Today, Kioxia has showcased the next-gen first PCIe 5.0 x4 CD7-Series prototype SSD. The PCIe 5.0 x4 interface will offer a maximum available bandwidth of 16 GB/sec.
The prototype will utilize a 2.5-inch EDSFF E3S form-factor and will offer an 8-channel controller for data center applications or a 16-channel controller for enterprise-class deployments in 1.6GB to 30TB capacities. Kioxia will later produce CD7-Series SSDs using a standard PCIe 5.0 NVMe interface more familiar to consumers.
Kioxia compared its CM6 PCI-E 4.0 SSD with its new prototype SSD in the slides presented at China Flash Market Summit. The CM6 PCIe 4.0 SSD maxed out at 6,900 MB/sec in sequential reads and 4,200 MB/sec for sequential writes, while the PCIe 5.0 prototype went up to 14,000 MB/sec in sequential read speeds.
Unfortunately, the prototype’s sequential read speeds maxed out at 7,000 MB/sec, which the fastest PCIe 4.0 SSD can easily achieve. Marvell said that its Bravera SC5 PCIe 5.0 SSD controller can deliver up to 14 GB/sec reads and 9 GB/sec writes, respectively.
Do consider that Kioxia showcased a prototype, and there is a possibility that the performance might improve in the consumer version.
The company claims if everything goes as per plan, then we can expect the SSDs to ship in Q4 2021.