FADU moves the file system into its SSD so remote hosts can read files without server CPUs
The approach is still in development, and FADU's early results come from a preliminary test and an emulator rather than finished hardware.
FADU, a Seoul-based SSD controller designer, unveiled its File-Semantic SSD (FS-SSD) at the 2026 OCP Global Summit, a design that moves the file system into the drive so GPUs, DPUs and NICs can read files without a host filesystem or storage-server CPU. In its own preliminary NFS-over-NVMe test on a Gen6 drive in a PCIe 5.0 host, remote file throughput stayed near 460,000 ops/s as server cores dropped from 16 to one, which the company contrasts with Linux NFS-over-RDMA. The company's fio prototype figures were run on NVMeVirt, an open-source SSD emulator, and FADU says it expects partner samples by Q3 2027, with Gen6-host results targeted for Q1 2027. The technology remains under active development, so the performance and write amplification figures should be read as early and unverified.
Why it matters
If the design works at scale, storage servers could hand file access to the drive and free much of their CPU capacity, which would matter to anyone running large file-serving workloads. For now the evidence is limited: FADU expects partner samples by Q3 2027, the throughput figures come from a preliminary NFS-over-NVMe test, and the prototype results were produced on an open-source SSD emulator rather than real hardware. The write amplification gain also comes from a research prototype, so it should be treated as unverified.
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Sources
- Tom's Hardware