comprised of two technologies: Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR) in HDDs and Zoned Namespaces (ZNS) in SSDs. At the core of Zoned Storage are devices such as ZNS SSDs. These drives divide their address space into distinct zones, streamlining the drive architecture by equipping the host with the ability to place data in the appropriate zone.

Future-Forward Technology for a Data-First World

As an innovative storage solution, Zoned Storage has unconventional data-writing rules. Zones can be written sequentially starting from the beginning of a zone, and the data within a zone cannot be arbitrarily overwritten. Therefore, it is highly important that the industry aligns around the host software stack that enables storage systems to optimally leverage the power of Zoned Storage. This host-device model alignment is a crucial theme of the overall initiative. Samsung, Western Digital and other ecosystem partners are committed to contributing required software components that will enable Zoned Storage to thrive via the open-source community.

Implementing Zoned Storage on the host allows system software and hardware to work in unison with much greater efficiency. ZNS reduces the need for over-provisioning and can eliminate difficulties connected with Quality of Service (QoS) variability and write amplification. As a result, the solution can increase capacity thanks to a higher device density and provide sustained performance even when a device is close to full capacity. Furthermore, ZNS boasts greater endurance than traditional storage methods as the data does not need to be constantly rewritten.

Whether a device is SAS-SATA (HDD or SSD) or NVMe SSD, Zoned Storage can be highly effective, and will enable more efficient system-wide performance management for everyone’s benefit.

“The implementation and continued development of Zoned Storage will empower the storage industry to strike a balance between cost, latency and performance through the use of intelligent architectures,” said Wim De Wispelaere, Vice President, Strategic Initiatives at Western Digital. “As an industry, we are at a point where we must align around the technologies and systems that will drive data storage in the near future and for decades to come — in the most intelligent and efficient way possible.”

For the Benefit of All

This collaboration between Samsung and Western Digital reflects both companies’ belief that critical new standards are needed for the storage sector to keep pace with data demand. 

The two companies have already launched an initiative involving Zoned Storage devices including ZNS SSDs. As part of an effort to enable open and scalable data center architectures, they founded the Zoned Storage Technical Work Group, which SNIA approved in December 2021, and are working with the Linux Foundation to set up a similar project workgroup. Within these industry organizations, Samsung and Western Digital will help to define high-level models and frameworks for any innovative Zoned Storage technology.

ZNS is the first of numerous D2PF collaborations designed to pave the way for innovative new data centers and cloud services. Samsung and Western Digital are committed to enabling a high degree of cooperation among key stakeholders in generating storage solutions that nicely suit a data-first world, along with everyone in it.

“As the leading provider of SAS storage for a decade, Samsung has been offering the most advanced and reliable enterprise solutions in full support of the critical workloads of global server OEMs, governments and financial institutions. Samsung enterprise solutions are also accredited by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology for the most powerful data security,” said Kwangil Park, senior vice president of the Memory Product Planning Team at Samsung Electronics. “Like we have done with the PM1653, Samsung will continue to collaborate with our customers to accommodate the ever-growing demand of the enterprise server market for the most uncompromising offerings available.”

In order to build a robust 24G SAS ecosystem across the enterprise market, host bus adapter (HBA) system readiness is also essential. Samsung has been closely working with Broadcom, a leading HBA provider, to ensure a seamless and timely transition to this new SAS milestone.

“Broadcom values the innovation that 24G SAS products, such as the Samsung SSD PM1653, will bring to the enterprise server market,” said Jas Tremblay, vice president and general manager of the Data Center Solutions Group at Broadcom. “The combination of the PM1653 SSD and Broadcom’s next-generation SAS RAID products delivers up to 5X RAID 5 performance; which will be critical to meet the strong demands of the 24G ecosystem.”

The PM1653 has been optimized for high-performance enterprise servers, offering the industry’s highest random read speed – a key metric for server storage performance – of up to 800K IOPS. Its sequential read speed can reach 4,300MB/s, which is the maximum available speed for the 24G SAS interface and twice the speed of the previous-generation PM1643a drive.

Leveraging its dual-port system, the new SSD will give enterprise server OEMs the flexibility of using one or both ports depending on their system environment. Even if one port was to experience a failure during operation, data can be transferred and accessed through the other port with superior enterprise-grade reliability. The PM1653 is capable of supporting 24G and the legacy 12G SAS-3 platform as well.

Samsung has begun sampling the PM1653 SSD with select customers, and plans to begin mass production in the second half of this year.

This breakthrough was made possible by combining 32 of the new 1TB NAND flash packages, each comprised of 16 stacked layers of 512Gb V-NAND chips. These super-dense 1TB packages allow for approximately 5,700 5-gigabyte (GB), full HD movie files to be stored within a mere 2.5-inch storage device.

In addition to the doubled capacity, performance levels have risen significantly and are nearly twice that of Samsung’s previous generation high-capacity SAS SSD. Based on a 12Gb/s SAS interface, the new PM1643 drive features random read and write speeds of up to 400,000 IOPS and 50,000 IOPS, and sequential read and write speeds of up to 2,100MB/s and 1,700 MB/s, respectively. These represent approximately four times the random read performance and three times the sequential read performance of a typical 2.5-inch SATA SSD*.

“With our launch of the 30.72TB SSD, we are once again shattering the enterprise storage capacity barrier, and in the process, opening up new horizons for ultra-high capacity storage systems worldwide,” said Jaesoo Han, executive vice president, Memory Sales & Marketing Team at Samsung Electronics. “Samsung will continue to move aggressively in meeting the shifting demand toward SSDs over 10TB and at the same time, accelerating adoption of our trail-blazing storage solutions in a new age of enterprise systems.”

Samsung reached the new capacity and performance enhancements through several technology progressions in the design of its controller, DRAM packaging and associated software. Included in these advancements is a highly efficient controller architecture that integrates nine controllers from the previous high-capacity SSD lineup into a single package, enabling a greater amount of space within the SSD to be used for storage. The PM1643 drive also applies Through Silicon Via (TSV) technology to interconnect 8Gb DDR4 chips, creating 10 4GB TSV DRAM packages, totaling 40GB of DRAM. This marks the first time that TSV-applied DRAM has been used in an SSD.

Complementing the SSD’s hardware ingenuity is enhanced software that supports metadata protection as well as data retention and recovery from sudden power failures, and an error correction code (ECC) algorithm to ensure high reliability and minimal storage maintenance. Furthermore, the SSD provides a robust endurance level of one full drive write per day (DWPD), which translates into writing 30.72TB of data every day over the five-year warranty period without failure. The PM1643 also offers a mean time between failures (MTBF) of two million hours.

Samsung started manufacturing initial quantities of the 30.72TB SSDs in January and plans to expand the lineup later this year – with 15.36TB, 7.68TB, 3.84TB, 1.92TB, 960GB and 800GB versions – to further drive the growth of all-flash-arrays and accelerate the transition from hard disk drives (HDDs) to SSDs in the enterprise market. The wide range of models and much improved performance will be pivotal in meeting the growing storage needs in a host of market segments, including the government, financial services, healthcare, education, oil & gas, pharmaceutical, social media, business services, retail and communications sectors.

* Compared to 2.5-inch Samsung SSD 850 EVO

At Flash Memory Summit 2016*, held in the Santa Clara (CA) Convention Center, Samsung showcased its 4^th generation Vertical NAND (V-NAND) and a line-up of high-performance, high-capacity solid state drives (SSDs) available for its enterprise customers as well as Z-SSD, a new solution providing breakthrough performance for flash-based storage.

Samsung’s new flash storage devices are expected to contribute significantly to the global IT industry in meeting the growing storage requirements of today’s enterprise computing environment. These solutions will accommodate enormous amounts of data, and extremely high-speed information processing, while enhancing the total cost of ownership (TCO) for data centers.

“With our 4^th generation V-NAND technology, we can provide leading-edge differentiated values in high capacity, high performance and compact product dimensions, which together will contribute to our customers achieving better TCO results,” said Young-Hyun Jun, President of the Memory Business at Samsung Electronics. “We will continue to introduce more advanced V-NAND solutions and expand our flash business initiatives in maximizing an unbeatable combination of performance and value.”

Samsung’s 4^th Generation V-NAND Stacks 30 Percent More Layers of Cell-Arrays than its Predecessor

Samsung introduced its 4th generation, 64-layer triple-level-cell V-NAND flash memory that pushes the envelope of NAND scaling, performance and storage capacity. Stacking 64 layers of cell-arrays, the new V-NAND can increase its single-die density to an industry-leading 512Gb and its IO speed to 800Mbps, which further distinguishes Samsung’s technology leadership in three-dimensional NAND cell structure design and production. Starting in August 2013, Samsung has previously introduced three generations of “industry-first” V-NAND products with 24, 32 and 48-layer vertical cell-array stacking technologies.

Samsung plans to provide the world’s first 4^th generation V-NAND flash memory products in the fourth quarter of this year, which will help manufacturers to produce faster, more stylish and portable computing devices, while offering consumers a more responsive computing environment.

World Largest Capacity Drive − 32TB SAS SSD − for Enterprise Storage Systems

Samsung’s latest Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) SSD is the world largest single drive ever introduced to the industry based on 512-gigabit (Gb) V-NAND chips. A total of 512 V-NAND chips are stacked in 16 layers to form a 1-terabyte (TB) package and the 32-terabyte (TB) SSD contains 32 of those packages.

By adopting a new 4^th generation V-NAND design, the 32TB SAS SSD can reduce system space requirements up to 40 times compared with the same type of system using two racks of hard disk drives (HDDs). The 32TB SAS SSD will come in a 2-5-inch form factor and be produced in 2017. Samsung also expects that SSDs with more than 100TB of storage capacity will be available by 2020, thanks to continued refinement of V-NAND technology.

1TB Memory in a Single BGA Package

The Samsung 1TB BGA SSD features an extremely compact, ball grid array (BGA) package design that contains all essential SSD components including triple-level-cell V-NAND flash chips, LPDDR4 mobile DRAM and a state-of-the-art Samsung controller.

It will deliver unprecedented performance, reading sequentially at 1,500MB/s and writing sequentially at 900MB/s. By reducing its size up to 50 percent compared to its predecessor, the SSD weighs only about one gram (less than half the weight of a U.S. dime), making it ideal for ultra-compact next generation notebooks, tablets and convertibles.

Next year, Samsung plans to launch its 1TB BGA SSD by adopting a high-density packaging technology called “FO-PLP (Fan-out Panel Level Packaging)” which Samsung Electronics developed with Samsung Electro-Mechanics.

New ‘Z- SSD’ Breaks through Performance Limits of Current NAND Flash Memory Storage

Samsung has also developed a high performance, ultra-low latency SSD solution, the Z-SSD. Samsung’s Z-SSD shares the fundamental structure of V-NAND and has a unique circuit design and controller that can maximize performance, with four times faster latency and 1.6 times better sequential reading than the Samsung PM963 NVMe** SSD.

The Z-SSD will be used in systems that deal with extremely intensive real-time analysis as well as extending high performance to all types of workloads. It is expected to be released next year.

* Flash Memory Summit (FMS), produced by Conference ConCepts, showcases the mainstream applications, key technologies, and leading vendors that are driving the multi-billion dollar non-volatile memory and SSD markets. FMS is now the world’s largest event featuring the trends, innovations, and influencers driving the adoption of flash memory in demanding enterprise storage applications, as well as in smartphones, tablets, and mobile and embedded systems. For more information, please visit at www.flashmemorysummit.com/

** Often shortened as NVMe, NVM Express (Non-Volatile Memory Express) is an optimized, high performance, scalable host controller interface with a streamlined register interface and command set designed for enterprise and client systems that use PCIe SSDs. For more information, please visit www.nvmexpress.org