Usually when we hear about increasing SSD capacity, it’s a matter of increasing flash density on a given chip. Intel is certainly no slouch in this department of innovation, or at least they are able to keep pace with other players in the industry.

But for their push into petabyte flash capacity, Intel seems to have rethought the rules a bit. Instead of cramming more flash into traditional form factor, Intel has put flash into a form factor specifically designed for the data center. The result in the “Ruler” SSD. Given that standard 2.5 and 3.5-inch form factors are legacy of spinning disks, this form factor for 1U servers seems overdue.

If it were a smaller company than Intel, I’d say this design was pure marketing hype just to be able to make the petabyte claim. But I wouldn’t be surprised if Intel’s presence spurs adoption for the Ruler on a large scale.

KitGuru comments:

Intel has been pushing its storage division quite a bit this year. Not only have we seen the launch of Optane Memory and new SSDs based on that but today, Intel has unveiled its new SSD form factor dubbed ‘The Ruler’. This new extra long SSD is designed to bring petabyte (1,000TB) capacities, while also reducing power and the amount of cooling required. Right now, SSDs come in a few standard form factors, you get 2.5-inch, 3.5-inch, M.2 and from time to time, a PCIe SSD comes along. However, these form factors are still fairly limited in capacity. With the ‘Ruler’ design, Intel wants to bring 1PB (petabyte) capacity in a form factor compatible with a 1U server rack.

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