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- E2 SSDs are intended to balance the capacity and efficiency of storage performance
- New form factor fits in with the increasing demand for data storage of the hot level
- High density flash can reduce dependence on hard drives in the long term
As work taxes shift and warm up cold data under AI and analysis requirements, the traditional split between high-speed SSDs and cost-effective hard drives no longer have every use case.
A new SSD form factor known as E2 is being developed to tackle the growing gap in Enterprise Data storage. Potentially delivering up to 1pb QLC-Flash per disk, they can become the central soil option that the industry needs.
Disturbance review Claims that the E2 form factor is designed with the support of important players, including Micron, Meta and Pure Storage via the Association Association and Open Compute Project.
Solid speeds, but not advanced
E2 SSDS focuses on “hot” data – information that is often accessible enough to tax hard drives, but that does not justify the costs of performance flashes.
Physically measuring E2 SSDs 200 mm x 76 mm x 9.5 mm. They use the same EDSFF connector in E1 and E3 discs, but are optimized for dense implementations with high capacity.
A standard 2U server can host a maximum of 40 E2 discs, which translates into 40 PB Flash into a single chassis. Disturbance review Says that these discs will make a connection via PCIE 6.0 using four lanes and can consume up to 80 W per unity, although most are expected to draw much less.
The performance achieved 8-10 MB/s per terabyte, or up to 10,000 MB/s for a 1pb model. That is faster than hard drives, but not in the same class as top-end Enterprise SSDs. The priorities of E2 will be capacity, efficiency and cost control instead.
Pure storage showed a 300 TB E2 prototype in May 2025 with dram caches, capacitors for protection of power loss and a flash controller that is suitable for this scale. Although the current servers are not yet ready for this form factor, new systems are expected.
It is fair to say that E2 will not replace hard drives at night, but it does indicate a shift. As the specifications go to the completion this summer, suppliers reconsider how large -scale flash can fit into modern infrastructure.
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