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In general, E1.S are currently available in four form-factors; 5.9mm 9.5mm, 15mm, and 25mm– these classifications could be thought of as “sizes”, and refer to the thickness of the SSD. This is notably different from M.2 media, which is classified by width and length. For example, “2280” represents an M.2 SSD that is 22mm wide, and 80mm long).
Additional sizes, such as KIOXIA’s 8mm form-factor (which utilize compact heat spreaders) are also available, but these are less common.
HighPoint’s double-wide SSD7749E E1.S NVMe AICs are capable of supporting the most common varieties of E1.S media – 9.5mm and 15mm. A summary of the 4 primary E1.S form-factors is outlined below.
25mm models are equipped with heat spreaders, and are typically designed for use with large rack mount servers, and not AICs or on-board (direct to motherboard) applications
15mm models are typically equipped with a heat sink, and were designed for enterprise server applications, and are compliant with 1U and 2U form-factor rackmount chassis. The SSD7749E NVMe AICs are capable of supporting up to four SSDs of this type, installed into “every-other” NVMe slot (this provides ample clearance for each SSD’s heat sink).
9.5mm models are the most common form of E1.S SSD, and are similar in size to M.2 and E1.L drives (comparable to the 22110 form-factor). SSD7749E NVMe AICs can support up to eight 9.5mm SSDs.
5.9mm models are the “thinnest” variety of E1.S media, yet are still sized similarly to 22110 form-factor M.2 SSDs (length of 112mm vs. 110mm). They are not equipped with any cooling apparatus, are often marketed for use as “boot drives” for server and workstation applications, and are typically used in single-drive configurations.
Bandwidth and Capacity Characteristics
Though the E1.S standard supports up to x8 lanes per device, most SSDs are available with x4 standard lanes.
The largest E1.S SSDs in terms of capacity, at the time of this writing (May 2023), are approximately 8TB in size; similar to the largest M.2 models on the market. However, unlike M.2 media, which has seemingly been capped at the 8TB mark, E1.S media will be available in larger sizes, perhaps as large as 16TB, before the end of the year.
E1.S NVMe AICs
The SSD7749E NVMe RAID AIC was designed for high-density, performance-hungry industrial and media applications, and is capable of supporting up to eight 9.5mm or four 15mm E1.S NVMe SSDs.
Both products utilize our innovative dual-wide AIC architecture and are fully enclosed by a robust, aluminum casing, similar to high-end GPUs, which protects the E1.S media and sensitive controller hardware from the working environment. The casing incorporates two major innovations, a novel tool-less SSD loading system designed to streamline installation and service workflows, and an entirely new, purpose-built NVMe cooling system capable of keeping temperatures in check at all times, even under strenuous 24/7 workloads.
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