Drives

The IBM® Storage FlashSystem 9500 system supports several drive classes and capacities.

These drives are used to create arrays that provide capacity for pools and volumes. All drives in an array are the same type and capacity.

The system supports the following drive types:
  • IBM FlashCore® Modules
  • Industry-standard SSD drives
  • Storage-Class Memory drives
IBM Storage FlashSystem 9500 also supports SAS HDDs and SSDs in expansion enclosures.
Note: Do not replace a drive unless the drive fault LED is on or you are instructed to do so by a fix procedure.

FlashCore Modules

IBM® FlashCore Modules (FCM) are a family of high-performance flash drives in a standard 2.5-inch, 15 mm form factor.

The FlashCore Module design uses the NVMe protocol, a Gen4 U.2 interface, and high-speed NAND memory to provide high throughput and IOPS with consistent and predictable latency. The FlashCore Modules are accessible from the front of the enclosure. Hardware-based data compression, self-encryption, and T10-Diff are supported.

FlashCore Modules are available in 4.8 TB, 9.6 TB, 19.2 TB, and 38.4 TB.
Table 1. FlashCore Modules sizes and capacities
FlashCore Module Size (TB) Logical size (TB)
FCM 3

4.8

9.6

19.2

38.4

21.99

28.8

57.6

115.2
FCM 4

4.8

9.6

19.2

38.4

21.99

28.8

57.6

115.2

FlashCore Module 4 drives have a PCIe Gen 4 interface at all capacity points. In addition, FlashCore Module 4 drives support computational storage assists for real-time ransomware threat detection. To take advantage of this feature, RAID arrays must entirely consist of FlashCore Module 4 drives and must be created on a minimum code level of 8.6.2.

FlashCore Module 4 drives are undergoing FIPS140-3 validation.

Industry-standard NVMe SSDs

IBM Storage FlashSystem 9500 supports Industry-Standard NVMe SSDs with the following capacities: 1.92 TB, 3.84 TB, 7.68 TB, 15.36 TB, and 30.72 TB. These NVMe drives support hardware-based encryption for data at rest as well as standard T-10Diff protection.

Note: Industry-Standard SSDs do not offer the internal compression or computational storage features of FlashCore Modules.

Storage Class Memory drives

Storage Class Memory drives provide the lowest latency for high performance small capacity workloads. IBM Storage FlashSystem 9500 supports a 1.6 TB Storage Class Memory drive .

Drive plug ordering

New systems ordered from IBM with fewer than 48 drives follow a particular slot usage pattern. If more drives are installed later, continuing with the same plug ordering pattern ensures optimum system performance.

Any drive slot without a drive in it must be fitted with a Drive Blank to maintain correct airflow impedance.
Figure 1. IBM Storage FlashSystem 9500 preferred slot plug ordering pattern
Front view of control enclosure
Note: In figure, the numbers inside the drive slots denote the preferred plug order, where 1 is the first drive that is plugged and 48 is the last.