Kioxia unveils LD4 E1.L SSDs for hyperscale data centers
The new drives are sampling now, with a validated design that scales to 122.88TB for read-heavy storage systems.
Kioxia has introduced LD4-series E1.L SSDs aimed at hyperscale data centers, with a validated design for up to 122.88TB and current sampling at 15.36TB and 30.72TB. The drives target read-heavy uses such as AI data repositories and object storage, but Kioxia has not published performance, endurance, or power figures yet. They use BiCS8 3D QLC NAND and a platform aligned with NVMe 2.0e plus parts of the Open Compute Project Datacenter NVMe SSD spec 2.6. Kioxia also says the drives are PCIe 5.0 compliant on paper but run at PCIe 4.0 x4 speeds, and the company plans to show them at the OCP Global Summit in San Jose in mid-October.
Why it matters
For hyperscale operators, the main change is capacity: Kioxia is offering a large-form-factor SSD line built for dense, read-heavy workloads such as AI data repositories and object storage. The drives are still short on public detail for performance, endurance and power, so buyers and planners do not yet have the full picture they would normally need for evaluation.
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Sources
- Tom's Hardware