As data demands grow, finding a sustainable storage and server solution is on top of the agenda for many organizations. But with technical jargons and abbreviations abound, navigating the market is often easier said than done. Interfaces play a crucial role in determining the performance of a storage system and understanding how different iterations operate is the first step to identifying a suitable solution. As the latest high-speed bus standard, PCIe Gen4 offers the speed and efficiency required for today’s data demands.

Understanding PCIe Gen4

Internal computer components are connected to each other and the motherboard by interfaces. They allow information and data to flow between different components, similar to the way bridges connect landmasses and enable traffic flow. While there are different types of interface connections, PCIe, or peripheral component interconnected express, is generally considered the industry standard. Since the bus standard provides high bandwidth communication, PCIe is often used for high-speed components, such as GPUs, SSDs, Ethernet cards and RAID cards. PCIe cards or slots come in various sizes with different numbers of lanes. This is indicated in the number after the x. For example, a PCIe x1 card has one lane. The more lanes there are in a card or slot, the faster data can flow to and from the component. Since the interface was introduced in 2003, PCIe has gone through four iterations. The most important improvement each version offers is faster data transfer speed. Typically, the newer version provides double the bandwidth of its predecessor, which can enhance hardware capability significantly. Launched this year after it was first published in 2017, PCIe Gen4 is the latest version of the interface standard. While PCIe Gen3 provides around 8 GT/s of bandwidth per lane, PCIe Gen4 offers an impressive bandwidth of around 16 GT/s per lane. With 4 lanes, PCIe Gen4 can potentially transfer data at around 8 GB/s, whereas the maximum data transfer rate of PCIe Gen3 is capped at around 4 GB/s. Aside from increased speed, PCIe Gen4 also offers improved power efficiency, making the interface an ideal solution for high-speed memory storage systems.

A New Storage Frontier

In an era where data mobility matters as much as capacity, PCIe Gen4 can meet the needs of today’s high-speed data and server centers. Leveraging the speed PCIe Gen4 offers, Samsung PM1733 SSD sets a new standard for cutting-edge storage solutions. The component can reach a sequential read speed of up to 8 GB/s and provides random read speed at around 1,500K IOPS. With a capacity of up to 30.72TB in U.2 configuration and up to 15.36TB in HHHL variant, PCIe Gen4-based PM1733 can optimize IT infrastructures’ ability to store, transfer, and analyze large volumes of data. As the component is backward compatible with PCIe Gen3 architectures, PM1733 offers flexibility for current and future data needs.