NVMe can support multiple I/O queues, up to 64K with each queue having 64K entries. Let’s take a deeper dive into NVMe architecture and how it achieves high performance and low latency. NVMe Architecture – Understanding I/O Queues Because NVMe can handle rigorous application workloads with a smaller infrastructure footprint, organizations can reduce total cost of ownership and accelerate top line business growth. IT infrastructure budgets are not growing at the pace of data and are under tremendous pressure to maximize returns on infrastructure – both in storage and compute. These wasted compute cycles cost businesses real money. This not only accelerates existing applications that require high performance, but it also enables new applications and capabilities for real-time workload processing in the data center and at the Edge.Ĭonventional protocols consume many CPU cycles to make data available to applications. This offers significantly higher performance and lower latencies compared to legacy SAS and SATA protocols. The NVMe protocol capitalizes on parallel, low latency data paths to the underlying media, similar to high performance processor architectures. I/O Controller and HBA The NVMe Value Proposition Diagram #1 CPU connected with SSDs via PCIe interface vs. PCIe Gen 3.0 link can offer transfer speed more than 2x than that of SATA interface. The protocol is built on high speed PCIe lanes. The protocol is relatively new, feature-rich, and designed from the ground up for non-volatile memory media (NAND and Persistent Memory) directly connected to CPU via PCIe interface (See diagram #1). NVMe is a high-performance, NUMA ( Non Uniform Memory Access) optimized, and highly scalable storage protocol, that connects the host to the memory subsystem. The NVMe specifications emerged primarily because of these challenges. PCIe SSDs leveraged proprietary firmware, which was particularly challenging for system scaling for various reasons, including: a) running and maintaining device firmware, b) firmware/ device incompatibilities with different system software, c) not always making best use of available lanes and CPU proximity, and d) lack of value-add features for enterprise workloads. However, early PCIe interface SSDs did not have industry standards nor enterprise features.
PCIe slots directly connect to the CPU providing memory-like access and can run a very efficient software stack. Because of the interface speed, performance of the new storage media, and proximity to the CPU, PCI Express (PCIe) was the next logical storage interface. However, none of these interfaces and protocols were designed for high-speed storage media (i.e. The first flash-based SSDs leveraged legacy SATA/SAS physical interfaces, protocols, and form factors to minimize changes in the existing hard drive (HDD)-based enterprise server/ storage systems. NVMe is opening a new world of possibilities by letting you do more with data! Here’s why: The Evolution of NVMe I am incredibly excited about the transformation NVMe is bringing to data centers, and the unique capability of Western Digital to deliver innovation up and down the stack. I have worked on enterprise PCIe SSD product management and long-term storage technology strategy, watching the evolution of storage devices from up-close. My work has been associated with data storage protocols, in some way or the other, for more than a decade.
Upcoming blogs will cover what features and benefits it brings businesses and use cases where it’s being deployed today and how customers take advantage of Western Digital’s NVMe SSDs, platforms and fully featured flash storage systems for everything from IoT Edge applications to personal gaming.
In this blog post I’ll explain what NVMe is and share a deep technical dive into how the storage architecture works. NVMe is having a great impact on businesses and what they can do with data, particularly Fast Data for real-time analytics and emerging technologies. Performance, economics and endurance of data at scale is paramount. But what is NVMe and why is it important for data-driven businesses?Īs businesses contend with the perpetual growth of data, they need to rethink how data is captured, preserved, accessed and transformed.
NVMe™ (Non-Volatile Memory Express) is a new protocol for accessing high-speed storage media that brings many advantages compared to legacy protocols.