ThinkSystem SS530

The ThinkSystem SS530 Performance SAS 12Gb SSDs use second generation 3D TLC NAND flash memory technology with a 12 Gb SAS interface to provide a high-performance storage solution. These drives offer high endurance supporting up to 10 full drive writes per day (10 DWPD) over 5 years meaning they are ideal for write-intensive applications.

This product guide provides essential presales information to understand the SS530 12 Gb SAS SSD offerings and their key features, specifications, and compatibility. This guide is intended for technical specialists, sales specialists, sales engineers, IT architects, and other IT professionals who want to learn more about the SSDs and consider their use in IT solutions.

The ThinkSystem SS530 Performance SAS 12Gb SSDs use second generation 3D TLC NAND flash memory technology with a 12 Gb SAS interface to provide a high-performance storage solution in either 2.5-inch or 3.5-inch drive form factor.

The 12 Gb SAS drives with 10 full drives writes per day (DWPD) are an excellent choice for applications demanding high write performance, such as High Performance Computing (HPC), High Definition Imaging and Video (HDIV), high data rate analytics and databases, large-scale virtualization, and video on demand content delivery.

The key difference between Performance SSDs such as the SS530 SSDs described here and Entry and Mainstream SSDs, is their endurance (life expectancy). SSDs have a huge, but finite, number of program/erase (P/E) cycles, which determines how long the drives can perform write operations and thus their life expectancy. Performance SSDs have better endurance than the Mainstream and Entry SSDs, but at a higher cost/IOPS ratio.

SSD write endurance is typically measured by the number of program/erase cycles that the drive can incur over its lifetime, which is listed as TBW in the device specification. The TBW value that is assigned to a solid-state device is the total bytes of written data that a drive can be guaranteed to complete. Reaching this limit does not cause the drive to immediately fail; the TBW simply denotes the maximum number of writes that can be guaranteed.

A solid-state device does not fail upon reaching the specified TBW, but at some point after surpassing the TBW value (and based on manufacturing variance margins), the drive reaches the end-of-life point, at which time the drive goes into read-only mode. Because of such behavior, careful planning must be done to use SSDs in the application environments to ensure that the TBW of the drive is not exceeded before the required life expectancy.

For example, the SS530 1.6TB drive has an endurance of 29.41 PB of total bytes written (TBW). This means that for full operation over five years, write workload must be limited to no more than 16.12 TB of writes per day, which is equivalent to 10.1 full drive writes per day (DWPD). For the device to last three years, the drive write workload must be limited to no more than 26.86 TB of writes per day, which is equivalent to 16.8 full drive writes per day.