Solid-state drives (SSDs) are becoming more commonly used in hyper-scale and enterprise computing environments. And because SSDs are made from flash memory, they can be built in many different form factors.
A new form factor in the Enterprise SSD market is quickly becoming adopted in rack storage called Enterprise and Data Center SSD Form Factors, or EDSFF for short. The most popular of these new form factors is the E1.S, a flexible and power-efficient building block designed for hyper-scale, enterprise computer nodes, and storage. Here’s why it’s becoming so popular.
What is E1.S?
At first glance, an E1.S SSD looks pretty much like the SSD industry’s standard M.2 drive, but don’t be fooled by appearances. The E1.S is much more than your average form factor.
When first released, the M.2 form factor was popular in hyper-scale data centers due to its small size, low-cost structure, flexibility, and scalability of multiple drives per server. But the M.2 form factor is not hot-pluggable and challenging to service. The M.2 form factor dimensions are also not ideal to fully utilize the space available in a 1U rack height (1.75″) for storage capacity. The E1.S solves these problems while still maintaining a small form factor. For more information about different SSD form factors, see this quick guide from SNIA.
Why you should adopt E1.S for your rack storage?
There are many reasons why E1.S SSDs are better suited to rack storage than M.2 2280 SSDs.
1. Perfect dimensions for rack storage
The first is size. The E1.S printed circuit board dimensions are designed to fit optimally within a 1U height rack storage server, something the M.2 2280 form factor was not designed to do. For the record, The E1.S SSD board dimensions are 31.5mm wide, 111.49mm long, but they come in varying thicknesses.
Those thicknesses are important. E1.S has five thickness options defined at 5.9mm, 8.01mm, 9.5mm, 15mm, and 25mm. The 5.9mm thickness is the size of the printed circuit board itself with semiconductor chips installed. But the thicker sizes allow for different heat sink cases, another critical difference between the E1.S and the M.2.
2. Save money with thermal efficiency
Heat sinks dissipate the heat generated by the power that is used to operate the SSD. The greater the performance of an SSD, the more energy you need to operate the SSD. This energy is converted into heat as the SSD operates and needs to be dissipated from the SSD to prevent it from burning out. By including heatsinks in the E1.S design, the problem of overheating is largely avoided. Less heat means lower cooling requirements, thus reducing the overall costs of maintaining rack-mounted storage over time.
3. Greater storage capacity
But the dimensions of the E1.S are not just about storage space and thermal efficiency. The long length of 111.49mm offers more space on the printed circuit board to fit more NAND package chips, enabling higher capacity SSDs, so you get more bang for your buck.
4. Easy to service and replace
Finally, the E1.S board definition also includes improvements to serviceability, including health indicator LEDs and the ability to be hot-pluggable. IT managers can quickly identify failed E1.S boards and replace them by hot-plugging a replacement board without powering off the system, something you can’t easily do with M.2s.
Conclusion
When SSDs were first manufactured, they were designed using form-factors similar to HDDs. After all, it’s human nature to stick to what you know. But now SDDs are diverging from HDDs to take advantage of the unique qualities that SDDs have over HDDs, and the E1.S form-factor is undoubtedly more suited as a rack storage solution than M.2. It should come as no surprise that not only all the leading SSD manufacturers that own NAND fabs, but also Phison, now have demonstrated designs for their own E1.S SSDs. So, with all the obvious benefits of using E1.S SSDs in your rack storage solution, it’s not a matter of asking yourself why you should upgrade to E1.S SSDs, but when.
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