FMS: Lite-On Storage EP4 Series Enterprise Up to 1,9GB SSDs With 96-Layer BiCS Flash 3D eTLC NAND

Lite-On Storage announced the upcoming release of a successor to its EP series enterprise SSDs, EP4.

Disclosed during FMS, the 5th generation EP series takes advantage of 96-layer BiCS flash 3D eTLC NAND and its 15% performance improvement over previous generations. It comes in 960 and 1,920GB capacities and is for read-intensive applications with up to 2,200MB/s of sustained sequential read speed and 1,100MB/s of sequential write speed, and up to three Drive Writes per Day (DWPD) of endurance.

The EP4 SSD comes in a PCIe Gen 3×4 M.2 form factor and offers improved IO/s, a firmware refresh and features to assure stability, performance, energy efficiency and data security.

“The EP Series has been deployed and well adopted by worldwide data centers and hyperscalers because of our standout firmware, innovative hardware design and efficient manufacturing processes for several years“, said Darlo Perez, MD, Americas region, Lite-On Storage. “We’re now in the fifth generation of this remarkable series, and we continue to expand our firmware expertise to meet today and tomorrow’s cloud and data center environment challenges.“

“The SSD market is expected to see continued growth over the long-term forecast, reaching close to $30 billion by 2023, with the largest growing segments being enterprise cloud.” said Don Jeanette, VP and lead analyst, SSD research, Trendfocus. “Lite-On has successfully deployed over 10 million EP series SSDs into major data center and cloud providers. Undoubtedly, Lite-On has shown continued success in this fastest growing Enterprise Cloud segment.“

“Marvell is thrilled to extend our relationship with Lite-On to deliver innovative cloud data center SSDs. The EP4 showcases how scalable our NANDEdge controller technology is in enabling multiple generations of NAND components,” said Nigel Alvares, VP, marketing, flash business unit, Marvell Semiconductor, Inc. “The combination of Lite-On’s storage systems expertise with our best-in-class SSD controllers has a proven high-volume shipping track record into one of the world’s largest cloud data center operators and we look forward to continuing this success with the EP4 collaboration.“

Availability is slated for 4Q19.