KIOXIA Launches Industry’s First 24G SAS SSDs for Servers, Storage

New PM6 Series Delivers Fastest1 Available SAS SSD Performance for Business-Critical Applications

SAN JOSE, Calif., June 16, 2020 – The next generation of SAS has arrived, bringing improved performance, reliability and data protection along with it. Today, KIOXIA America, Inc. (formerly Toshiba Memory America, Inc.) became the first1 company to bring 24G SAS to server and storage applications with the introduction of its 6th-generation enterprise SAS SSD family. First demonstrated at Flash Memory Summit 2019, KIOXIA’s new PM6 Series of enterprise SAS SSDs is built on 24G SAS technology.

Designed for modern IT infrastructures, 24G SAS doubles the data throughput of its predecessor, while implementing new features and enhancements to reach new application performance levels. An established leader in developing SAS SSDs, KIOXIA delivers never-before-seen SAS SSD performance and is the only SSD supplier to offer protection and recovery from two simultaneous die failures in an SSD. The PM6 Series builds upon this history of best-in-class performance and reliability over six generations of SAS drives.

“SAS technology continues to be the interface of choice for many workloads for its reliability and 24x7 operation in the enterprise data center,” noted Jeff Janukowicz, research vice president, IDC. “With the launch of the PM6 Series, KIOXIA should be well positioned to deliver on the higher performance and additional features that 24G SAS will provide to server and storage applications.”

Featuring KIOXIA’s 96-layer BiCS FLASH™ 3D TLC flash memory, the PM6 Series delivers industry-leading SAS SSD sequential read performance of up to 4,300 megabytes per second (MB/s) / 4,101 mebibytes per second (MiB/s), which is more than a 2x improvement over existing SAS drives. KIOXIA’s new drives are available in capacities up to 30.72 terabytes (TB), making them the industry’s highest capacity1 2.5”2 SAS SSD.

Key features include:

  • Flexible configuration options: single and wide port, or dual-port for high availability
  • Full range of endurance options for a wide variety of workloads: read-intensive (1 DWPD3), mixed-use (3 DWPD) and write-intensive (10 DWPD)
  • Multistream write support to reduce write amplification and extend endurance
  • Full suite of security options available: sanitize instant erase (SIE)4, TCG Enterprise self-encrypting drive (SED)5 and FIPS 140-26 certification


As with any new technology generation, a successful shift from 12G to 24G SAS relies on ecosystem enablement and readiness for end-customer deployment. “Broadcom is pleased to work with KIOXIA to bring 24G SAS to the market,” said Rick Kutcipal, device ecosystem lead, Data Center Solution Group, Broadcom. “Our early compatibility and interoperability testing is vital to ensure a smooth transition to the next generation of any SSD technology. Successful early testing with the KIOXIA PM6 device, our 9600 series RAID, I/O Tri-Mode controllers, and 24G SAS expanders demonstrates that this solution will provide customers with the full SAS reliability and performance they have come to expect in their server business-critical applications.”

“Microchip has worked closely with KIOXIA to complete the industry’s first successful 24G SAS end-to-end storage interoperability testing,” said Andrew Dieckmann, associate vice president of Microchip’s Data Center Solutions business unit. “Testing was conducted using KIOXIA’s PM6 Series and Microchip's suite of 24G capable SAS Expanders, SmartROC 3200 and SmartIOC 2200 controller products. The 24G SAS ecosystem is ready to deliver the needed performance, security, and reliability required for next-generation cloud hyperscale and traditional enterprise server storage solutions.”

“KIOXIA has one of the broadest SSD portfolios in the industry, and we are proud to lead the transition to SAS-4,” noted Alvaro Toledo, vice president of SSD marketing and product planning at KIOXIA America, Inc. “By building our PM6 Series around 24G SAS technology, we’re once again raising the bar for enterprise storage performance, reliability and data protection.”

PM6 drives are now available for evaluation and qualification. For more information, please visit americas.kioxia.com/en-us/business/ssd.

About KIOXIA America, Inc.
KIOXIA America, Inc. (formerly Toshiba Memory America, Inc.) is the U.S.-based subsidiary of KIOXIA Corporation, a leading worldwide supplier of flash memory and solid state drives (SSDs). From the invention of flash memory to today’s breakthrough BiCS FLASH™ 3D technology, KIOXIA continues to pioneer cutting-edge memory solutions and services that enrich people's lives and expand society's horizons. The company's innovative 3D flash memory technology, BiCS FLASH, is shaping the future of storage in high-density applications, including advanced smartphones, PCs, SSDs, automotive, and data centers. For more information, please visit KIOXIA.com.

Notes:
1 Source: KIOXIA Corporation, as of June 16, 2020. Based on a KIOXIA market survey of publicly available information.

2 "2.5-inch" indicates the form factor of the SSD. It does not indicate drive's physical size.

3 DWPD: Drive Write(s) Per Day. One full drive write per day means the drive can be written and re-written to full capacity once a day every day under the specified workload for the specified lifetime. Actual results may vary due to system configuration, usage and other factors.

4 SIE: Sanitize Instant Erase option supports Crypto Erase, which is a standardized feature defined by the technical committees (T10) of INCITS (the InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards).

5 SED: Self-Encrypting Drive option supports TCG Enterprise SSC.

6 FIPS: Federal Information Processing Standards drives are validated as FIPS 140-2 Level 2, which defines security requirements for cryptographic module by the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology).

All other company names, product names and service names may be trademarks of their respective companies.

Definition of capacity: KIOXIA Corporation defines a megabyte (MB) as 1,000,000 bytes, a gigabyte (GB) as 1,000,000,000 bytes and a terabyte (TB) as 1,000,000,000,000 bytes. A computer operating system, however, reports storage capacity using powers of 2 for the definition of 1Gb = 2^30 bits = 1,073,741,824 bits, 1GB = 2^30 bytes = 1,073,741,824 bytes and 1TB = 2^40 bytes = 1,099,511,627,776 bytes and therefore shows less storage capacity. Available storage capacity (including examples of various media files) will vary based on file size, formatting, settings, software and operating system, and/or pre-installed software applications, or media content. Actual formatted capacity may vary.

KiB: A kibibyte (KiB) means 210, or 1,024 bytes, a mebibyte (MiB) means 220, or 1,048,576 bytes, and a gibibyte (GiB) means 230, or 1,073,741,824 bytes.

  • Information in this press release, including product pricing and specifications, content of services, and contact information is current and believed to be accurate on the date of the announcement, but is subject to change without prior notice. Technical and application information contained here is subject to the most recent applicable KIOXIA product specifications.