SNIA Developer Conference September 15-17, 2025 | Santa Clara, CA
Does Gen6x4 Make Sense for SSDs Claiming 25W Due to Standard Form Factor Recommendations
Salon VI
Mon Sep 18 | 9:30am
Abstract
Should SSDs supporting power states higher than the maximum TDP dissipation supportable in a system? Many industry standards for drive form factors are targeting <=25W, but will Gen6 SSDs be viable in a x4 configuration or will these form factors be abandoned? What is proposed is a framework currently supported in NVMe and OCP's Datacenter NVMe SSD Specification of allowing enhanced latencies in cases where there is thermal margin above the maximum TDP of the form factor using either host orchestrated NVMe power state management or device orchestrated Host Controlled Thermal Management. The topic will also explore some enhanced terminology around thermal and electrical power limits to help facilitate the discussion.
Learning Objectives
- Burst power about maximum TDP power with thermal margin offers enhanced storage latency upside
- Terminology around thermal power, average electrical power, and peak electrical power are all measured in Watts but measure very different attributes
- There are options to support Gen6x4 performance and latency to real workloads within a 25W form factor
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