- SSD E2s are intended to balance the capacity and efficiency of storage performance
- The new form factor corresponds to the increase in the demand for storage of hot level data
- High density flash could reduce long -term hard drives
While workloads change and cold data warm up under AI and analysis requests, the traditional division between high -speed SSDs and profitable hard drives no longer serve each use.
A new SSD form factor known as E2 is being developed to fill the growing difference in the storage of corporate data. Potentially offering up to 1PB of Flash QLC per reader, they could become the intermediate option that the industry needs.
Storagereview Affirms that the E2 form factor is designed with the support of key players, including Micron, Meta and Pure Storage via the Networking Industry Association and Open Compute Project storage.
Solid speeds, but no peak
E2 SSDS targets “warm” data – information accessible quite often to grant hard drives but which do not justify the cost of the performance flash.
Physically, E2 SSDS measures 200 mm x 76 mm x 9.5 mm. They use the same EDSFF connector found in the E1 and E3 discs, but are optimized for dense and dense high -capacity deployments.
A standard 2U server could host up to 40 E2 players, translating into 40pb of flash in a single chassis. Storagereview Said that these discs will connect to PCIe 6.0 using four ways and can consume up to 80 W per unit, although most should shoot much less.
Performance will reach 8 to 10 MB / s per teraoctet, or up to 10,000 MB / s for a 1PB model. It is faster than hard drives but not in the same class as high -end corporate SSDs. E2 priorities will rather be capacity, efficiency and cost control.
PUR storage showed an E2 prototype of 300 TB in May 2025 with dram covers, capacitors for the protection of loss of power and a flash controller adapted to this scale. Although current servers are not yet ready for this form factor, the new systems should follow.
It is fair to say that E2 will not replace the hard drives overnight, but that signals a change. While specifications are turning to finalization this summer, sellers are already rethinking the way in which the large -scale flash can integrate into modern infrastructure.
