NVMe

Non-volatile memory express (NVMe) is an open logical device interface for accessing non-volatile storage media attached through a PCI Express (PCIe) bus or switch. First released in 2012, the NVMe specifications are designed to enable host hardware and software to fully exploit the levels of parallelism that are possible in modern solid-state drives and multi-core Intel Xeon processors. 

Flash-based storage systems tend to use SAS (serial-attached SCSI) links to communicate with flash media. This legacy protocol was originally designed for use with slower hard disk drives and while it can be used for communicating to flash, it is not optimal or efficient. NVMe takes advantage of the microsecond latency provided by all-flash arrays and eliminates the SCSI bottleneck. By significantly reducing the latency of traditional flash-based infrastructure, NVMe can better equip organizations to manage the extreme demands of next-generation workloads.

As a global leader in data storage solutions, Dell EMC provides the world’s fastest storage array in Dell EMC PowerMax. Featuring a future-proof architecture with end-to-end non-volatile memory express (NVMe) and built in machine learning, PowerMax delivers new levels of performance and efficiency and offers six-nines of availability, data-at-rest encryption, massive scalability and best-in-class data protection.

NVMe enables PowerMax to deliver unprecedented levels of performance, with up to 10 million IOPS , 350 GB per second bandwidth , and predictable response times of 290 microseconds for mixed workloads . NVMe maximizes the power of a multi-controller all-flash array and opens the door to the next media disruption with support for storage class memory (SCM), which offers performance that is an order of magnitude improvement over current technologies.

Dell EMC PowerMax comes in two models:

• PowerMax 2000 is an ultra-dense data storage platform for housing mission-critical workloads.
• PowerMax 8000 is designed for massive scale and enterprise-level consolidation, with the ability to mix open and mainframe block and distributed file system workloads. 

1. Future-proof architecture. PowerMax comes standard with a multi-controller scale-out architecture with end-to-end non-volatile memory express to maximize performance of modern media. Organizations that buy PowerMax today can add NVMe over Fabric and SCM drives for the high levels of performance and scale.
2. Intelligent software. PowerMaxOS features built-in machine learning that leverages predictive analytics and pattern recognition to maximize performance with no overhead.
3. Ultrafast performance. PowerMax is the world’s fastest storage array for OLTP, decision-support, real-time analytics and virtualized applications.
4. Optimal efficiency. PowerMax delivers 5:1 storage efficiency, thanks to the latest global inline de-duplication and compression technology.
5. Mission-critical availability. PowerMax is designed for six-nines availability, enabling organizations to avoid unplanned downtime altogether.
6. Unmatched security. Data-at-rest encryption secures every drive, while access controls and role-based authorization ensure that data is secure with PowerMax.
7. Massive scalability. PowerMax scales up to 4 PB of effective capacity to consolidate block, file, open systems, mainframe and IBM i workloads on a single platform.

The Dell EMC Future-Proof Loyalty Program provides organizations with assurance that their investment in PowerMax with NVMe will provide value for the entire lifetime of its application. The Future-Proof program provides investment protection with a set of world-class technology capabilities and programs to deliver greater value across Dell EMC’s storage, data protection and hyperconverged solutions.

The Future-Proof Loyalty Program includes:

• A three-year satisfaction guarantee – the industry standard is only 30 days.
• Hardware investment protection that provides organizations with the opportunity to trade-in existing or competitive systems for credit towards Dell EMC next-generation storage, data protection and hyperconverged solutions.
• Worry-free data migration.
• Data protection deduplication guaranteed to provide up to 55x data reduction for data protection appliances.
• Guaranteed data reduction for PowerMax storage, as well as Dell EMC NAS storage, hybrid storage, object storage, tiered storage and cloud storage solutions.

What is NVMe?

NVMe is an acronym for non-volatile memory express, a software interface that provides a more efficient and scalable streamlined protocol and command set for PCI Express solid-state drives using non-volatile memory. NVMe is designed specifically to take advantage of the internal parallelism and low latency inherent in flash-based storage devices. NVMe is expected to be the next evolutionary step in speed and latency reduction for flash media and next-generation storage class memory (SCM) media.

What are the benefits of NVMe?

NVMe offers benefits that include:

• Reduced latency in the host software stack.
• Higher I/O operations per second.
• Lower power consumption.