Flash Memory Summit: 1U All-Flash NVMe Storage System Supporting New Intel Ruler Form Factor SSDs by Supermicro

Super Micro Computer, Inc. showcased its petabyte scale all-flash NVMe system at Flash Memory Summit.

With a total of 32 ‘ruler’ form factor SSDs in a 1U system, this NVMe solution will provide all NVMe capacity at petabyte scale in 1U of rack space as the company plans to support 32TB Rulers in the near future. Compared to current U.2 SSD 2U storage systems, the ‘ruler’ form factor for Intel Corp.‘ SSDs delivers more than double the capacity per rack unit and is 40% more thermal efficient.

‘Ruler’ form factor SSD
(Source: Intel)

At FMS 2017, the company announced its role as a technology partner to Intel as the company rolls out its ‘ruler’ form factor technology. NVMe technology was developed to unleash the best possible latency and provide faster CPU to storage performance for advanced computing. The ‘ruler’ form factor optimizes rack efficiency, delivers space-efficient capacity, and simplifies serviceability.

“Our new ‘ruler’ based system with 32 ‘ruler’ form factor SSDs in 1U is the latest example of how Supermicro continues to push the innovation envelope for NVMe technology,” said Charles Liang, president and CEO, Supermicro. “With more than double the capacity and 40% more thermal efficiency, this Supermicro ‘ruler’ system will take us to Petabyte scale in a single 1U system in the near future – an unimaginable territory just a short time ago.“

“The ‘ruler’ form factor for Intel SSD is designed from the ground up with today’s data centers’ needs in mind, and brings dense storage and efficient management on a massive scale to the data center, breaking free from the legacy of HDDs and add-in cards,” said Bill Leszinske VP, strategic planning and business fevelopment, NVM solutions group, Intel. “We are excited to, once again, transform the way data is stored, build on our long history of storage innovation and see tomorrow’s groundbreaking solutions delivered today using this technology.“

X11 server and storage portfolio

With over 100 NVMe based platforms in its X11 server and storage portfolio, the firm is continuously extending its position as the technology provider in NVMe servers and storage. For example, the BigTwin system supports up to 24 NVMe drives in 2U as well as 24 memory modules per node.

“Supermicro provides industry leading support for RAM and NVMe density on the BigTwin model that we are deploying for the new Intel Xeon Scalable processors. These systems allow us to support up to six NVMe drives per node for a total of 24 NVMe drives in 2U. This addresses the rapidly increasing performance demands that our clients put on our platforms,” said William Bell, VP, products, PhoenixNAP LLC, a global organization that offers a wide portfolio of cloud, bare metal dedicated servers, c-olocation and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) solutions.

The company’s all-flash 32 drive NVMe 1U system supports both ‘ruler’ and U.2 form factors to offer customers increased storage flexibility. This 1U system will support a half petabyte of NVMe storage capacity this year and a petabyte early next year.

In addition, the firm has developed 1U and 2U Ultra servers with twenty directly attached NVMe SSDs. These X11 servers feature a non-blocking design, allocating 80 PCI-E lanes to the 20 NVMe SSDs. This approach provides the lowest possible latency and unleashes up to 18 million IO/s in throughput performance.