NVM Express releases NVMe 2.0 series of specifications
The NVM Express organization recently announced the release of the NVM Express (NVMe) 2.0 series of specifications, a large-scale upgrade of the original protocol. This new specification allows faster and simpler NVMe solutions to support the increasingly diversified use of NVMe devices and will extend the supported devices to mechanical hard drives. In the NVMe 2.0 specification, new functions such as ZNS partition namespace, KV command set, and various underlying transmission protocols common to NVMe and NVMe over Fabric (NVMe-of) technology will be added.
It is estimated that by 2024, the overall capacity of SSDs using the NVMe protocol will increase at a compound annual growth rate of 43%. In order to meet the needs of the new generation of SSDs, the NVMe 2.0 specification will emerge as the times require.
NVMe 2.0 specification library includes NVMe Base specification, command set specification (NVM command set specification, ZNS command set specification, KV command set specification), transmission specification (PCIe transmission specification, Fibre Channel transmission specification, RDMA transmission specification, and TCP transmission specification), and NVMe Management Interface Specification. However, unlike the old agreement, the new generation of NVMe agreement also covers mechanical hard drives, which may replace the SATA agreement in the future. The transmission speed of mechanical hard disks has increased very slowly for a long time.
The current mainstream SATA 6Gbps is enough to meet the needs of general mechanical hard disks. However, with the introduction of Mach.2 and HAMR technologies by Seagate, the transmission speed of mechanical hard disks has also been greatly improved, from about 200MB/s to more than 500MB/s, gradually approaching the interface limit of SATA 6Gbps, which has reached or even exceeded individual solid-state hard disk.
The new NVMe 2.0 specification will promote the construction of the NVMe device ecosystem, including enterprise-level and consumer-level solid-state drives, mechanical hard drives, removable memory cards, and accelerator cards.
