Solidigm Unveils First Liquid-Cooled Enterprise SSD With Built-In Cold Plate
▼ Summary
– Solidigm has launched the industry’s first liquid-cooled enterprise SSD, the D7-PS1010, featuring a hot-swappable E1.S form factor with a wraparound cold plate for direct cooling.
– The SSD is targeted at AI servers using Direct-Attached Storage, with a partnership highlighted with Supermicro for integration into its Nvidia HGX B300-based servers.
– The liquid-cooling design cools both sides of the PCB, improving thermal efficiency and potentially enabling fanless server storage bays for more compact rack units.
– Available in 3.84 TB and 7.68 TB capacities using 176-layer TLC NAND, the SSD is being qualified with multiple hardware manufacturers for broader adoption.
– Performance specifications include sequential read/write speeds of 14,500/8,400 MB/s, endurance of 1 drive write per day, and a 2.5-million-hour MTBF with a five-year warranty.
Solidigm has launched what it claims is the first liquid-cooled enterprise SSD designed specifically for modern AI infrastructure. The new D7-PS1010 arrives in the compact E1.S form factor with a PCIe 5.0 interface, but its standout feature is an integrated wraparound cold plate. This design incorporates hose connectors at each end, enabling direct liquid cooling of both the controller and NAND flash memory chips. The drive is built to be hot-swappable, simplifying maintenance compared to more complex liquid-cooling setups.
Aimed squarely at AI servers utilizing Direct-Attached Storage (DAS), the drive is already part of a collaboration with Supermicro. The server maker indicates the E1.S version is an ideal match for its high-performance systems based on Nvidia’s HGX B300 platform. By cooling both sides of the PCB simultaneously, the D7-PS1010 achieves significantly better thermal efficiency than conventional air-cooled SSDs. This approach could allow server designers to eliminate fans from storage bays entirely, paving the way for denser, more power-efficient rack configurations.
Available in two capacity points, the drive comes in a 3.84 TB model with a 9.5 mm thickness and a 7.68 TB version at 15 mm. Both utilize 176-layer TLC NAND. While currently offered in the E1.S form factor, the underlying cooling technology could eventually appear in longer E1.L designs. Solidigm notes it is actively working with several OEM and ODM partners to qualify these drives for integration into future server platforms.
Performance specifications align with expectations for a modern enterprise SSD tuned for read-intensive applications. Sequential read speeds reach up to 14,500 MB/s, with writes hitting 8,400 MB/s. Random read performance is notably high at 3.2 million IOPS, while random writes are rated at 315,000 IOPS. Endurance is specified at 1 drive write per day over a five-year warranty period, totaling 7 petabytes written, and the drive carries a mean time between failures rating of 2.5 million hours.
As AI data centers grapple with enormous power and cooling demands, innovations in thermal management become increasingly critical. The move toward direct liquid cooling for storage represents a logical step in the evolution of high-density computing, potentially foreshadowing a future where entire data centers, including storage, rely on liquid cooling solutions.
(Source: Tom’s Hardware)
