ThinkSystem PM1733a Read Intensive NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSDs

The ThinkSystem PM1733a Read Intensive NVMe SSDs, available in capacities up to 30.72TB, are general-purpose yet high-performance NVMe PCIe SSDs. They are engineered for greater performance and endurance in a cost-effective design, and to support a broader set of workloads. Now with SED encryption as standard, these drives help ensure data security, even when the drive is removed from the server.

Figure 1. ThinkSystem PM1733a Read Intensive NVMe SSDs

The PM1733a SSDs are part of the growing family of PCIe 4.0 SSDs that match the performance of the ThinkSystem V2 family of servers. By having a Gen 4 host interface, sequential performance is doubled compared to Gen 3 SSDs. The NVMe host interface also maximizes flash storage performance and minimizes latency. The PM1733a SSDs drives offer 40% and 60% improvements in latency over SAS and SATA SSDs respectively.

Lenovo Read Intensive SSDs like the PM1733a 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 ThinkSystem servers.

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 significantly greater bandwidth and lower 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 PM1733a Read Intensive NVMe SSDs have the following features:

• Direct PCIe 4.0 x4 connection for each NVMe drive, resulting in up to 7 GBps overall throughput.
• Also supports PCIe 3.0 host connection for servers with first and second-generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors or with PCIe 3.0 NVMe switch adapters
• Low cost, read-intensive SSD from Samsung using TLC flash technology
• Advanced ECC Engine and End-to-End Data Protection
• Samsung’s SSD virtualization technology allows a single SSD to be subdivided into smaller SSDs, up to 64, providing independent virtual workspaces. It also enables SSDs to take on certain tasks typically carried out by the server CPUs, such as Single-Root I/O Virtualization (SR-IOV), requiring fewer server CPUs and SSDs.
• V-NAND Machine Learning enables the SSD to accurately predict and verify cell characteristics, as well as detect any variations in circuit patterns.
• Fail-In-Place technology ensures the SSD operates normally even when errors occur at the chip level. It allows the PM1733 to identify failing NAND cells, and actually recover then relocate the data without interrupting normal operations or impacting performance.
• 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).
• Supports the following specifications:
  • PCI Express Base Specification Rev. 4.0
  • NVM Express Specification Rev. 1.3
  • NVM Express Management Interface Specification Rev. 1.0a

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 up to 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 PM1733a 1.92 TB drive has an endurance of 3,504 TB of total bytes written (TBW). This means that for full operation over five years, write workload must be limited to no more than 1,920 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 3,200 GB of writes per day, which is equivalent to 1.7 full drive writes per day.

All ThinkSystem PM1733a Read Intensive NVMe SSDs support drive encryption.

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.

The following tables present the technical specifications for the PM1733a SSDs. Note that the performance data and power consumption is based on a PCIe 4.0 host interface.

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/switch adapter) 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 following tables list the ThinkSystem servers that support the FoD license upgrade.

The PM1733a SSDs carry a one-year, customer-replaceable unit (CRU) limited warranty. When the SSDs are installed in a supported server, these drives assume the server’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 PM1733a SSDs have the following physical specifications:

Dimensions and weight (approximate, without the drive tray):

• Height: 15 mm (0.6 in.)
• Width: 70 mm (2.8 in.)
• Depth: 100 mm (4.0 in.)
• Weight: 190 g (6.7 oz)

The PM1733a SSDs are supported in the following environment:

• Temperature (operating): 0 to 70 °C (32 to 158 °F)
• Temperature (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: 20 G_PEAK (10-2000 Hz) at 4 min/cycle, 4 cycle/axis on 3 axis.

The PM1733a SSDs conform to the following regulations:

• cUL
• CE
• TUV-GS
• 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 SSD Portfolio Comparison
  https://lenovopress.com/lp1261-lenovo-thinksystem-ssd-portfolio

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

• Samsung product page for Enterprise SSDs
  https://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/ssd/enterprise-ssd/