A couple of years ago, Samsung introduced the first intelligent SSD, a very interesting product that was made possible through a collaboration with Xilinx, a company that, as many of our readers will know, was recently bought by AMD. Said storage unit had a Xilinx FPGA solution that was in charge of carrying out the compression and decompression tasks, performing processing tasks independently. It has nothing to do with DirectStorage, as this technology offloads that work to the GPU.
There is no doubt that this smart SSD has emerged as a very interesting solution, and therefore it is not surprising that Samsung has decided to present a second generation model. This model maintains the same approach as the original, and comes equipped with a ARM-based Xilinx Versal Adaptive SoC, which means that it can perform operations and data processing independently. This is key as it minimizes data transmission between the CPU, GPU and memory, reducing processing time spent on database queries by 50% and power consumption by 70%, compared to conventional SSD drives.
The inclusion of that SoC, and the use of specialized software, also helps reduce CPU usage by up to 97%, with all that this entails in terms of efficiency and freeing up resources. This is possible because, as we have anticipated at the beginning of the article, this intelligent SSD can process data directly, which avoids having to constantly resort to the CPU and/or the GPU. In this way, bottlenecks are also avoided in certain tasks, such as when moving data between storage devices and CPUs.
In the end, all this translates into higher performance, greater efficiency, lower resource consumption and optimal operation. This smart SSD is specifically designed for the professional sector, in fact it will give its best in environments where you work with artificial intelligence, deep learning, 5G and other tasks that require the processing of large amounts of data. However, it is also interesting for the average user because it is an advance that could end up reaching the general consumer market.
We have no details on the release date or price of this Samsung 2nd Gen Smart SSD, but we can be sure that it will not be economical, something understandable considering its features and the advanced technology it integrates. Commenting on this new storage device, Sina Soltani, Corporate Vice President of Sales, AECG, Data Center and Communications Group, AMD, commented:
“Powered by AMD’s Xilinx Versal Adaptive SoCs, Samsung’s second-generation SmartSSDs enable higher CPU usage efficiency and significantly reduce energy consumption by efficiently integrating computing and storage functions in data centers. As data-intensive applications continue to grow, Samsung’s second-generation SmartSSDs will deliver the superior performance and efficiency needed for this expanding market.”
