New West Digital announced the start of tests SSD The company, which has a capacity of 64 TB for data centers, today introduced its next-generation solid state drive with a volume of 128 TB at FMS 2024. The SSD uses Kioxia’s BiCS8 QLC NAND memory and is primarily designed for: “fast AI data and high-performance applications.”

Show SSD The firmware has been optimized for AI checkpoints, a workload that involves sequential writes but also requires the drive to maintain a minimum level of service for simultaneous reads. Judging by the photo from the exhibit, the sequential write speed for this workload reaches 6.32 GB/s, while the simultaneous sequential read speed reaches 3.13 GB/s. Western Digital has yet to reveal other specifications for the new product, but judging by the exhibit sample, the drive will be produced in U.2 and U.3 form factors.

The 218-layer BiCS8 memory uses a hybrid CMOS circuit with direct-attachment to the array (CBA). This technology is the evolutionary successor to Micron’s CMOS-under-Array (CuA) and SK hynix’s Periphery-under-Cell (4D PUC) technologies. BiCS8 NAND can interact with the controller at speeds of up to 3600 MT/s, making it suitable for use in Gen 4+ drives.

Western Digital is not the only company developing high-performance SSDs with a capacity of 128TB. Samsung recently announced that it has the technology to create 120TB solid-state drives. Solidigm showcased its 122TB QLC SSD prototype at the FMS 2024 trade show.

AI workloads have become a new challenge for enterprise SSD vendors and an incentive to produce energy-efficient, high-speed, and high-capacity solid state drives with maximum placement density in the data center.