Trent Johnson | SSD Hardware Architect
IBM

Future of Memory and Storage - Day 2 @ 15:50

Maximizing E3: How to Build a Really Big E3.L 2T SSD

The storage industry has long anticipated the moment when NAND flash could dethrone Nearline HDDs for large‑scale capacity storage, yet the crossover always seems just out of reach. Increasing flash density is one of the strongest accelerators: the higher the share of the BOM devoted to QLC bit cells, the more competitive the cost becomes. This raises a key question: how can mature EDSFF form factors help enable higher density?While the EDSFF E3 family is well established for enterprise SSDs, the E3.L 2T variant remains underused—typically reserved for computational storage with large FPGAs and heavy thermal requirements. But if the full 2T height were dedicated to maximizing QLC NAND volume, it could enable ultra‑dense flash devices with better performance‑per‑watt, reduced datacenter footprint, no vibration sensitivity, and improved endurance relative to Nearline HDDs. This session explores the architectural and datacenter‑level implications of using E3.L 2T for high‑capacity QLC and how dense flash can become a cost‑effective addition to modern datacenters.

Trent Johnson, SSD Hardware Architect, IBM

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Trent Johnson / Maximizing E3: How to Build a Really Big E3.L 2T SSD

Trent Johnson, SSD Hardware Architect,
IBM

Trent Johnson is a Hardware Architect at IBM, with a focus on the IBM FlashCore Module (Solid State Drive). He joined IBM as part of the Cleversafe Acquisition where he was the System Hardware Architect of exabyte-scale Object Storage. Prior to Cleversafe, he developed system-level manufacturing...

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