Samsung 800GB SZ985 Z-SSD to Compete With Intel Optane

Samsung Electronics America, Inc. launched an 800GB SD, the SZ985 Z-SSD, for enterprise applications including supercomputing for AI analysis.

800GB SZ985 Z-SSD

The Z-SSD will offer a new level of storage for AI, big data and IoT applications, based on its performance, reliability and low latency.

Developed in 2017, the 800GB Z-SSD provides a storage solution for high-speed cache data and log data processing, as well as other enterprise storage applications that are being designed to meet growing demand within the AI, big data and IoT markets.

“With our leading-edge 800GB Z-SSD, we expect to contribute significantly to market introductions of next-generation supercomputing systems in the near future, enabling improved IT investment efficiency and exceptional performance,” said Jinman Han, SVP, memory product planning and application engineering, Samsung Electronics. “We will continue to develop next-generation Z-SSDs with higher density and greater product competitiveness, in order to lead the industry in accelerating growth of the premium SSD* market.”

This single port, four-lane Z-SSD features Z-NAND chips that provide ten times higher cell read performance than 3-bit V-NAND chips, along with 1.5GB LPDDR4 DRAM and a high performance controller. Armed with some of advanced components, the 800GB Z-SSD features 1.7 times faster random read performance at 750,000 IO/s, and five times less write latency – at 16μs, compared to an NVMe SSD PM963, which is based on 3-bit V-NAND chips. The Z-SSD also delivers a random write speed of up to 170,000 IO/s.

Due to its reliability, the 800GB Z-SSD guarantees up to 30 drive writes per day (DWPD) for five years, or a total of 42PB. That translates into storing a total of about 8.4 million 5GB-equivalent full-HD movies during a five-year period. The reliability of the new Z-SSD is further underscored by a MTBF of two million hours.

The company will introduce its Z-SSD in 800GB and 240GB versions, as well as related technologies at ISSCC 2018 (International Solid-State Circuits Conference), to be held February 11-15 in San Francisco, CA.