Kioxia launches BG6 Series affordable high performing SSDs
Kioxia is not a known storage manufacturer to mainstream consumers who purchase storage devices from familiar brands such as Western Digital or Samsung. But they're a reputable company known for manufacturing high-performing SSDs that do not break the bank. Now, Kioxia is expanding its affordable SSD product line with new BG6 series SSDs.
Kioxia SSDs will feature the company's first 6th generation BiCS Flash 3D triple-level cell ( TLC) memory, with 1.7 times enhanced performance over the previous gen BG5 Series models. Like its predecessor, the BG6 series SSDs will be high-performing, faster, and affordable.
The BG6 series SSDs will be available in variable storage capacities, starting with 256GB, 512GB, 1TB, and 2 TB. Kioxia's offering will be the standard M.2 2280 form factor and the more compact M.2 2230 form factor ( 1TB). The M.2 2230 form factor, though not mentioned in the press release, is tailor-made for Valve's Steam Deck handheld gaming console.
Compared to previous Gen BG5 and BG4 series SSDs, the latest variant has improved performance across its platform. You will, especially, have an enhanced 4K random write performance. In addition, the BG6 series will be 2-times faster than the BG5 series and four times faster than the BG4 product line.
Cost per performance is based SSDs that don't feature DRAM, much like the Western Digital Black SN770, Samsung's 980, and various other models. However, the BG6 series SSDs will now support a unique feature known as a "fully matured" host memory buffer (HMB for short) technology. It utilizes a small portion of your system's DRAM as a bucket for the write cache. The caveat to using this technology is that latency drops significantly compared to DRAM.
There is no information from Kioxia regarding price, but the Kioxia BG4 and BG5 series drives indicate that the new BG6 series SSDs will be affordable. Kioxia will demo the latest SSDs at Dell’s Technologies World event this week and will begin offering BG6 series sample drives to OEMs in the second half of this year. Stay tuned.
