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Samsung has begun mass manufacturing its PM1763, the brand’s first PCIe Gen6 enterprise SSD, combining 9th-gen V-NAND with a newly engineered 4nm controller. Its flagship 15.36TB model delivers sequential read speeds up to 28,400 MB/s and writes hitting 21,000 MB/s, with read throughput 1.96× faster than its PCIe Gen5 predecessor PM1753’s 14,500 MB/s limit. Samsung states the PM1763 has passed verification for next-gen AI hardware, aligning its launch with the upcoming wave of Gen6-compatible servers launching next year.
Why PCIe Gen6 Matters
PCIe Gen6 doubles single-lane signaling rate to 64 GT/s via PAM4 encoding, delivering around 32 GB/s bidirectional bandwidth over a standard x4 SSD link, compared to Gen5’s 16 GB/s ceiling. Top-tier Gen5 SSDs have long hit this bandwidth cap, maxing out at 14–14.5 GB/s.
The PM1763’s 28.4 GB/s throughput nearly fully utilizes this new headroom. For AI racks, fewer drives are required to saturate GPU storage pipelines, cutting wait times for model loading and checkpointing. Samsung cites a theoretical benchmark: a 40GB LLM transfers to memory in ~1.4 seconds on PM1763, versus 2.7 seconds on PM1753; this figure reflects ideal sequential read performance rather than real-world measured transfer speeds.
Random performance scales proportionally with sequential throughput. Samsung’s specs quote up to 6.8 million random read IOPS and 950,000 random write IOPS for the 15.36TB variant; independent SCADA whitepaper testing hit 6.92 million read IOPS per drive, indicating the official rating is conservative.
Power efficiency jumps up to 1.8× versus the prior generation, a critical upgrade for dense server racks. Gen6 controllers run hotter, so per-drive power savings scale dramatically across densely packed hardware. Samsung optimized the PM1763 for liquid-cooled direct-to-chip (D2C) deployments, prioritizing sustained peak performance under continuous heavy loads over short burst speeds.
PM1763 Key Specifications
| Specification | Samsung PM1763 |
|---|---|
| Interface | PCIe Gen6 x4, NVMe 2.1, OCP 2.6 |
| NAND Flash | Samsung 9th-gen V-NAND |
| Controller | New custom 4nm Samsung chip |
| Launch Capacities | 4TB, 8TB, 15.36TB (marketed as 16TB-class); 30.72TB / 61.44TB planned |
| Form Factors | E1.S, E3.S; U.2 limited to PCIe Gen5 only |
| 15.36TB Performance | Seq Read: 28,400 MB/s; Seq Write: 21,000 MB/s
|
| Cooling & Power | Up to 1.8× power efficiency over PM1753, tuned for D2C liquid cooling |
| Security Tools | Post-quantum cryptography (PQC), TDISP |
GPU-Driven I/O: 281 Million IOPS Across 42 Drives
Samsung released a whitepaper testing the PM1763 alongside NVIDIA’s SCADA (Scaled Accelerated Data Access) framework, which lets GPU threads send NVMe commands directly to SSDs and bypass CPU kernel storage stacks entirely. GPU-originated I/O delivers far higher parallelism: a CPU can sustain roughly 45 million in-flight IOPS total, while one GPU running 100,000 concurrent threads exceeded 95 million IOPS in Samsung’s lab trials.
Testing used 512-byte random read workloads on an H3 Falcon 6048 Gen6 server with one H100, two H200 GPUs, and 42 E1.S 15.36TB PM1763 drives routed through three Broadcom PEX90144 Gen6 switches. A single PM1763 hit 6.92 million GPU-initiated IOPS, an 86% uplift over the Gen5 PM1753’s 3.72 million IOPS in identical hardware. The setup scaled nearly linearly to ~96 million IOPS per GPU group with 14 drives each, and the full 42-drive array aggregated 281 million total IOPS, with individual drive throughput varying less than 5% from single-drive peak values. Though third-party validation was not performed, consistent cross-drive latency proved more vital than raw peak IOPS for stable aggregate performance.
Gen6 Value for Dense AI Servers
A 24-bay Dell PowerEdge R7725xd populated with Gen5 SSDs delivers over 300 GB/s local throughput with dedicated CPU x4 lanes, plus 160 GB/s network throughput via PEAK:AIO queue optimization—matching multi-node storage cluster performance inside a single 2U chassis. Swapping in PM1763 Gen6 SSDs pushes the theoretical 24-drive read bandwidth ceiling to ~681 GB/s, with CPU PCIe lane allocations and network egress rather than SSD speed becoming the main bottlenecks.
Storage density also improves. PEAK:AIO’s existing 2U AI Data Server reaches 1.5PB capacity with 61.44TB QLC drives and 120 GB/s RDMA throughput. Once Samsung ships its 61.44TB PM1763 model, identical rack footprints will combine Gen6 high bandwidth with multi-petabyte capacity (next-gen servers will likely add a rack unit to accommodate enhanced liquid cooling). This single-server storage architecture appeals strongly to AI teams aiming to feed GPU clusters without deploying distributed parallel file systems across dozens of nodes.
Security & Enterprise Readiness
Samsung upgraded the PM1763 security suite to fit multi-tenant AI environments. It supports post-quantum cryptography to defend against future quantum computing threats to standard encryption, alongside TDISP, which secures data pathways between confidential virtual machines and storage hardware.
Jangseok Choi, Samsung Vice President & Head of Memory Product Planning, commented: “Built on market-leading performance, the PM1763 has completed validation for next-generation AI platforms and addresses evolving AI infrastructure demands. As AI models grow larger and more complex, this SSD will act as a core tool to scale storage capacity and streamline AI operational workflows.”
Mass production is underway for the 4TB, 8TB and 15.36TB PM1763 variants; Samsung has not shared shipment timelines for the larger 30.72TB and 61.44TB models.
Beijing Qianxing Jietong Technology Co., Ltd.
Sandy Yang/Global Strategy Director
WhatsApp / WeChat: +86 13426366826
Email: yangyd@qianxingdata.com
Website: www.qianxingdata.com/www.storagesserver.com
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Sandy Yang/Global Strategy Director
WhatsApp / WeChat: +86 13426366826
Email: yangyd@qianxingdata.com
Website: www.qianxingdata.com/www.storagesserver.com
Business Focus:
ICT Product Distribution/System Integration & Services/Infrastructure Solutions
With 20+ years of IT distribution experience, we partner with leading global brands to deliver reliable products and professional services.
“Using Technology to Build an Intelligent World”Your Trusted ICT Product Service Provider!