Enterprise NVMe Round-Up 2: SK Hynix, Samsung, DapuStor and DERA
by Billy Tallis on February 14, 2020 11:15 AM EST
Last fall, several enterprise SSD vendors reached out to us around the same time, offering review samples of their latest and greatest. We put together an updated test suite for enterprise and datacenter SSDs and spent more than a month hammering the drives. Our review of two SATA drives was published first, but this review of 9 NVMe drives is what we've really been looking forward to. These multi-TB drives show just how far NVMe can go beyond the limits of SATA and SAS SSDs.
Two of the products we're looking at today come from familiar manufacturers. Samsung is the dominant player in the SSD market, shipping more drives than the next three companies combined. We have their PM1725a in house: an older flagship model, but still the fastest we've ever tested with almost twice the random read performance of an Intel Optane SSD. SK Hynix sent over their PE6011, a low-power entry-level datacenter U.2 drive that is part of their strategy to reestablish a foothold in market segments where they have faltered in recent years.
We also have two new brands featured in one of our reviews for the first time. DapuStor and DERA are two Chinese drive manufacturers that have been around for a few years but have until recently been focusing on their domestic market. DERA's strategy is more centered around developing home-grown technology to compete with foreign suppliers by designing their own SSD controller. DapuStor worked with familiar names like Marvell and Kioxia/Toshiba to create datacenter SSDs focused on efficiency, while also pursuing a long-term roadmap toward advanced in-house tech.
Nine new drives adding up to 40TB of high-end storage might seem like a lot, but it's barely enough to to cover the breadth of the enterprise SSD market. No two of these models are in direct competition. Enterprise SSD product segments can be defined in terms of form factor, write endurance, capacity and performance. Different use cases will call for a different kind of drive, and there's no one size fits all solution.
| Reviewed Models Overview (Drives Tested in Bold) |
|||||||
| Model | Interface | Form Factor | Capacities | Memory | Write Endurance (DWPD) |
||
| DapuStor Haishen3 H3000 |
PCIe 3.0 x4 | 2.5" 15mm U.2 | 1 TB 2 TB 4 TB 8 TB |
96L 3D TLC | 1 DWPD | ||
| DapuStor Haishen3 H3100 |
PCIe 3.0 x4 | 2.5" 15mm U.2 | 800 GB 1.6 TB 3.2 TB 6.4 TB |
96L 3D TLC | 3 DWPD | ||
| DERA D5437 |
PCIe 3.0 x4 | 2.5" 15mm U.2 | 2 TB 4 TB 8 TB |
64L 3D TLC | 1 DWPD | ||
| DERA D5457 |
PCIe 3.0 x4 | 2.5" 15mm U.2 | 1.6 TB 3.2 TB 6.4 TB |
64L 3D TLC | 3 DWPD | ||
| SK Hynix PE6011 |
PCIe 3.0 x4 | 2.5" 7mm U.2 | 960 GB 1.92 TB 3.84 TB 7.68 TB |
72L 3D TLC | 1 DWPD | ||
| Samsung PM1725a |
PCIe 3.0 x8 | HHHL AIC | 1.6 TB 3.2 TB 6.4 TB |
48L 3D TLC | 5 DWPD | ||
| Previously Reviewed by AnandTech: | |||||||
| Micron 5100 MAX |
SATA | 2.5" 7mm | 240 GB 480 GB 960 GB 1.92 TB |
32L 3D TLC | 5 DWPD | ||
| Samsung 883 DCT |
SATA | 2.5" 7mm | 240 GB 480 GB 960 GB 1.92 TB 3.84 TB |
64L 3D TLC | 0.8 DWPD | ||
| Samsung 983 DCT |
PCIe 3.0 x4 | 2.5" 7mm U.2 | 960 GB 1.92 TB |
64L 3D TLC | 0.8 DWPD | ||
| Intel DC P4510 |
PCIe 3.0 x4 | 2.5" 15mm U.2 | 1 TB 2 TB 4 TB 8 TB |
64L 3D TLC | 0.7–1.1 DWPD | ||
| Intel Optane DC P4800X |
PCIe 3.0 x4 | HHHL AIC | 375 GB 750 GB 1.5 TB |
3D XPoint | 60 DWPD | ||
| Memblaze PBlaze5 C916 |
PCIe 3.0 x8 | HHHL AIC | 3.2 TB 6.4 TB |
64L 3D TLC | 3 DWPD | ||
| Note: Tested capacities are shown in bold | |||||||
To provide some more meaningful comparisons, we've retested and included several other enterprise SSDs from previous reviews.
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33 Comments
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James5mith - Monday, February 17, 2020 - link
"... but I would gladly purchase a high performance 16TB SSD."Then do so. They aren't ridiculously priced anymore. It's $2000-$4000 per drive depending on manufacturer and interface type.
What is stopping you?
The Micro 9300 Pro 15.36TB is ~$3000 on average. That's a U.2. interface drive. Too slow?
eek2121 - Monday, February 17, 2020 - link
The lack of an M.2 offering? I have yet to find a single 16 TB M.2 SSD available for retail purchase. I have no problem plunking down a few thousand (provided the performance is comparable to Samsung's offerings).CrystalCowboy - Tuesday, February 18, 2020 - link
Most enterprise drives come either in U.2 or in PCIe. And you can buy PCIe-U.2 adapters.CrystalCowboy - Tuesday, February 18, 2020 - link
For that matter, M.2 - U.2 adapters are available and cheap.NV_Me - Friday, February 14, 2020 - link
Thanks for all of the insights Billy! BTW I like the addition of the drop down selection on top,For the PE6011, what is the TBW on either the 1.92TB or 7.68TB drive? I was curious to know if this was a true "1 DWPD" drive.
Billy Tallis - Friday, February 14, 2020 - link
The full spec sheet for the PE6011 just says 1.0 DWPD. It doesn't list TBW.NV_Me - Friday, February 14, 2020 - link
Next time would it be possible to RANK the charts high-low or low-high for improved readability?Hul8 - Saturday, February 15, 2020 - link
If you retain the order, it's easier to compare performance of particular drives by glancing from one chart to the next. That's important with a 9-drive roundup.Normally when they're doing a single product review, that product is highlighted in one color, and it's predecessors or alteratives with another. In that case those items can always be easily spotted in a ranked graph.
JohnLee-SZ - Friday, February 14, 2020 - link
Thanks very much Billy, it's a great review! We DapuStor are continuing developing the whole product portfolio and hope we can deliver some great products to fulfill industry needs.CrystalCowboy - Tuesday, February 18, 2020 - link
PCIe 3.0? Are we supposed to take this seriously?