Innogrit Tacoma IG5669: SSD controller with 3 million IOPS for data centers revealed

The manufacturer targets data centers with the new Innogrit Tacoma IG5669 SSD controller. It relies on up to 18 NAND channels including increased data throughput and is supposed to withstand up to 3 million IOPS.

The Innogrit Tacoma IG5669 in detail

While not all details about the Innogrit Tacoma IG5669 SSD controller are known yet, the specifications that the manufacturer mentions sound impressive. Thanks to connectivity with 18 NAND channels, the controller should be able to achieve transfer rates of up to 14 GB/s for reading and 11 GB/s for writing via PCIe 5.0 x4.

This is on par with the Phison E26, which achieves up to 13.5 GB/s read and 12 GB/s write. MSI showed a prototype based on the E26 in add-in card format in January.

However, the Tacoma IG5669 has the upper hand in random read and write, i.e. IOPS – at least if you believe the manufacturer. Here, the Innogrit controller is said to be clearly ahead of the E26 with up to three million IOPS reading and 2.5 million IOPS writing (1.5 million reading, 2 million writing).

Focus on data centers

The Innogrit Tacoma IG5669 is currently apparently intended exclusively for data center SSDs. Whether it will get a corresponding end customer counterpart is currently still completely unclear. The controller is offered with either 16 or 18 SSD memory channels and, at least according to the press release, is manufactured in a 12 nm FinFET process (fin field-effect transistor).

Innogrit’s predecessor in the form of the IG5636 PCIe 4.0 controller, on the other hand, also made it into the consumer segment after some time. Under the name IG5236, the controller was used in the fast Patriot Viper 4300 SSD, among others, which we presented in April 2021.

The IG5669 is said to support NVMe 2.0, according to technical specifications. It also uses the new ONFI 5.0 and Toggle 5.0 NAND interfaces. Furthermore, a throughput of 2,667 MT/s per memory chip is achieved, which is an impressive value.

At most, the Innogrit Tacoma IG5669 is available with 32 TB of storage capacity and that comes in many SSD formats such as E1.S, E1.L, AIC, E3.S and U.2. Zoned Namespaces (ZNS), where the storage is divided into zones to increase performance, is also already supported.

However, when the first SSDs with the Tacoma IG5669 will be available is still as unclear as the pricing. Apart from the raw technical specifications, the official product website does not reveal too much either.