- Compression-based SSD pushes PCIe Gen5 performance past conventional flash limits
- Extreme benchmark results rely on workloads that compress cleanly and predictably
- Roealsen6 R6101C negotiates fixed capacity assumptions for speed and efficiency
DapuStor is a Chinese startup that develops and makes very large – and very fast – enterprise-grade SSDs.
These include the DapuStor J5060 61.44TB and the Roealsen6 R6101 7.68TB. The latest drive from the company is the Roealsen6 R6101C 7.68TB SDD, which TweakTown reviewed and raved about.
Tests showed the drive delivered record sequential and mixed workloads when compression was enabled – and TweakTown wrote: “This is by far the fastest speed we’ve encountered from a single PCIe Gen5 x4 SSD.”
Highest sequential throughput and mixed workload
Part of DapuStor’s Roealsen6 series, the new SSD is built around the company’s internal DP800 controller and firmware. It uses a PCIe 5.0 interface and 3D eTLC NAND flash while supporting the NVMe 2.0 protocol.
Unlike standard SSDs, the R6101C includes an application processor paired with a transparent hardware compression engine.
This allows data to be compressed before being written to flash, reducing the amount of physical storage accessed.
Performance and usable capacity obviously depends on how compressible the data is. Users may prefer raw speed or effective capacity, although both are tied directly to workload characteristics.
Under ideal conditions, the compression system can reach a ratio of 4:1. This allows a 7.68 TB drive to present multiple times its physical capacity to the host.
This reflects long-standing practice in tape storage where LTO media displays native and compressed capacities.
At a 2:1 compression ratio, TweakTown measured up to 14,200 MB/s sequential write and 15,050 MB/s sequential read. Both numbers exceeded factory specifications.
Random typing test also set records. The results reached around 1.27 million IOPS in 4K workloads at the same compression level.
The SSD draws around 18W under load and uses a U.2 form factor. It is rated at 1 DWPD and supports common enterprise platforms.
Of course, compression-based SSDs aren’t new, with products from ScaleFlux already on the market, but the new Roealsen6 adds another option for buyers.
TweakTown rated it 99/100, while noting that real-world results will depend on achieving compression levels that do not apply to all data types.
Senior hardware editor Jon Coulter concluded, “DapuStor’s Roealsen6 R6101C 7.68TB has delivered the highest sequential throughput and the highest mixed workload throughput we’ve ever encountered from any flash-based SSD.”
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