# Kioxia doubles super-fast flash drive speed — retained record

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source: [news](https://highsignal.app/data/news) (news:blocksandfiles)  published 2026-10-08 15:00 ingested 2026-10-09 02:51

[original source ↗](https://www.blocksandfiles.com/flash/2026/10/08/kioxia-doubles-super-fast-flash-drive-speed/5301892)

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Kioxia doubles super-fast flash drive speed
Kioxia has a 2x speed increase for its Optane-class GP series SSDs, at new and longer QLC drive for large datacenters and is showing these and its liquid-cooled NX1 SSD at the OCP Gobal Summit.
There is an enhanced version of the GP Series SSD using gen 3 XL-FLASH with >20 million IOPS 512-byte random read performance. The GP1 announced in August offered around 10 million IOPS. XL-FLASH, provides higher IOPS, finer-grained 512-byte data access, and lower power consumption per I/O compared to conventional SSDs. This gen 1 XL-FLASH uses, we understand, MLC (2 bits/cell) with a faster SLC (1 bit/cell) mode, a 16-plane architecture, and read latency under 5 microseconds.
Kioxia America’s Neville Ichhaporia, SVP and GM of the SD business unit, said: “Kioxia is making game-changing high-performance flash storage solutions for AI infrastructure. As AI drives new performance demands, scalable, efficient storage becomes the foundation for innovation. We’re helping data centers build that foundation by pioneering storage solutions designed specifically for AI-driven infrastructure."
Gen 3 XL-FLASH triples read performance and raises write performance by about 150 percent. It uses still shorter word lines and bit lines to reduce RC delay, and more planes per die than Gen 2’s 16. Energy efficiency is expected to improve by about 40 percent for reads and 80 percent for writes. Because performance scales faster than efficiency, energy per I/O is still projected to rise.
The LD4 is a single port, QLC (4 bits/cell), E1.L format drive with a PCIe 5 x 4 lane interconnect, with ordinary capacity options of 15.36 and 30.72 TB. We say ordinary because these are not high-capacities for QLC drives which are now up at the 246 TB level with Kioxia’s own LC9. The LD4’s architecture is valid for extension to 122.88 TB according to Kioxia and it’s meant for hyperscalers and large data centers.
We think there is a lot of space inside the E1.L enclosure and that Kioxia’s 15.36 TB capacity makes it ¼ full, 30.72 TB ½ full, and 122.88 TB completely full, with a likely 61.44 TB offering coming at the ¾ full point.
The LD4 is built from Kioxia’s BiCS 8 218-layer flash. Kioxia had an LD2 drive back in October 2023, with a PCIe 3 interconnect, the same 15.36 and 30.72 TB capacities and E1.L format. We think it used BiCS gen 5 112-layer flash in a QLC format. There was no LD3 drive and now we have the LD4 as a BICS 8 incarnation of the LD2 with a faster (PCIe 5) bus.
Competing E1.L PCIe 5 SSDs are Micron's 6550 ION, DapuStor's R6060 and the FADU Echo.
Kioxia has not revealed any performance or endurance numbers for the LD4. We’re told it supports NVMe 2.0, has support for OCP Datacenter NVMe SSD Specification 2.6, and end-to-end data loss protection.
The company is also demo’ing its liquid-cooled NX1 Series E1.S NVMe SSDs for data centers.
The OCP 2026 Global Summit takes place at the San Jose Convention Center, CA, from October 12 to 16.
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