New E2 SSD Standard Emerges as Industry Leaders Push Storage Innovation at OCP Summit 2025

Industry Unites Behind E2 SSD Standard

Technology leaders are reportedly converging on a new E2 form factor for solid-state drives that could become the industry standard for high-density data center applications, according to presentations at the 2025 Open Compute Platform Summit. Sources indicate the standard is designed to support 64 NAND packages with large flash controllers and high DRAM memory on a single circuit board operating at 30+ watts with minimal airflow requirements.

Industry Unites Behind E2 SSD Standard
Meta’s QLC Flash Implementation
Industry Panel Insights
Cooling and Future Developments
Memory Innovations for AI Workloads
High Bandwidth Flash Developments
Flexible Data Placement Technology
Industry-Wide Collaboration

Analysts suggest this development represents a significant step toward standardizing next-generation storage solutions. The report states that industry consortiums aim to leverage existing E3 and E1 form factors to create this new standard specifically targeting 128TB or higher SSDs.

Meta’s QLC Flash Implementation

Meta reportedly shared details about their first QLC Flash Storage Server implementation using the Open Rack Frame version 3 (ORv3) specification. According to the presentation, their design partner Jabil created an actual shelf reference design supporting 24 U.2 and U.2 long Direct Flash Modules.

The report states that Meta positioned QLC flash modules as an intermediate layer in the memory and storage hierarchy below TLC SSDs and above traditional hard disk drives. Sources indicate the goal was achieving storage density exceeding 50 petabytes per rack, representing a significant advancement in data center storage capacity.

Industry Panel Insights

A panel featuring representatives from Pure Storage, Meta, Molex, and Micron discussed SSD form factor updates and shared experiences designing and shipping QLC drives. According to reports, Peter Choi from Pure Storage compared their U.2 long Direct Flash Modules with the emerging E2 form factor.

Arthur Lai from Molex reportedly detailed optimal storage module designs for air cooling, favoring what he described as an “ortho hybrid solution” for high-density rack installation. Sources indicate challenges remain in pushing performance to Gen 7 requirements with support exceeding 80 watts., according to recent research

Cooling and Future Developments

Anthony Constantine from Micron discussed E2 improvements made since 2024 and future enhancements including liquid cooling capabilities. The report states he emphasized the need for a unified form factor to support high-density data center applications for PCIe 7 implementations.

Analysts suggest that thermal management represents a critical challenge as storage densities and power requirements increase. The industry is reportedly exploring both advanced air cooling and liquid cooling solutions to address these thermal constraints.

Memory Innovations for AI Workloads

Samsung presented advances in HBM4 and HBM4E memory, reportedly showing over 2x bandwidth increases compared to HBM3E with significantly improved energy efficiency. According to their presentation, the future of HBM will involve customization for various AI demands.

The company also discussed developments in DDR5 memory, RDIMM, MRDIMM, LPDDR6, LPCAMM2, and SOCAMM2. Sources indicate Samsung showcased a process-in-memory (PIM) device with LPDDR for AI applications, specifically LPDDR5X-PIM, which reportedly provides substantial performance and energy improvements.

High Bandwidth Flash Developments

SK hynix presented their AIN family for AI applications, including high bandwidth flash technology. According to reports, the company announced a partnership with SanDisk on this technology at the 2025 Flash Memory Summit.

Unlike conventional SSDs, sources indicate this highly parallel memory configuration enables NAND-based flash devices to operate at near-HBM performance levels while maintaining SSD-like memory capacities. This development could potentially bridge the performance gap between traditional storage and high-speed memory.

Flexible Data Placement Technology

Another session covered flexible data placement (FDP) and its potential to reduce write amplification factor (WAF) that can cause premature wear in QLC and TLC SSDs. Rory Bolt from Kioxia reportedly discussed FDP use cases and recommended separating temporary files and swap spaces from longer-lasting data to minimize write amplification.

Kioxia exhibited their LC9 Series Enterprise QLC SSDs along with SD8 E1.S Data Center SSDs and CD9P Series Data Center SSDs. The report states these products represent the company’s latest offerings in the evolving enterprise storage market.

Industry-Wide Collaboration

The 2025 OCP Summit demonstrated significant collaboration across the technology industry toward standardizing next-generation storage solutions. According to analysts, the emergence of the E2 form factor represents a coordinated effort to address the growing demands of AI workloads and high-density data center applications.

Sources indicate that continued innovation in flash memory technology, combined with new form factors and cooling solutions, will be essential for supporting future computational demands across cloud computing and artificial intelligence applications.