Samsung launches U.2 interface BM1743 data center-grade solid-state drive with a capacity of up to 61.44TB but uses QLC particles

Samsung Electronics launched the new SSD SamsungBM1743 in June. This SSD does not seem to attract much attention. After all, this is a data center-level SSD rather than a consumer-grade SSD. BM1743 is a solid-state drive specially designed by Samsung for read-intensive storage scenarios in data centers. The current maximum capacity is 61.44TB, and Samsung plans to launch a 120TB version in the future.

This solid-state drive uses the typical U.2 interface in data centers, and the protocol supports PCIe4.0/5.0x4. It uses Samsung's seventh-generation V-NANDQLC flash memory particles, with a continuous read speed of 7,200MB/sec and a continuous write speed of 2,000MB/sec.

In terms of 4KIOPS performance, the BM1743 has a random read rate of 1600K and a random write rate of 110K. This performance is actually not too high, but it should be enough for read-intensive storage scenarios.

The picture below is the U.2 regular version, which is a 2.5-inch ordinary SSD size:

Samsung hopes that this data center solid-state drive can be used for edge AI reasoning and content delivery. Currently, storage demand in the AI ​​field is increasing significantly. In addition to powerful GPUs, AI model providers also need to use better-performing solid-state drives to improve data read response time.

This solid-state drive mainly provides compatibility through the U.2 interface, but the PCIe5.0x4 version also provides an E3.S interface version, which is convenient for enterprises to deploy in servers of different specifications according to their own needs.

Samsung did not mention the power consumption of this solid-state drive at all in its press release. After all, this solid-state drive mainly provides massive storage and extremely high performance (compared to mechanical hard drives), so power consumption is not the focus.

The BM1743 is indeed attractive enough for enterprises and data center providers, because there are not many competitors on the market. Solid-state drives that also provide 61.44TB include Solidigm's D5-P5336 and Western Digital's WDSN655. These two solid-state drives also use PCIe interfaces.

Other solid-state drive manufacturers such as Kioxia, Micron, and SK Hynix have not launched 60TB+ solid-state drives yet, so only Samsung, Solidigm, and WD share this market.