{"id":8027,"date":"2021-12-21T09:24:00","date_gmt":"2021-12-21T07:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tekmart.co.za\/t-blog\/?p=8027"},"modified":"2021-12-21T09:24:02","modified_gmt":"2021-12-21T07:24:02","slug":"what-is-nvme-ssd-technology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tekmart.co.za\/t-blog\/what-is-nvme-ssd-technology\/","title":{"rendered":"What is NVMe SSD technology?"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading Time-approximately:<\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 3<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express) is a communications interface and driver that takes advantage of the increased bandwidth PCIe has to offer. <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>By Enterprise Technical Support<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The benefits of NVMe<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media.kingston.com\/kingston\/content\/nvme-logo.svg\" alt=\"NVME Logo\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>NVMe technology provides superior storage, superior speed and superior compatibility. Since NVMe utilises PCIe sockets, it transfers 25x more data than the SATA equivalent. Along with more data, NVMe\u2019s commands are 2x faster than that of AHCI drivers. In addition, NVMe input\/output operations per second (IOPS) exceeds 1 million and is up to 900% faster compared to AHCI drives. NVMe also communicates directly with the system CPU, giving it incredible speeds due to its compatibility. NVMe drives work with all major operating systems regardless of form factor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express) is a communications interface and driver that takes advantage of the increased bandwidth PCIe has to offer. It\u2019s designed to increase performance and efficiency while making a broad range of enterprise and client systems interoperable. NVMe was designed for SSDs and communicates between the storage interface and the system\u2019s CPU using high-speed PCIe sockets without the limitations of form factor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The NVMe protocol utilises parallel, low-latency data paths to the underlying media, like high-performance processor architectures. This offers significantly higher performance and lower latencies compared to SAS and SATA protocols. NVMe can support multiple I\/O queues, up to 64K with each queue having 64K entries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This allows input\/output tasks to transfer more data faster than older storage models using legacy drivers such as AHCI (Advanced Host Controller Interface). Since NVMe is designed specifically for SSDs, it will eventually become the new industry standard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>SSD storage: Then and now<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media.kingston.com\/kingston\/content\/ktc-content-nvme-general-data-buses-graph-en-1.jpg\" alt=\"content nvme general data buses graph en 1\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Data buses transfer data within a system. When NAND-based SSDs first came out, it was clear to the industry that a new bus and protocol were necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>\u2022 The first SSDs were relatively slow, which made it convenient to use the existing SATA storage infrastructure. Even though the SATA bus has evolved to 16Gbps, nearly all commercial implementations of the SATA bus remain 6Gbps.<\/li><li>\u2022 PCIe 3.0\u2019s total throughput is 16Gbps while PCIe 4.0 has double the throughput of PCIe 3.0. It offers up to 16 lanes and can transfer data at up to 32,000MB\/s while SATA III transfers only up to 600MB\/s.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The decision to leverage an existing higher-bandwidth bus technology replaced SATA protocols with PCIe technology. PCIe storage came before NVMe by a few years but, since previous solutions were bottlenecked by older data transfer protocols such as SATA and AHCI, it couldn\u2019t be used to its full potential until recent years. NVMe was the solution for the bottlenecks and removes limitations by offering low-latency commands and 64K queues. The multiple queues allow faster data transfers because data is written to SSDs in a scattered fashion using chips and blocks rather than being written on spinning disks like hard drives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Communication drivers: AHCI vs NVMe<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Communication drivers are used by operating systems to communicate data with storage devices. NVMe drivers are faster than AHCI drivers, which are commonly found in SATA interfaces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>NVMe is designed specifically for SSDs with flash technology, making it faster than AHCI drivers that were designed for common hard drives with spinning disk technology.<\/li><li>While NVMe has 64K command queues and can send 64K commands per queue, AHCI has only one command queue and can send only thirty-two commands per queue.<\/li><li>With AHCI drivers, commands utilise high CPU cycles with a latency of 6 microseconds while NVMe driver commands utilise low CPU cycles with a latency of 2.8 microseconds.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The NVMe driver communicates directly with the system CPU but the AHCI must communicate with the SATA controller. The AHCI has IOPS (Input\/Output Operations Per Second) of up to 100K while the NVMe has IOPS of over 1 million. IOPS (Input\/Output Operations Per Second, pronounced i-ops) is a common performance measurement used to benchmark computer storage devices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media.kingston.com\/kingston\/content\/ktc-content-nvme-general-communication-drivers-graph-en-2.jpg\" alt=\"content nvme general communication drivers graph en 2\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>NVMe SSD form factors<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media.kingston.com\/kingston\/content\/ktc-content-nvme-general-ssd-form-factors-graph-en-3.jpg\" alt=\"content nvme general ssd form factors graph en 3\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>NVMe SSDs come in a variety of form factors, with specific versions required depending on the use case or application.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Personal\/Client products use BGA and M.2 form factors.<\/li><li>Data centre\/Server applications use M.2, U.2, U.3 and EDSFF form factors.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The EDSFF (Enterprise and Data Centre SSD Form Factor) is being developed to offer a dynamic range of form factors and standards that share the same protocol (NVMe), the same interface (PCIe) and use their own edge connector (SFF-TA-1002), pinout and functions (SFF-TA-1009).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading Time-approximately:<\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 3<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span>NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express) is a communications interface and driver that takes advantage of the increased bandwidth PCIe has to offer. By Enterprise Technical Support The benefits of NVMe NVMe technology provides superior storage, superior speed and superior compatibility. Since NVMe utilises PCIe sockets, it transfers 25x more data than the SATA equivalent. Along with more data, NVMe\u2019s commands are<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/tekmart.co.za\/t-blog\/what-is-nvme-ssd-technology\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[221,8,122,247,4,5,3,300,197,63,57,124,12,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computer-storage-hardware","category-data-center-hardware","category-data-center-storage","category-data-centre-hardware-equipment-technical-resources","category-datacenter-news","category-engage-the-experts","category-industry-news-and-expert-advise","category-nvme-over-fabrics","category-nvme-storage","category-primary-storage-devices","category-server-hardware-strategy","category-solid-state-storage","category-tekmart-enterprise-hardware-tips","category-why-explanations-on-data-center-hardware"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tekmart.co.za\/t-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tekmart.co.za\/t-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tekmart.co.za\/t-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tekmart.co.za\/t-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tekmart.co.za\/t-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8027"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tekmart.co.za\/t-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8027\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8028,"href":"https:\/\/tekmart.co.za\/t-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8027\/revisions\/8028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tekmart.co.za\/t-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tekmart.co.za\/t-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tekmart.co.za\/t-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}