E2 Form Factor Emerges as Universal Standard for High-Density Data Center Storage

The New Storage Paradigm: E2 Form Factor Takes Center Stage

The 2025 Open Compute Project Summit witnessed a significant industry shift toward standardization as major technology companies rallied behind the E2 form factor for next-generation data center storage. This emerging standard represents a crucial evolution in SSD design, specifically engineered to meet the escalating demands of artificial intelligence workloads and high-density storage applications.

Meta’s QLC Implementation and Storage Hierarchy Vision

Meta provided detailed insights into their pioneering QLC flash storage infrastructure, revealing their Open Rack Frame version 3 (ORv3) architecture designed in collaboration with manufacturing partner Jabil. The reference design supports 24 U.2 and U.2 long Direct Flash Modules, achieving an ambitious target of exceeding 50 petabytes per rack. Ross Stenfort from Meta positioned QLC flash modules as a strategic layer in the storage hierarchy, situating them between TLC SSDs and traditional hard disk drives for optimal cost-performance balance., according to recent innovations

Industry Consortium Drives E2 Standardization

A panel featuring representatives from Pure Storage, Meta, Molex, and Micron detailed the collaborative effort behind the E2 form factor specification. The standard is engineered to support 64 NAND packages with an advanced flash controller and substantial DRAM capacity on a single circuit board, operating at power levels exceeding 30W with minimal airflow requirements. Industry leaders confirmed that the E2 form factor is positioned to become the universal standard for 128TB and higher capacity SSDs, leveraging design principles from existing E3 and E1 form factors.

Thermal and Power Management Innovations

Arthur Lai from Molex elaborated on critical thermal design considerations, advocating for what he termed an “ortho hybrid solution” optimized for high-density rack installations. The discussion highlighted ongoing challenges in pushing performance to meet Generation 7 requirements while supporting power demands exceeding 80W. Anthony Constantine from Micron addressed both current improvements since 2024 and future directions, including liquid cooling integration, emphasizing the necessity of a unified form factor to support PCIe 7.0 implementations in high-density data center environments.

Advanced Memory Technologies for AI Workloads

Samsung showcased substantial advancements in high-bandwidth memory, detailing HBM4 and HBM4E technologies that deliver more than double the bandwidth of HBM3E with significantly improved energy efficiency. The company also discussed their comprehensive memory portfolio including DDR5, RDIMM, MRDIMM, LPDDR6, and innovative LPCAMM2 and SOCAMM2 form factors. Particularly noteworthy was Samsung’s introduction of processing-in-memory technology with LPDDR5X-PIM, which promises substantial performance and energy improvements for AI applications.

SK hynix’s High-Bandwidth Flash Breakthrough

SK hynix unveiled their AIN family of memory solutions specifically tailored for AI applications, featuring high-bandwidth flash technology developed in partnership with SanDisk. This innovative architecture enables NAND-based flash devices to achieve performance characteristics approaching HBM levels while maintaining SSD-level capacities. The highly parallel memory configuration represents a fundamental departure from conventional SSD designs, potentially reshaping the memory-storage hierarchy for AI infrastructure., as as previously reported

Flexible Data Placement for Enhanced SSD Endurance

A dedicated session addressed the critical challenge of write amplification in QLC and TLC SSDs, with Rory Bolt from Kioxia presenting use cases for Flexible Data Placement technology. The discussion emphasized practical strategies for separating temporary files and swap spaces from longer-lived data, effectively reducing write amplification and extending SSD lifespan. Kioxia demonstrated their implementation through exhibits of LC9 Series Enterprise QLC SSDs, SD8 E1.S Data Center SSDs, and CD9P Series Data Center SSDs.

The Future of Data Center Storage Architecture

The collective developments presented at the 2025 OCP Summit signal a transformative period in data center storage. The E2 form factor emerges as a unifying standard that addresses thermal management, power delivery, capacity scaling, and performance requirements simultaneously. As AI workloads continue to evolve and expand, these advancements in form factor standardization, memory technology, and storage architecture will play a pivotal role in enabling the next generation of computational infrastructure.

The industry-wide collaboration evident at the summit demonstrates a shared recognition that overcoming current storage limitations requires coordinated innovation across multiple domains—from form factor design and thermal management to memory technology and data placement algorithms. This holistic approach positions the E2 form factor not merely as another specification, but as a foundational element for future data center architecture.

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