AMD Updates StoreMi: Adds Support for Threadripper Pro, SSD Partitions

Last year AMD significantly overhauled its StoreMi software that's designed to speed up storage performance on its consumer platforms. This week the company continued to polish off its StoreMi suite by enabling support for its ultra-high-end Threadripper Pro workstations, as well as the ability to use SSD partitions for caching. 

Introduced in 2018, AMD's StoreMi was AMD's way to improve its platforms' storage performance, therefore responding to Apple's Fusion Drive and Intel's Optane Memory caching. Just like Apple's Fusion Drive (and unlike Intel's caching-based algorithm), AMD's StoreMi used to be a block-based micro-tiering storage solution, which has a clear advantage over caching as far as capacity is concerned, but AMD says this might not be the most optimal solution when it comes to reliability. In Q2 2020, AMD re-introduced its StoreMi suite and basically re-invented it as a storage caching software that mirrors frequently used data on a faster drive. Since then, the company has been perfecting the StoreMi V2 software.  

The latest version of AMD's StoreMi can work with AMD's Ryzen Threadripper Pro CPUs on WRX80 motherboards. Hybrid storage subsystems are not exactly common in crème-de-la-crème professional workstations that are usually equipped with high-capacity SSDs and connected to even higher-capacity NAS, but since AMD now offers its Ryzen Threadripper Pro with WRX80 platform at retail, adding support for StoreMi makes sense. 

Another improvement of the StoreMi suite is designed for more widespread systems. The update can use SSD petitions for caching. For example, if a system is equipped with a 1 TB SSD, half of its capacity may be used for the OS and frequently used software, whereas the other half can be used for caching data. 

AMD's StoreMi V2 suite is now compatible with the company's X570, B550, 400, X399, TRX40, or WRX80-series platforms. You can download the software here.