SMART Modular Introduces 50TB MLC-Based SSD

Smart Modular introduced a new drive and called it the Osmium Drive. And what a drive it is, wow. 50TB MLC-based SAS solid state drive goodness in a classic 3.5-inch form factor.

“We’re excited to offer an ultra-high-capacity SAS drive to the market,” states Mike McClimans, Sr. Director, Flash Product Line. “With the Osmium Drive, IT managers overseeing data centres have an option to migrate to a Flash drive that not only consumes less space per terabyte versus HDDs, but provides increased reliability and bandwidth, and extends the capacity limits of their current infrastructure.”

The Osmium Drive Is Larger Than Usual, in Every Way

Smart Modular’s Osmium Drive has gone up a step from the usual 2.5-inch form factor and used the larger 3.5-inch form factor that we usually only know mechanical hard drives from. The extra internal space allows Smart Modular to add all the extra capacity, and there is a lot of it. 50TB capacity in a single drive, that’s impressive. Those who don’t need as big a capacity can get the smaller 25TB version, which still is a lot of capacity in a form factor that otherwise tops out at 12TB in the mechanical sector.

Connectivity and Performance

An enterprise drive like this needs the right connections, and it does have those. The Osmium Drive features SAS-2 connectivity with support for SAS 6, 3, and 1.5Gbps on both ports, and that includes full duplex operations.

The performance isn’t anything impressive as such, especially not when we look at how unusual the drive is when compared to ordinary drives. The Osmium Drive can read with up to 472MB/s and write with up to 325MB/s Write. The random performance is rated at 60,000/15,000 IOPS (4KB). While that isn’t a lot when compared to the fastest drives, it’s still a lot when compared to large-capacity mechanical drives.

Power Consumption and Reliability

The Osmium Drive is extremely reliable with a < 1 sector per 1017 bits read UBER and an MTBF of 1.5 million hours. It contains power loss protection, endurance is unlimited for five years, and data retention is 12 months. It is also durable with operating and nonoperating shock of 1000G (0.5ms), 50G (2ms) and operating and non-operating vibration of 2.16 grams, 5-700Hz, 3 axis.

At the same time, the Osmium Drive is the market leader with an impressive energy efficiency of less than 0.4W per TB, during operation.