Seagate demonstrates fastest ever SSD at 10GB/s Written by Gareth Halfacree Companies: #seagate

Storage specialist Seagate has announced a breakthrough in high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs): a production-ready design which can hit a high of 10GB/s throughput.



Designed for data centre and high-performance computing (HPC) tasks and compatible with the Open Compute Project (OCP) specification, the unnamed Seagate device connects to a host machine through Non Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) - of which it uses all 16 available PCI Express lanes for a grand total real-world throughput of 10GB/s, or 80Gb/s, some 4GB/s higher than the previous industry leader. The company has also confirmed that a pared-down variant designed for eight lanes and capable of 6.7GB/s total sustained throughput will also be made available, with both designs currently in testing with selected customers ahead of general availability this summer.



'Your data is only as good as how easily you can access it and put it to use,' claimed Brett Pemble, Seagate’s general manager and vice president of SSD Products at the company. 'Seagate is committed to providing the full spectrum of technologies to help meet the diverse needs of organizations so they can unlock this value. Whether for consumer cloud or business applications, this SSD will help improve on demands for fast access to information, where split seconds drive incremental value gains.'



The drive is compatible with any NVMe system, with Seagate suggesting the device would be ideal for high-performance object storage in tasks including large-scale cloud applications, weather modelling, and statistical trends analysis, as either part of an all-flash array or a high-speed caching tier in partnership with traditional mechanical hard drives.



While Seagate claims the 16-lane drive is production ready with the 8-lane version close behind, the company is so far silent on finalised specifications including capacity, IOPS, and under precisely what workloads users will see the peak 10GB/s throughput. The price is also as-yet unannounced.

