Post #6
By Andrea Huey
With a wide range of SSDs available, it’s easy to get overwhelmed when trying to select the best option for your needs. At KIOXIA, we offer an extensive lineup of SSDs designed for enterprise, data center, and client markets. Many of these products share similar characteristics, but each is built with specific applications in mind.
So – how to go about choosing the right drives for your business? This handy guide is here to explain how we segment our SSD offerings, and to point out the types of applications that can benefit most from each.
But, before we get into specific product types, it’s important to look at what’s under the hood. Understanding the flash memory technology powering today’s SSDs—3-bit-per-cell, triple-level cell (TLC) and 4-bit-per-cell, quadruple-level cell (QLC)—will help to clarify why different drives are built the way they are, and how to match them to your workload.
Why TLC and QLC?
Over time, the SSD market has evolved alongside NAND flash technology. While SLC (single-level cell) and MLC (multi-level cell) flash memory have been used historically in SSDs, TLC has become the most versatile option for today’s needs. It provides an exceptional balance of cost, endurance, capacity, and performance—making it the go-to choice across a range of mainstream applications.
SLC and MLC are higher in cost and offer endurance levels that many applications simply don’t require. In fact, early adopters of SLC-based SSDs often found that their drives never approached the endurance limits. As a result, TLC has emerged as the most efficient and cost-effective choice for a wide variety of use cases.
Meanwhile, QLC technology is opening the door to even more segmentation in the SSD market. With 33% more data stored per cell compared to TLC, QLC drives allow for higher capacity and lower cost. While they do have lower endurance, this is typically not a concern for read-intensive applications like content delivery, archival, or backup systems.
How We Segment Our SSDs
KIOXIA product families fall into three primary categories: enterprise, data center, and client.
Enterprise SSDs
High-performance and built for demanding server and storage environments.
- CM7 Series
Our flagship enterprise SSD. It offers top-tier performance with support for PCIe® 5.0 and NVMe™ 2.0, dual-port support, and FIPS certification. Available in both 2.5-inch and E3.S form factors, with capacities up to 30.72 terabytes (TB) (2.5-inch) and 15.36 TB (E3.S).
- PM7 Series
A 24G SAS-based enterprise SSD for environments utilizing older infrastructure. Featuring the SAS-4 interface (24G), dual-port support, FIPS certification, and capacities of up to 30.72 TB.
- LC9 Series
Our newest addition, built with QLC NAND and designed for enterprise workloads. While sharing many attributes with CM7, it offers ultra-high capacities—up to 122.88 TB—and is ideal for read-centric environments where storage density and cost per bit are key priorities.
Data Center SSDs
Optimized for power efficiency and managed workloads.
- CD8P Series
Delivers high-speed performance with PCIe 5.0 and NVMe 2.0 compliance. While single-port only, it supports capacities of up to 30.72 TB (2.5”) and 15.36 TB (E3.S), making it a strong fit for power-sensitive data centers.
- XD7P Series
Designed with the Open Compute Project (OCP) spec in mind, this drive comes in the E1.S form factor, supports PCIe 4.0, and offers up to 7.68 TB capacity—perfect for hyperscale deployments.
Client SSDs
Geared toward PC OEMs, gaming, and boot applications.
- XG8 Series
A high-performance client SSD with onboard DRAM, designed for computing and gaming, and suitable for server boot. It comes in the M.2 2280 form factor, supports PCIe 4.0, and offers capacities up to 3.84 TB.
- BG6 Series
A value option with no onboard DRAM—utilizes host memory buffer (HMB) instead. Available in both M.2 2280 and M.2 2230 form factors, with capacities up to 2 TB. Ideal for thin-and-light devices or embedded applications that still need solid PCIe 4.0 performance.
Choosing the Right SSD
Every application has different needs—some demand endurance while others require high capacity at a lower cost. At KIOXIA, we’ve engineered our SSD lineup to provide tailored solutions across a broad range of use cases.
- TLC remains the optimal balance for most, delivering dependable performance and durability.
- QLC is expanding the possibilities for ultra-high-capacity storage in read-focused environments.
- SLC and MLC are reserved for niche use cases where exceptional endurance is critical, though these are becoming increasingly rare.
Whether you're managing a data center, building out enterprise-grade storage, or looking for dependable SSDs for client systems, KIOXIA offers a product to meet your needs—backed by years of innovation and market understanding.
Stay tuned, in our next Flash Memory Matters blog post, we’ll dive into enterprise and industrial flash memory—and all of their applications. In the meantime, be sure to explore our full SSD lineup here.
Notes:
2.5-inch indicates the form factor of the SSD and not its physical size.
Read and write speed may vary depending on various factors such as host devices, software (drivers, OS etc.), and read/write conditions.
Definition of capacity: KIOXIA Corporation defines a megabyte (MB) as 1,000,000 bytes, a gigabyte (GB) as 1,000,000,000 bytes and a terabyte (TB) as 1,000,000,000,000 bytes. A computer operating system, however, reports storage capacity using powers of 2 for the definition of 1GB = 2^30 bytes = 1,073,741,824 bytes and 1TB = 2^40 bytes = 1,099,511,627,776 bytes and therefore shows less storage capacity. Available storage capacity (including examples of various media files) will vary based on file size, formatting, settings, software and operating system, and/or pre-installed software applications, or media content. Actual formatted capacity may vary.
NVMe and NVMe-MI are registered or unregistered trademarks of NVM Express, Inc. in the United States and other countries.
PCIe is a registered trademark of PCI-SIG.
Product density is identified based on the density of memory chips(s) within the product, not the amount of memory capacity available for data storage by the end user. In terms of product capacity, available user storage capacity (including examples of various media files) will vary based on file size, formatting, settings, software and operating system, pre-installed software applications, media content, and other constraints. Actual formatted capacity may vary. KIOXIA Corporation defines a gigabit (Gb) as 1,073,741,824 bits, a megabyte (MB) as 1,000,000 bytes, a gigabyte (GB) as 1,000,000,000 bytes and a terabyte (TB) as 1,000,000,000,000 bytes. However, a computer operating system, reports storage capacity using powers of 2 for the definition of 1 GB = 2^30 bytes = 1,073,741,824 bytes and 1 TB = 2^40 bytes = 1,099,511,627,776 bytes.