The solutions include one that is powering the Toshiba Memory native NVMe-oF Ethernet solid state drive (SSD) with Marvell’s NVMe-oF SSD converter controller, delivering what is believed to be the world’s first direct-to-Ethernet SSD, while the second is a landmark Marvell NVMe-oF Ethernet SSD controller, which has been optimised to accelerate SSD makers’ time to market and drive broad data centre adoption of Ethernet Bunch of Flash (EBOF) architectures.
As the demand for data continues to accelerate so the demand for greater storage bandwidth and capacity within infrastructure is rising and customers are faced with dealing with increased power consumption, design complexity and system costs.
With the advent of NVMe and NVMe-oF, data centres are migrating from older, legacy protocols to new methods of accessing storage media. By using a simple, low power and compute-less Ethernet fabric instead of a traditional PCIe approach, data centres can optimise their infrastructure and make hardware investments far more cost-effectively in the face of increasing storage requirements.
Marvell first announced its Ethernet-based technology at last year’s Flash Memory Summit, and the technology is being advanced by multiple storage end users, server and storage system OEMs and SSD makers.
The new Toshiba Memory 2.5” in-form factor Ethernet SSD is the first market-ready product to integrate Marvell’s NVMe-oF SSD converter controller technology. These SSDs can be used with Marvell’s Ethernet switch products, enabling optimal storage disaggregation, eliminating costly CPU and DRAM components and increasing overall data centre storage performance.
“Today’s milestone continues our relationship with Marvell and reflects our shared vision of bringing to market innovative, Ethernet-based solutions to optimise scalability, flexibility and overall data centre manageability,” said Alvaro Toledo, vice president, SSD marketing & product planning for Toshiba Memory America. “Our 2.5-inch form factor, dual-ported 25GbE NVMe-oF Ethernet SSD demonstration built with BiCS FLASH 3D flash memory leverages Marvell’s NVMe-oF converter controller, and enables seamless capacity, scalability and outstanding performance.”
Building on strong market demand, Marvell has also unveiled an even more highly integrated solution for the scalable, high-performance disaggregation of storage from compute with the industry-first NVMe-oF Ethernet controller. Marvell’s solution looks to enable a new class of enterprise and data centre SSDs that will significantly lower total cost of ownership (TCO). The NVMe-oF Ethernet SSD controller, 88SS5000, fully integrates with Marvell’s data centre Ethernet switches including the Prestera family of packet processors, bringing to market a next-generation infrastructure solution for moving, processing, storing and securing data.
“Our new NVMe-oF Ethernet SSD controller represents another industry first from Marvell and marks a key milestone in advancing our end-to-end Ethernet storage strategy,” said Nigel Alvares, vice president of marketing for the Flash Business Unit at Marvell Semiconductor. “By integrating the powerful capabilities of our NVMe-oF Ethernet technology with our best-in-class SSD controller technology, our customers will benefit from substantial reductions in power, space and overall cost. We look forward to continued ecosystem collaboration for broad adoption of our disruptive EBOF architecture.”
