118000743 EMC 15.36TB Nvme U.2 Internal Solid State Drive.

Overview of EMC 15.36TB PCIe NVMe U.2 Internal SSD

Benefits compared to SATA/SAS and larger 3.5" drives

• Lower latency: NVMe's direct PCIe command set minimizes protocol overhead compared with SATA/SAS, improving response times for I/O-heavy applications.
• Higher parallelism: NVMe supports multiple queues and deeper queue depths which significantly improves IOPS for concurrent workloads.
• Higher density: 2.5" U.2 drives allow data center architects to deploy many drives per rack unit, maximizing capacity per U while simplifying hot-swap replacement.
• Energy efficiency: Modern NVMe SSDs deliver better performance per watt than spinning media at similar capacity points.

Interface and compatibility

The EMC 118000743 uses NVMe over PCIe accessed via a U.2 connector. U.2 drives plug into standard 2.5" hot-swap bays present in most enterprise servers and storage arrays. Compatibility checklist:

• Verify server backplane supports NVMe/U.2 drives — some backplanes are SATA-only and require firmware/hardware upgrades.
• Check BIOS/UEFI and RAID controller compatibility — NVMe drives are typically managed as individual block devices; some legacy RAID controllers may not present NVMe drives directly without NVMe-aware firmware.
• Confirm cabling and sled adapters — when retrofitting older servers you may need U.2-to-U.3 or adapter brackets.

Performance

While exact numbers vary by firmware and system configuration, enterprise NVMe SSDs in this class typically provide:

• Random IOPS: Tens to hundreds of thousands of read IOPS and substantial write IOPS at low single-digit millisecond or sub-millisecond latencies.
• Sequential bandwidth: Multiple gigabytes per second for sustained sequential reads and writes when paired with sufficient host PCIe lanes and controller throughput.
• Quality of Service (QoS): Designed to maintain stable latency under mixed workloads, critical for multi-tenant and virtualization environments.

Capacity & Use-Case Subcategory: 15.36 TB Class Drives

The 15.36 TB storage capacity tier is significant in enterprise storage because it delivers extremely large usable capacity in a single drive footprint, reducing rack-space, power and cooling overhead compared to deploying multiple smaller drives to reach similar aggregate capacity. The EMC 118000743 model, for instance, is explicitly listed at 15.36 TB capacity. :contentReference[oaicite:3]{index=3}

Use-cases for this capacity level include high-volume data-warehousing, large-scale virtualization environments, big-data analytics, real-time database processing and high-performance computing (HPC) where both capacity and speed matter. Because fewer drives can deliver the needed capacity, system architects can simplify the storage architecture, reduce power and thermal footprints, and potentially reduce total cost of ownership (TCO) in dense deployments.

Real-Time Analytics & Data Warehousing

For analytics platforms or data-warehouses that require fast access to large datasets, the combination of high capacity and high throughput is key. Instead of forming large arrays of smaller drives, a single drive in this class can deliver the capacity and speed needed with fewer components, reducing complexity.

High-Performance Computing (HPC) & Cache Layers

In HPC clusters the bottleneck often shifts from CPU to storage I/O. Drives in this class serve as cache or scratch layers for simulation, modelling or large-scale data output. Their NVMe speed and enterprise reliability enable sustained performance under high concurrency.

Cloud Storage & Multi-Tenant Systems

Cloud providers and service-oriented platforms can leverage these drives in multi-tenant or containerised environments. The high density (15 TB+) and performance allow more storage capacity per server node and help maintain consistency of performance across many tenants.