Fadu’s FC5161 SSD Controller Unveiled in Western Digital’s PCIe Gen5 Enterprise Drives

Earlier this year, Western Digital rolled out its Ultrastar DC SN861 SSDs, sparking interest as the company initially stayed mum about the controller behind these powerful drives. Many guessed it was a proprietary controller from WD, but a recent teardown revealed otherwise. It turns out, the brains behind these SSDs come from Fadu, a South Korean enterprise-focused SSD solutions provider that has been making waves since its founding in 2015.

Targeting the high-octane environment of hyperscale data centers and enterprises eager to adopt PCIe Gen5 storage, the Western Digital Ultrastar DC SN861 SSD is built on Fadu’s FC5161 NVMe 2.0-ready controller. As detailed in a Storage Review article complete with teardown photos, this controller stands out with its 16 NAND channels, which communicate via an ONFi 5.0 2400 MT/s interface. It’s loaded with features like enterprise-level OCP Cloud Spec 2.0, SR-IOV, and supports up to 512 namespaces for ZNS, plus flexible data placement, NVMe-MI 1.2, cutting-edge security measures, telemetry, and power loss protection. These features set it apart from the crowd and mark a significant upgrade from WD’s previous controller offerings.

Performance-wise, the Ultrastar DC SN861 doesn’t disappoint. It delivers sequential read speeds soaring up to 13.7 GB/s and sequential write speeds peaking at 7.5 GB/s. When it comes to handling random operations, the drive hits up to 3.3 million random 4K read IOPS and 0.8 million random 4K write IOPS. Buyers can choose from capacities ranging from 1.6 TB to 7.68 TB, with endurance ratings of one or three drive writes per day over five years. Form factor options include U.2 and E1.S, each optimized for specific demands: the E1.S variant is finely tuned for cloud environments with features like FDP and enhanced performance tweaks, while the U.2 model targets high-performance enterprise and AI introduction tasks.

Western Digital’s latest offering, the Ultrastar DC SN861, is clearly packed with enterprise-ready features. It boasts a particularly noteworthy 5W idle power usage. While it’s just a 1W improvement over models like the SN840, in the vast realm of hyperscale deployments where efficiency is key, every watt saved translates to significant cost benefits.

Currently, the Ultrastar DC SN861 SSDs have hit the market, available to select customers like Meta, as well as interested buyers. Pricing remains a bit of a mystery and will likely fluctuate based on volume and demand.

(Sources: Fadu, Storage Review)