KIOXIA Europe GmbH today announced the addition of the KIOXIA BG6 Series to its lineup of PCIe 4.0 solid state drives (SSDs). It is the first product to feature the company’s new, 6th generation BiCS FLASH™ 3D flash memory[1] and almost 1.7 times the performance of its predecessor[2]. Designed to unleash the increased speeds and affordability of PCIe 4.0 for PC users, the powerful and compact KIOXIA BG6 Series client SSDs offer a discrete M.2 2230 form factor with higher capacities and improved power efficiency. M.2 2280 single-sided form factor versions are also available.

The KIOXIA BG6 Series unlocks back-end flash performance while maintaining affordability and increasing capacity, making it an attractive option for commercial and consumer notebooks and desktops.

The KIOXIA BG6 drives support the fully matured Host Memory Buffer (HMB) technology, which utilizes part of the host memory (DRAM) as if it were its own, to realize a DRAM-less, high-performance SSD.

"The latest KIOXIA client SSD line-up boosts performance to new levels with its next-generation BG6 Series. They are well-suited for today's mobile and flexible 'work and play from anywhere' lifestyle, which modern consumers require for gaming and mobile computing. The BG6 Series also suits various embedded device applications," said Frederik Haak, Senior Manager SSD product marketing, KIOXIA Europe GmbH.

Additional features and benefits include:

• Capacities of 256 gigabytes (GB), 512 GB, 1,024 GB and 2,048 GB[3]
• PCIe 64 gigatransfers per second (GT/s) interface (Gen4 x4 lanes)
• Up to 6,000 megabytes per second (MB/s) sequential read and 5,300 MB/s sequential write
• Up to 850,000 IOPS[4] random read and 900,000 IOPS random write
• Forward-looking support for the NVMe 1.4c feature set and basic management command over System Management Bus (SMBus), enabling tighter thermal management
• Support for the latest TCG Pyrite and Opal standards[5], as well as end-to-end data protection ensures data is secure whether at home or in the office
• Power Loss Notification signal support to protect data against forced shut downs
• Sideband signal (PERST#, CLKREQ# and PLN#) support for both 1.8V and 3.3V
• Support platform firmeware recovery feature
  

The KIOXIA BG6 Series will start sampling in the second half of 2023 for OEM customer evaluation.

Notes:
[1] 256 GB and 512 GB SSDs use 5th generation BiCS FLASH™ 3D flash memory.
[2] Comparing KIOXIA BG5 Series vs. BG6 Series
[3]: Definition of capacity: KIOXIA defines a megabyte (MB) as 1,000,000 bytes, a gigabyte (GB) as 1,000,000,000 bytes and a terabyte (TB) as 1,000,000,000,000 bytes. A computer operating system, however, reports storage capacity using powers of 2 for the definition of 1Gb = 230 bits = 1,073,741,824 bits, 1GB = 230 bytes = 1,073,741,824 bytes and 1TB = 240 bytes = 1,099,511,627,776 bytes and therefore shows less storage capacity. Available storage capacity (including examples of various media files) will vary based on file size, formatting, settings, software and operating system, and/or pre-installed software applications, or media content. Actual formatted capacity may vary.
[4] IOPS: Input Output Per Second (or the number of I/O operations per second).
[5] Availability of security/encryption options may vary by region.