High-speed flash memory drives for aerospace and industrial applications

SMART Modular Technologies offers the new T5EN PCIe/NVMe M.2 2280 and U.2 flash drives for aerospace, defence and industrial applications that demand durable, rugged, and secure memory storage.

Extending its T5E family of SSDs, the new drives offer capacities up to 8TB (M.2 up to 4TB) Gen3x4 performance utilising 3D TLC flash with pSLC support.

“With the growing trend toward NVMe in embedded systems, developing the T5EN was a natural progression and complement to our existing product line,” explains Mike Guzzo, senior director of SMART Modular’s RUGGED line of Flash products. Guzzo adds, “Fundamentally, the T5EN includes all of the existing advantages of the T5E, such as very high capacity, superior reliability for harsh environmental extremes, military erase algorithm support, as well as 256-bit encryption. These advantages equate to a higher level of protection for mission-critical data and instil confidence in the overall reliability of the data storage devices that support high-performing NVMe architectures.”

The M.2 module and U.2 drive are provided in 3D triple-level cell NAND and pseudo-single-level cell. Both versions feature AES-XTS 256-bit encryption, automatically guarding data written to the drive. Both versions are also OPAL 2.0 compliant, which is another level of self-encryption that ensures the data on the SSDs cannot be accessed by unauthorised personnel.

Manufacturing a durable and rugged SSD begins with the design. The company selectively sources all of its components and tests them during the engineering development phase to assure high reliability and performance. The design process also includes higher margins for routing of signals, thicker PCBs, and enduring enclosures.