ThinkSystem PM9A3 Read Intensive NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSDs

The ThinkSystem PM9A3 Read Intensive NVMe Solid-State Drives (SSDs) are general-purpose yet high-performance family of NVMe SSDs. They are engineered for greater performance and endurance in a cost-effective design, and to support a broader set of workloads.

Figure 1. ThinkSystem PM9A3 Read Intensive NVMe SSDs

The PM9A3 SSDs are follow-ons to the PM983 drives. The PM9A3 SSDs offer improved performance, both in terms of random read/write performance (IOPS) and sequential read/write bandwidth (MB/s). Sequential write latency has also been improved.

Lenovo Read Intensive (Entry) SSDs are suitable for read-intensive and general-purpose data center workloads, however their NVMe PCIe interface means the drives also offer high performance. Overall, these SSDs provide outstanding IOPS/watt and cost/IOPS for enterprise solutions.

The following table lists the part numbers and feature codes for the PM9A3 SSDs.

The part numbers include the following items:

Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) is PCIe high performance SSD technology that provides high I/O throughput and low latency. NVMe interfaces remove SAS/SATA bottlenecks and unleash all of the capabilities of contemporary NAND flash memory. Each NVMe PCI SSD has direct PCIe x4 connection, which provides at least 2x more bandwidth and 2x less latency than SATA/SAS-based SSD solutions. NVMe drives are also optimized for heavy multi-threaded workloads by using internal parallelism and many other improvements, such as enlarged I/O queues.

The ThinkSystem PM9A3 Read Intensive NVMe SSDs have the following features:

• Available in multiple form factors:
  • 2.5-inch hot-swap
  • 7mm hot-swap
  • 7mm trayless
  • M.2 22110
• Low cost, read-intensive SSD from Samsung
• Direct PCIe 4.0 x4 connection for each NVMe drive, resulting in up to 8 GBps overall throughput.
• TCG Opal SED drive encryption
• Advanced ECC Engine and End-to-End Data Protection
• Samsung 32 layer V-NAND stacks the vertical NAND layers in three dimensions, solving the cell-to-cell interference that causes data corruption in planar NAND.
• Protect data integrity from unexpected power loss with Samsung's advanced power-loss protection architecture
• Supports Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology (S.M.A.R.T).
• Compliant with the following specifications:
  • PCI Express Base Specification Rev. 4.0
  • NVM Express Specification Rev. 1.4

Read Intensive SSDs and Write Intensive SSDs have similar read IOPS performance, but the key difference between them is their endurance -- how long they can reliably perform write operations. Read Intensive SSDs have a better cost/IOPS ratio but lower endurance compared to Write Intensive SSDs. SSD write endurance is typically measured by the number of program/erase (P/E) write cycles that the drive incurs over its lifetime, listed as the total bytes of written data (TBW) in the device specification.

The TBW value assigned to a solid-state device is the total bytes of written data (based on the number of P/E cycles) that a drive can be guaranteed to complete (% of remaining P/E cycles = % of remaining TBW). Reaching this limit does not cause the drive to immediately fail. It simply denotes the maximum number of writes that can be guaranteed. A solid-state device will not fail upon reaching the specified TBW. At some point based on manufacturing variance margin, after surpassing the TBW value, the drive will reach the end-of-life point, at which the drive will go into a read-only mode.

Because of such behavior by Read Intensive solid-state drives, careful planning must be done to use them only in read-intensive or mixed use (70% read/30% write) environments to ensure that the TBW of the drive will not be exceeded before the required life expectancy.

For example, the 3.84TB PM9A3 drive has an endurance of 7,008 TB of total bytes written (TBW). This means that for full operation over five years, write workload must be limited to no more than 3,840 GB of writes per day, which is equivalent to 1.0 full drive writes per day (DWPD). For the device to last three years, the drive write workload must be limited to no more than 6,400 GB of writes per day, which is equivalent to 1.7 full drive writes per day.  

The following sections describe the benefits in more details.

When the self-encrypting drive is in normal use, its owner need not maintain authentication keys (otherwise known as credentials or passwords) in order to access the data on the drive. The self-encrypting drive will encrypt data being written to the drive and decrypt data being read from it, all without requiring an authentication key from the owner.

Nearly all drives eventually leave the data center and their owner's control. Corporate data resides on such drives, and when most leave the data center, the data they contain is still readable. Even data that has been striped across many drives in a RAID array is vulnerable to data theft because just a typical single stripe in today’s high-capacity arrays is large enough to expose for example, hundreds of names and bank account numbers.

In an effort to avoid data breaches and the ensuing customer notifications required by data privacy laws, companies use different methods to erase the data on retired drives before they leave the premises and potentially fall into the wrong hands. Current retirement practices that are designed to make data unreadable rely on significant human involvement in the process, and are thus subject to both technical and human failure.

Self-encrypting drives eliminate the need to overwrite, destroy, or store retired drives. When the drive is to be retired, it can be cryptographically erased, a process that is nearly instantaneous regardless of the capacity of the drive.

Self-encrypting drives reduce IT operating expenses by reducing asset control challenges and disposal costs. Data security with self-encrypting drives helps ensure compliance with privacy regulations without hindering IT efficiency. So called "Safe Harbor" clauses in government regulations allow companies to not have to notify customers of occurrences of data theft if that data was encrypted and therefore unreadable.

Using a self-encrypting drive when auto-lock mode is enabled simply requires securing the drive with an authentication key. When secured in this manner, the drive’s data encryption key is locked whenever the drive is powered down. In other words, the moment the self-encrypting drive is switched off or unplugged, it automatically locks down the drive’s data.

When the self-encrypting drive is then powered back on, it requires authentication before being able to unlock its encryption key and read any data on the drive, thus protecting against misplacement and theft.

While using self-encrypting drives just for the instant secure erase is an extremely efficient and effective means to help securely retire a drive, using self-encrypting drives in auto-lock mode provides even more advantages. From the moment the drive or system is removed from the data center (with or without authorization), the drive is locked. No advance thought or action is required from the data center administrator to protect the data. This helps prevent a breach should the drive be mishandled and helps secure the data against the threat of insider or outside theft.

In this section:

• Technical specifications for 2.5-inch and 7mm
• Technical specifications for M.2

Technical specifications for 2.5-inch and 7mm

The following tables present technical specifications for the ThinkSystem PM9A3 Read Intensive NVMe SSDs in the 2.5-inch and 7mm form factors.

Technical specifications for M.2

The following tables present technical specifications for the ThinkSystem PM9A3 Read Intensive NVMe SSDs in the M.2 form factor.

The following tables list the ThinkSystem servers that are compatible.

NVMe PCIe SSDs require a NVMe drive backplane and some form of PCIe connection to processors. PCIe connections can take the form of either an adapter (PCIe Interposer or PCIe extender) or simply a cable that connects to an onboard NVMe connector.

Consult the relevant server product guide for details about required components for NVMe drive support.

To effectively manage a large deployment of SEDs in Lenovo servers, IBM Security Key Lifecycle Manager (SKLM) offers a centralized key management solution. Certain Lenovo servers support Features on Demand (FoD) license upgrades that enable SKLM support.

The following table lists the part numbers and feature codes to enable SKLM support in the management processor of the server.

The IBM Security Key Lifecycle Manager software is available from Lenovo using the ordering information listed in the following table.

The PM9A3 SSDs carry a one-year, customer-replaceable unit (CRU) limited warranty. When the SSDs are installed in a supported server, these drives assume the system’s base warranty and any warranty upgrades.

Solid State Memory cells have an intrinsic, finite number of program/erase cycles that each cell can incur. As a result, each solid state device has a maximum amount of program/erase cycles to which it can be subjected. The warranty for Lenovo solid state drives (SSDs) is limited to drives that have not reached the maximum guaranteed number of program/erase cycles, as documented in the Official Published Specifications for the SSD product. A drive that reaches this limit may fail to operate according to its Specifications.

The PM9A3 SSDs have the following physical specifications:

Dimensions and weight of the 2.5-inch and 7mm drives (without the drive tray):

• Height: 7 mm (0.3 in.)
• Width: 70 mm (2.8 in.)
• Depth: 100 mm (4.0 in.)
• Weight: Up to 90 g (2.5 oz)

Dimensions and weight of the M2 drives:

• Width: 22 mm
• Length: 110 mm
• Thickness: 3.8 mm
• Weight: 9 g

Shipping dimensions and weight for the 2.5-inch drives and 7mm drives (approximate):

• Height: 63 mm (2.5 in.)
• Width: 133 mm (5.2 in.)
• Depth: 174 mm (6.9 in.)
• Weight (with drive tray): 433 g (1.0 lb)

The PM9A3 SSDs are supported in the following environment:

• Temperature:
  • Operating: 0 to 70 °C (32 to 158 °F)
  • Non-operating: -40 to 85 °C (-40 to 185 °F)
• Relative humidity, Non-operating: 5 to 95% (noncondensing)
• Maximum altitude: 3,050 m (10,000 ft)
• Shock, non-operating: 1,500 G (Max) at 0.5 ms
• Vibration, non-operating: 20 G_RMS (10-2000 Hz)

The PM9A3 SSDs conform to the following regulations:

• c-UL-us
• CE
• TUV
• CB
• CE (EU)
• BSMI (Taiwan)
• KC (South Korea)
• VCCI (Japan)
• RCM (Australia)
• FCC (USA)
• IC (CANADA)

For more information, see the following documents:

• Lenovo ThinkSystem storage options product web page
  https://lenovopress.com/lp0761-storage-options-for-thinksystem-servers

• Samsung product page for Enterprise SSDs
  http://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/products/flash-storage/enterprise-ssd/