- Montitan SSD shows impressive specifications but may have missed the timing window
- Silicon Exercise Faces Far Competition From Vertically Integrated NAND producers
- Strong controller —Deque may not be enough on today’s AI -Market
Silicon Motion’s Montitan SSD platform finally gets a full performance distribution after many years of trade show -and although the results impress on paper, the question is whether it is too late to matter.
A review from Tweattown Claims that 7.68TB Montitan SSD is “a masterpiece of Enterprise Storage -Design”, powered by Silicon Motion’s SM8366 PCIE Gen5 controller and built to compete at the highest levels of the data center’s performance.
The Montitan platform is targeted at both TLC and QLC configurations and is optimized for AI, Edge Computing and HPC environments.
Delivers more than most
With support for NVME 2.0B, OCP data center specifications and several standard form factors, 7.68TB Montitan SSD is aimed at modern workload with high demand. The device reviewed, a U.2 form factor TLC-based SSD, supports 3.4 million IOPs and sequential speeds up to 14.2 GB/s.
It also boasts tight latency control, low idle effect (below 5W) and a 1 DWPD endurance assessment that allows the drive to rewrite almost 2000 times over its lifetime.
The SM8366 controller is the cornerstone of the platform, which offers advanced features such as Performasape, a firmware-based algorithm for designing performance according to custom quality of service requirements (QOS).
Combined with hardware-level insulation, this design aims to supply consistent, application-set flow across work loads.
Summarizing it, Tweattown Said, “We like what Silicon Motion has developed in its SM8366 -Controller as provided by its Montitan platform. Our topic of tests clearly demonstrated that it can deliver more than most of its competitors. We especially appreciate its tight, consistent and predictable IO delivery with its ability to dominate most, if not all, of them in its class or even over low meat.”
Despite the technical strengths, the position of Silicon Exercise is more complicated. That, like Phison and other controller suppliers, is now competing against former partners.
Nand producers such as Samsung and SK Hynix are vertically integrated, building their own controllers and love the value chain internally. In that landscape it is to offer a platform, whether it is capable, a much harder sale.
With AI workloads that are now pushing flock depths far beyond what was typical a few years ago, controller quality means more than ever. But with full commercialization of platforms like Montitan, which comes years after the AI infrastructure race began, the silicon movement can simply be too late to separate a meaningful place against anchored competitors.
