Immersion cooling has long been discussed as a potential solution for future server cooling, and it seems like SSD makers are starting to get on board with the same idea. Polish company Goodram Enterprise has introduced a 123TB QLC SSD, first spotted by TechRadar, that is designed specifically to be submerged in coolant.
The drive is not the largest SSD in the world (the largest so far is 245TB) , nor is it the first enterprise SSD to be immersion cooled. But it might be the largest SSD yet to boast native immersion cooling support.
Form factor | E3.S / E3.L |
H/W Pfail | Tantalum |
Capacity | 122.88 TB |
Endurance (5 years) | 0.3 drive writes per day |
Sequential Read / Write | 14,600 / 3,2 00 MB/s |
4K Random Read / Write | 3000 / 35 K |
Goodram also has a plethora of other smaller-capacity SSDs that are also officially designed to work in server environments with immersion cooling. These include M.2 2280/22110 drives, E1.S drives, and U.2/U.3 drives using either QLC or TLC NAND flash. All of its immersion cooling drives have passed tests with Shell's S5X and Chevron's Synfluid PAO 4 dielectric fluids.
Immersion cooling isn't a new idea, and conventional SSDs can technically be used in immersion cooling. Goodram's drives are special in that they offer official support for the cooling method. The company has tested its drives in dielectric fluids and equipped them with various protection features to ensure its SSDs will work well and last for years while submerged in coolant.
Submerging servers in coolant is a thermal management strategy that's been used on and off for decades, but has recently enjoyed renewed consideration as a mainstream upgrade to conventional data center liquid cooling. Today's datacenter cooling systems are becoming overwhelmed with the heat generation of modern AI-focused GPUs, driving cooling costs through the roof, and it's only going to get worse as new generations of GPU and CPU hardware emerge.
SSDs don't usually need immersion cooling in isolation, but Goodram's immersion-cooled SSD stands ready to plug into the servers of tomorrow's data center if or when immersion cooling becomes more popular.
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