Kioxia Enterprise and Data Center SSDs Qualified with Ampere CPU-Based Platforms

Kioxia America, Inc. has collaborated with Ampere Computing, LLC to qualify its CD6, CM6 and XD6 Series SSDs with platforms based on Ampere’s Altra and Ampere Altra Max cloud native processors. Certification testing was conducted by Ampere to ensure the compatibility and performance of Kioxia SSDs.

Kioxoa XD6 EDSFF E1.S SSDs, designed to optimize system density, efficiency and management, are among those now qualified with Ampere’s CPU-based platforms.

The most demanding data center workloads are using Arm-based servers, making it imperative that the SSDs deployed in them are up to the task. With a broad SSD product lineups for the data center, Kioxia drives address performance demands and latency sensitivities and also future enterprise infrastructure requirements.

To address the demands of the modern cloud, Ampere has designed a server microprocessor architecture. Its AArch64-based processors deliver performance, scalability, security, and power efficiency that is focused on hyperscale cloud and edge computing workloads and applications.

“At Ampere, our customers want solutions that fit their needs, and this includes SSD options that offer PCIe 4.0 performance and new form factors, such as EDSFF E1.S,” said Sean Varley, senior director of product marketing, Ampere. “We’ve worked with Kioxia to certify their broad offering of NVMe SSDs with our Ampere Altra family of platforms for our mutual customers, including the top hyperscale cloud customers and leading ODM/OEM server manufacturers in the global IT market.“

Kioxia CM6 and CD6 Series SSDs
The Kioxia lineup of PCIe 4.0 (16 gigatransfers/s x4) NVMe SSDs brings planned performance improvements of up to 2x over its PCIe 3.0 (8 gigatransfers/s x4) predecessors and is 12x faster than 6Gb SATA drives. CM6 enterprise and CD6 data center SSDs are SFF-TA-1001 conformant (also referred to as U.3) SSDs to support universal drive bay systems that can accept NVMe, SAS and SATA SSDs.

Kioxia XD6 Series SSDs
Representing an innovation in flash storage for servers in cloud and hyperscale data centers, EDSFF E1.S SSDs are designed to optimize system density, efficiency and management. As defined by the EDSFF consortium and leveraging the Open Compute Project (OCP) NVMe cloud SSD spec, the small form factor E1.S replaces the M.2 form factor and delivers greater density, performance, reliability, and thermal management. E1.S is also designed to be hot swappable for increased serviceability, which is another benefit over M.2. The read intensive XD6 series utilizes Kioxia BiCS Flash 3D flash memory and is compliant with NVMe 1.3c and PCIe 4.0 specs.

“We are eager to work with server ecosystem companies like Ampere to bring cutting-edge solutions to cloud and enterprise data centers,” noted Steve Weinger, senior director marketing, business development and ecosystems, Kioxia America. “Kioxia is focused on ensuring that our SSDs work with industry-leading hardware and software products to meet customer expectations at a system level.“

Kioxia has developed and collaborates with a broad ecosystem of companies to ensure interoperability and compatibility with Kioxia SSDs, and welcomes companies to learn more at its Ecosystem Members website.