updated April 2025
NVM Express® technology is driving the next generation of SSDs for data centers. NVMe™ SSD are not limited by legacy form factors or protocols, and they can better address the needs of servers and storage in enterprise and hyperscale data centers. Each of these use cases has distinct requirements and application environments, and they are outlined in the table below. There will always be exceptions to these guidelines, but these are generally fit profiles for NVMe SSD classification.
More details on each of the classification use cases are provided in a revised NVMe SSD Classification White Paper which describes how NVMe SSDs are used in enterprise servers, enterprise storage, low latency SSD, data center/hyperscale servers, and data center/hyperscale storage environments. This classification may also apply to SATA and SAS SSDs.
NVMe SSD Classification | Enterprise Server | Enterprise Storage | Low Latency SSD | Data Center / Hyperscale Server | Data Center / Hyperscale Storage |
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Applications / Use Cases |
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| Read/Write Cache Tier 0 between DRAM and TLC SSD Write-intensive workloads Write logging (metadata) Low latency SSD plus QLC -lower TCO than TLC |
| Durable storage RAID EC JBOD/JBOF |
Form Factors | M.2->E1.S 2.5-inch (U.2) E3.S E3.L AIC |
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Power |
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Performance | High performance, read intensive and mixed workload class drives, and best in class performance | High performance, mixed workload, and best in class performance | High performance, write heavy workloads, and best in class performance | IOPS/TB scaling, mixed workloads | Read bandwidth, seq write (ZNS) |
Latency |
| Mixed workload QoS | 1/10 to 1/3 the latency of TLC SSDs | Read QoS, tail latencies | Read priority |
Endurance- Drive Writes per Day (DWPD) |
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| 30, 60, 100DWPD | <=1 DWPD | <1 DWPD |
Capacity | 1-8TB | 2-30TB | 375GB - 3200GB | 1-2TB > 4TB | 4-8TB TLC, >8TB QLC |
Management |
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| NVMe CLI (IB via SW) |
Features |
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SSD Vendor Examples | Enterprise Server | Enterprise Storage | Low Latency SSD | Data Center / Hyperscale Server | Data Center / Hyperscale Storage |
KIOXIA | CM7 Series | CM7 Series | FL6 Series | XD7P Series, CD8P Series | XD7P Series, CD8P Series |
Intel | P4510 (3.0), P5500 (4.0) | D4510 (3.0) | P5800 | P4510 (3.0) | P4326 (QLC, 3.0) |
Micron |
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| N/A |
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Samsung | PM1733/5, SZ1735 | PM1733/5, SZ1735 | SZ985 | PM9A3 | PM9A3 |