Intel showcases Samsung’s PCIe 5.0 SSD with data speeds of up to 13GBps

Samsung is eying enterprises with a new PCIe Gen 5 solid-state drive (SSD) that was seen in action alongside Intel’s 12th gen Core i9 (Alder Lake) processor in a video demo by Ryan Shrout, the chief performance strategist at Intel ahead of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2022.  

According to Shrout, Intel had earlier planned the demo for CES 2022. 

Coined as PMI1743 PCIe NVMe, the new SSD can muster data transfer speeds of up to 13.8GBps, which makes it more than two times faster than the current PCIe Gen 4 SSD standard that offers data speeds of up to 5.5GBps and is used in some of the most powerful gaming consoles such as the Sony PlayStation 5.  

Though the new PCIe 5.0 SSD will be a huge upgrade for gamers and video editors handling 8K content, its more likely use case is going to be enterprise servers.   

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According to Samsung, in addition to offering faster read and write speeds, the new SSD offers improved power efficiency of up to 608 MB/s per watt, which makes it 30% more power-efficient than its predecessor. This would lower server operating costs significantly. Systems powered by the PCIe Gen 5 will provide a huge boost for AI/ML applications.  

The new SSD will be available in multiple variants starting with 1.92TB capacity to up to 15.36TB capacity. It will also be available in the conventional 2.5-inch form factor and 3-inch form factor that is used in enterprise servers and data centres.  

Also, the PMI1743 is the first PCIe 5.0 SSD with dual ports, which will ensure the server is available when the connection to one port fails.  

Intel is the first chipmaker to leverage and showcase its processor with the new PCIe 5.0 SSD. Samsung is expected to start the mass rollout of the new SSD in Q1 2022. Adata, Phison and Silicon Motion are some of the other companies in the memory space that are working on products based on the new PCIe 5.0 standard.