KIOXIA America, Inc. today announced that it has donated a command set specification to the Linux Foundation vendor-neutral Software-Enabled FlashTM Project. Built to deliver on the promise of software-defined flash, Software-Enabled Flash technology gives storage developers control over their data placement, latency outcomes, and workload isolation requirements. Through its open API and SDKs, hyperscale environments may optimize their own flash protocols, such as flexible direct placement (FDP) or zoned namespace (ZNS), while accelerating adoption of new flash technologies. This unique combination of open source software and purpose-built hardware can help data centers maximize the value of flash memory. KIOXIA has developed working samples of hardware modules for hyperscalers, storage developers and application developers.

"We are delighted to provide command set specifications to the Software-Enabled Flash Project," said Eric Ries, senior vice president and general manager of the Memory and Storage Strategy Division for KIOXIA America, Inc. "This is an important step that allows the ecosystem to bring products to market, and enables customers to extract the maximum value from flash memory."

Samsung and Western Digital today signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that implies that the two companies will join their efforts to create next-generation data placement, processing, and fabrics (D2PF) storage technologies. The MOU states that the two companies will collaborate on creating Zoned Storage devices, including ZNS (Zoned Namespaces) SSDs and SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording) HDDs. The ZNS SSD initiative is a challenge of creating entirely new SSDs that work on the ZNS principle instead of traditional block-based drives. Opposite to data in traditional SSDs written in blocks, ZNS SSDs will place data into zones and have software understand where each bit of information is written without excessive read/write action. Another benefit of ZNS is that managing data allows less garbage collection, thus higher efficiency.

Software adoption for ZNS makes it hard, and Samsung's conjoined efforts with Western Digital aim to simplify it. Western Digital notes that "In addition, this collaboration is expected to serve as a starting point to expand zone-based (e.g. ZNS, SMR) device interfaces, as well as future-generation, high-capacity storage devices with enhanced data placement and processing technologies. At a later stage, these initiatives will be expanded to include other emerging D2PF technologies such as computational storage and storage fabrics including NVMe over Fabrics (NVMe-oF)." So, with further development of ZNS, Samsung and Western Digital will collab on more advanced storage options as well.