Storage continues to be a bright spot in the enthusiast space
SK hynix has announced mass production of their latest QLC NAND flash, which is a 321-layer 2Tb product coming first to consumer SSDs. Not only does this – the first QLC NAND with more than 300 layers – suggest ever larger SSDs in the near future, but SK hynix is making some very impressive performance claims.
Write performance? More than 50% higher. Read performance? Nearly 20% higher. Impressive gains before we even consider potential improvements to controller or interface performance with upcoming products. Naturally, “ai” was invoked in the press release, but this is still interesting for us DIY enthusiasts.
Quoting SK hynix:
To maximize the cost competitiveness of its new product, SK hynix developed a 2Tb device with double the capacity of existing solutions. To address potential performance degradation in large-capacity NAND, the company increased the number of planes, independent operation units within a chip, from 4 to 6. This enables greater parallel processing and significantly enhances simultaneous read performance.
As a result, the 321-layer QLC NAND delivers both higher capacity and improved performance compared to previous QLC products. Data transfer speed has doubled, write performance has improved by up to 56%, and read performance has improved by 18%. In addition, write power efficiency has increased by more than 23%, strengthening competitiveness in AI data centers where low power consumption is critical.
The company plans to apply its 321-layer NAND first to PC SSDs, before expanding to enterprise SSDs (eSSD) for data centers and UFS for smartphones. Leveraging its proprietary 32DP technology, which enables the simultaneous stacking of 32 NAND dies in a single package, SK hynix aims to enter the ultra-high-capacity eSSD market for AI servers by achieving twice the integration density.
As to availability, SK hynix states that “the company plans to release the product in the first half of next year following completion of global customer validation”.