The SSD Montitan is designed for AI and HPC, but must overcome the dynamics of the difficult market to succeed
- The SSD Montitan shows impressive specifications but may have missed the synchronization window
- Silicon Motion faces difficult competition from NAND manufacturers integrated vertically
- Strong controller performance may not be enough on the AI market today
The SSD Montitan SSD platform of Silicon Motion finally obtains a complete ventilation of performance after years of preview of commercial fairs, and although the results impress on paper, the question is whether it is too late to have importance.
A review of Tweaktown Affirms that the 7.68 TB SSD is “a masterpiece of business storage design”, fueled by the SM8366 PCIe Gen5 SM8366 controller of Silicon Motion and designed to compete in the highest levels of data center performance.
The Montitan platform targets TLC and QLC configurations and is optimized for AI, Edge Computing and HPC environments.
Offers more than most
With the management of NVME 2.0B, specifications of the OCP data center and multiple standard form factors, the SSD Montitan of 7.68 TB is aimed at modern and high demand workloads. The revised unit, an SSD based on the U.2 form factor, supports 3.4 million PIOs and sequential speeds up to 14.2 GB / s.
It also has a narrow latency control, an inactive low power (under 5W) and a DWPD 1 endurance rating which allows the driving to be rewritten almost 2000 times during its lifespan.
The SM8366 controller itself is the cornerstone of the platform, offering advanced features such as Pergashape, an algorithm based on firmware to shape performance by quality of service requirements defined by the user (QOS).
Combined with hardware level isolation, this design aims to provide a coherent flow and set to the application between workloads.
The summary, Tweaktown said: “We love what Silicon Motion has developed in its controller SM8366, as delivered by its Montaine platform. Our test subject has clearly shown that it can provide more than most of its competitors. We particularly appreciate its tight, consistent and predictable EO delivery with its ability to dominate most, otherwise, those of its class or even above.”
Despite the technical forces, the position of Silicon Motion is more complicated. He, like Phison and other controller suppliers, is now in competition with former partners.
Nand manufacturers such as Samsung and SK Hynix are integrated vertically, building their own controllers and keeping the value chain more internally. In this landscape, offering a platform, also capable, is a much more difficult sale.
The workloads of AI now pushing depths of queue far beyond what was typical a few years ago, the quality of the controller counts more than ever. But with a complete marketing of platforms like the upcoming Montitan after the race for AI infrastructure began, the silicon movement could simply be too late to carve out a significant space against the rooted competitors.
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