When Western Digital rolled out its Ultrastar DC SN861 SSDs earlier this year, it left a lot of us in the dark about the controller inside, leading many to believe it was using its own tech. However, a recent teardown has cleared up the mystery – it’s actually Fadu, a South Korean company established in 2015 specializing in enterprise-grade SSD solutions, providing the controller.
The Ultrastar DC SN861 is designed for data-hungry hyperscale datacenters and enterprise customers who are embracing PCIe Gen5 storage. Thanks to insights from a recent Storage Review article, we now know this drive is powered by Fadu’s FC5161 NVMe 2.0-compliant controller. This controller supports 16 NAND channels with an ONFi 5.0 interface capable of 2400 MT/s, packed with impressive enterprise features. These include OCP Cloud Spec 2.0, SR-IOV, support for up to 512 namespaces for ZNS, flexible data placement, NVMe-MI 1.2, advanced security, and even power loss protection. These features overshadow those found in previous Western Digital controllers and other off-the-shelf options.
Performance-wise, the Ultrastar DC SN861 doesn’t disappoint. It can achieve sequential read speeds of up to 13.7 GB/s and sequential write speeds reaching 7.5 GB/s. When it comes to random performance, it boasts up to 3.3 million random 4K read IOPS and up to 0.8 million random 4K write IOPS. The drives cater to different storage needs with capacities ranging from 1.6 TB to 7.68 TB, supporting one or three drive writes per day over five years. Also, they come in two form factors: U.2 and E1.S.
Despite sharing common designs, the SN861’s two form factors are tailored for specific purposes. The E1.S model is optimized for cloud environments, enhancing performance with FDP, while the U.2 variant is built for high-performance enterprise applications and up-and-coming technologies like AI.
Western Digital’s Ultrastar DC SN861 is undoubtedly a powerhouse in the realm of enterprise-grade SSDs, boasting high performance and a rich feature set. What adds to its allure is its 5W idle power consumption, which is quite efficient for an enterprise drive – notably 1W less than its predecessor, the SN840. Though a mere watt might not seem significant, for hyperscale deployments running thousands of drives, every watt saved impacts the total cost of ownership.
Currently, Western Digital’s Ultrastar DC SN861 SSDs are available for select customers, including tech giants like Meta, and other interested buyers. Pricing details remain under wraps and will likely vary based on purchase volumes.
Sources: Fadu, Storage Review
