Samsung quietly launched its QLC BM1743 enterprise SSD last month with a hefty 61.44TB SKU. At FMS 2024, the company showed off an even larger version of that SSD with 122.88TB of capacity, along with some recorded benchmarking sessions. Compared to the previous generation, the BM1743 offers a 4.1x improvement in I/O performance, improved data retention, and a 45% improvement in power efficiency for sequential writes.
The 128TB QLC SSD boasts sequential read speeds of 7.5GBps and write speeds of 3GBps. Random reads clock in at 1.6M IOPS, while 16KB random writes clock in at 45K IOPS. Based on the reported random write access granularity, it appears Samsung is using a 16KB intermediate unit (IU) to optimize flash management. This is similar to the strategy Solidigm has adopted with IUs larger than 4K in its high-capacity SSDs.
The exhibition also featured a recorded test session of the company’s PM9D3a Gen 5 8-channel SSD.
The SSD family is promoted as a mainstream option for data centers and boasts sequential reads up to 12 GBps and writes up to 6.8 GBps. Random reads reach 2 M IOPS and random writes 400 K IOPS.
The drive is available in multiple form factors up to 32TB (M.2 maxes out at 2TB), and its firmware includes optional support for flexible data placement (FDP) to help solve the problem of write amplification.
The PM1753 is Samsung’s current flagship enterprise-class SSD. With support for 16 NAND channels and up to 32TB capacity, this U.2/E3.S SSD advertises sequential read and write speeds of 14.8GBps and 11GBps respectively. Random read and write for a 4KB access is listed at 3.4M and 600K IOPS.
Samsung claims that the performance and power efficiency of this drive have increased by 1.7 times compared to the previous generation (PM1743), making this TLC SSD suitable for AI servers.
9t Gen. V-NAND wafer was also available for viewing, although photography was prohibited. Mass production of this flash memory began in April 2024.
