Kioxia's new SSD will be three times faster than existing models |
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Kioxia has announced a solid state drive based on XL-Flash memory cells. The company said it will deliver three times the throughput of most current SDD models, and explained what scenarios will require this speed. XL-Flash SLC memory cells, the brand claims, combined with the new controller will be able to ?accelerate? to 10 million input/output operations per second (IOPS) when working with small blocks of data. This will eliminate the bottleneck in the process of ?communication? between the drive and GPU, which is especially important when performing AI operations. Another feature of the SSD will be working with 512-byte blocks instead of the usual 4KB. Large language models perform short random access operations, and this characteristic will further increase system performance. In addition, the drive will be able to communicate with the graphics chip, bypassing the CPU. This is another reason to use 512-byte blocks: GPUs typically operate with a 32, 64, or 128-byte cache, and their memory subsystems are designed to batch access many cells of this size. This approach provides constant loading of all stream processors. The novelty is scheduled to premiere in the second half of 2026, but its detailed specifications and price are still unknown. |
