The SSD Review The Worlds Dedicated SSD Education and Review Resource | 
Our look at the KIOXIA CD9P-R Gen5 Data Center SSD marks a first for The SSD Review, and it’s a bit of a nostalgic one. Our connection with the KIOXIA team stretches back many years, all the way to the early OCZ Revo and Vertex days. That lineage later became Toshiba, and eventually KIOXIA around 2018–2019. Since shifting our focus largely to retail and client SSDs several years ago, our interactions with KIOXIA have mostly come through tech events and European launches, especially in our coverage of the KIOXIA Exceria lineup.
Interestingly, one of our favorite past articles ties into today’s review. It featured a close-up cross-section of BiCS 8 NAND flash layers captured with a 1000x endoscope. That sample showcased BiCS 8 QLC with a 32-die stack, not the 3-bit BiCS 8 218-layer 3D TLC NAND powering this new CD9P-R Gen5 SSD. Still, it was the first time we’d ever seen real NAND flash layers under magnification rather than a rendered diagram. Take a look:
Our report on the KIOXIA CD9P-R this morning highlights one of two closely related data center SSD releases from KIOXIA: the CD9P-R and the CD9P-V. While the two models share very similar performance specifications, the “R” version is rated for 1 Drive Write Per Day (1DWPD), whereas the “V” version carries a much higher 3DWPD endurance rating. As a result, the V model offers lower usable capacities due to the additional over-provisioning required to achieve that impressive endurance level.
We hope to have the CD9P-V in hand for a future side-by-side comparison, although with current NAND pricing, securing both versions of such closely related enterprise SSDs is no longer a certainty.
The KIOXIA CD9P-R is a PCIE 5.0 (Gen5) x 4 (4-lane) 1DPWD data center SSD that follows the NVMe 2.0 operating protocol and operates at speeds up to 128GT/s. The sample we have in hand is of the newer E3.S form factor and its metal shell measures roughly 4″x3″ and is only 1/4″ thick.
Performance for the the CD9Pis listed at 14.8GB/s read and 7GB/s write with up to 2600K IOPS read and 450K IOPS write. This SSD is ideal for mixed use scenarios and comes with a standard 5-year limited warranty. This snapshot from our slide deck provides a great comparable between the two different SSD performance specs:
Both versions of the CD9P would be ideal for applications such as Hyperscale computing, IoT and big data analytics, OLTP, steaming media and content delivery as well as virtualized environments, noting of course the ‘V’ version is 3DWPD and has stronger 4K low random write speeds.
The CD9P has additional features such as SIE/SED, performs at under 23w active power, is DRAM-based and has power-loss-protection built-in.
Next up – metrics.