Xinnor and Solidigm Demonstrate 10x Faster RAID Rebuild Performance with xiRAID on High-Density QLC Drives

Xinnor Ltd. and Solidigm announced the publication of joint research demonstrating breakthrough performance in RAID rebuild operations for high-density QLC drives.

The study, titled Accelerating RAID Rebuild and Reducing Write Amplification on High Density Solidigm QLC Drives with xiRAID, shows that Xinnor’s xiRAID software-based RAID solution delivers 10x faster rebuild performance compared to traditional Linux OS RAID (mdraid) implementations.

The research addresses critical enterprise concerns about deploying high-capacity QLC drives in RAID configurations, particularly the time required to rebuild failed drives and the associated risks of prolonged degraded operation. Using Solidigm’s 61.44TB D5-P5336 QLC SSDs, the study demonstrates that xiRAID can rebuild a failed drive in just 5 hours and 22 minutes without host workload, compared to 53 hours and 40 minutes with mdraid.

“As organizations embrace AI workloads and demand massive storage capacities, the combination of performance and reliability becomes paramount,” said Davide Villa, CRO, Xinnor. “Our collaboration with Solidigm proves that high-density QLC drives paired with optimized software RAID can deliver both the capacity, performance and reliability organizations need, eradicating the challenge of operating for prolonged period of time in degraded mode due to extensive rebuild time.“

The study’s findings are particularly significant as the storage industry shifts focus from pure performance metrics to performance-per-watt and capacity-per-watt optimization where massive capacity QLC drives shine, driven by power constraints in AI deployments and data center expansion.

Key results include:

10x faster rebuild without host workload: xiRAID rebuilt 61.44TB drives in 5h 22m versus 53h 40m with mdraid
30x faster rebuild with concurrent host workload: xiRAID maintained 316MB/s rebuild speed under active workload versus 10.5MB/s with mdraid
Superior write amplification factor (WAF): xiRAID achieved 1.02 WAF during rebuild versus 1.2 with mdraid
Sustained host performance: xiRAID delivered 44GB/s read and 13GB/s write performance during rebuild operations

The research demonstrates that concerns about rebuild times for high-capacity drives are largely unfounded when using properly optimized software RAID solutions. While mdraid would require over 67 days to rebuild a 61.44TB drive under host workload, xiRAID completes the same operation in approximately 54 hours while maintaining robust host application performance.

The study utilized a comprehensive test methodology involving Dell PowerEdge R760 systems with Xeon Gold 6430 processors and 10 Solidigm D5-P5336 61.44TB drives in RAID-5 configurations. The research measured both rebuild performance and write amplification under various conditions, providing enterprise architects with concrete data for deployment planning.

FMS 2025
Dmitry Livshits, CEO, Xinnor, and Sarika Mehta, senior storage solutions architect, Solidigm, will present these findings at FMS: The Future of Memory and Storage conference, taking place August 5-7, 2025, in Santa Clara, CA.

Resources:
Joint research paper is available for download on both companies’ websites:
Xinnor
Solidigm