P73300-B21 HPE 15.36TB NVMe Read Intensive SFF SSD

High-Performance NVMe Solid State Drive Overview

The HPE P73300-B21 is a high-capacity, read-intensive NVMe solid state drive engineered for enterprise-class performance. Designed to meet the demands of data-driven workloads, this SSD delivers exceptional speed, reliability, and efficiency for modern IT infrastructures.

General Product Specifications

• Brand: Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)
• Model Number: P73300-B21
• Product Category: Solid State Drive (SSD)

Storage Capacity and Performance

• 15.36TB enterprise storage capacity
• Optimized for high-read operations
• Ideal for big data, cloud computing, and virtualization

Form Factor and Interface

• Small Form Factor (SFF) design
• U.3 NVMe interface for maximum compatibility
• Enhanced data transfer speeds

Key Features of the HPE P73300-B21 SSD

• Enterprise-grade NVMe technology for ultra-fast data access
• Read-intensive workload optimization for analytics and virtualization
• Hot plug capability for simplified maintenance and scalability
• Compact SFF design to maximize server storage density

Hot Plug and Deployment Benefits

• Hot plug support for non-disruptive upgrades
• Reduced maintenance time
• Improved system uptime and reliability

Deep Dive: The HPE P73300-B21 15.36TB NVMe SSD

This specific model is not merely a storage component; it is a performance-accelerating asset engineered for reliability and integration. As part of HPE's curated SSD portfolio, it guarantees compatibility, predictable performance, and simplified lifecycle management when deployed in qualified HPE platforms like ProLiant, Apollo, and Synergy systems.

Core Specifications and Form Factor

The HPE P73300-B21 is defined by a harmonious blend of specifications that cater to high-density, performance-sensitive environments.

Capacity and Density Advantage

With a formatted capacity of 15.36 Terabytes (TB), this drive provides one of the highest storage densities available in the 2.5-inch Small Form Factor (SFF). This allows organizations to drastically reduce their storage footprint, lowering power, cooling, and space costs while significantly increasing the data available per server node for in-memory databases, large datasets, and virtualized environments.

Interface and Protocol: The NVMe/U.3 Revolution

This drive leverages the NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express) protocol over a U.3 (SFF-8639) connector. Unlike the legacy SATA or SAS interfaces, NVMe is designed from the ground up for flash memory, communicating directly via the PCIe (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express) bus. The U.3 connector is a tri-mode interface, supporting NVMe, SAS, and SATA protocols, offering unparalleled flexibility for heterogeneous environments and future-proofing your investment. The result is a dramatic reduction in latency and a massive increase in I/O operations per second (IOPS) compared to previous generation drives.

Understanding Hot Plug Functionality

The Hot Plug capability is a critical feature for maintaining 24/7/365 operational continuity. It allows an administrator to safely remove and replace the drive in a live system without powering down the server or interrupting services running on other drives. This is essential for mission-critical applications where planned maintenance or unexpected failures cannot result in system-wide downtime.

Workload Optimization: Read-Intensive Design

Not all SSDs are created equal. HPE categorizes drives based on their endurance, which is suited to specific data workloads. The P73300-B21 is classified as Read-Intensive.

What Does "Read-Intensive" Mean for Your Workload?

A read-intensive SSD is optimized for applications where the vast majority of operations are data reads, with fewer, less frequent write cycles. These drives offer an excellent balance of high performance, large capacity, and cost-effectiveness for read-heavy tasks. They achieve this by utilizing 3D NAND flash memory types and controller algorithms tailored for this pattern.

Ideal Use Case Scenarios

Data Warehousing & Business Intelligence: Serving large, complex queries against massive datasets where fast data retrieval is paramount.
Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) & Media Streaming: Storing and delivering static web content, videos, and software downloads to a global audience with low latency.
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI): Hosting golden images and provisioning desktops where boot storms and application launches generate intense read traffic.
Database Read Replicas: Offloading read queries from a primary transactional database to enhance overall application performance.

Technical Architecture and Performance Insights

The exceptional performance of the P73300-B21 is a direct result of its underlying architecture. Delving into its technical makeup reveals why it stands out in the read-intensive category.

3D TLC NAND Flash Memory

This drive is built using 3D Triple-Level Cell (TLC) NAND flash memory. In 3D NAND, memory cells are stacked vertically in layers, increasing density and reliability compared to planar (2D) NAND. TLC stores three bits of data per cell, offering a superb balance of cost, capacity, and endurance—perfect for read-intensive workloads. This technology is the backbone of its high 15.36TB capacity in a standard form factor.

Performance Metrics: Latency, Throughput, and IOPS

While exact figures can vary by HPE platform and configuration, drives of this class deliver:

Extremely Low Latency: NVMe drastically reduces command overhead, enabling latency measured in microseconds (µs) rather than milliseconds (ms). This is critical for real-time applications.
High Sequential Read/Write Speeds: Expect sequential read speeds reaching several gigabytes per second (GB/s), facilitating rapid data transfers for large files.
Massive Random Read IOPS: The drive can handle hundreds of thousands of random read IOPS, making it ideal for databases and virtual machines accessing scattered data blocks simultaneously.

Endurance and Drive Writes Per Day (DWPD)

Endurance is quantified by Drive Writes Per Day (DWPD). Over its warranty period (typically 5 years), a read-intensive drive like the P73300-B21 might offer a DWPD rating in the range of 0.5 to 1. This means you can write the entire drive's capacity (15.36TB) between 0.5 and 1 time per day, every day, for the warranty period. This is more than sufficient for its target workloads, where write activity is a fraction of read activity.

Integration and Management in the HPE Ecosystem

The value of the HPE P73300-B21 is magnified when deployed within HPE infrastructure, thanks to deeply integrated management and support tools.

HPE iLO and HPE OneView Management

When installed in an HPE server, the drive is fully discoverable and monitorable through HPE Integrated Lights-Out (iLO) and HPE OneView. Administrators can view drive health, temperature, SMART statistics, and predicted failure alerts from a single, unified interface, enabling proactive maintenance and simplified operations.

Firmware and HPE Synergy

HPE ensures that the firmware on the P73300-B21 is tested, validated, and optimized for HPE hardware. This eliminates compatibility guesswork and ensures stability. In a HPE Synergy composable infrastructure environment, such drives provide the high-performance, flexible storage building blocks that can be dynamically allocated to compute resources as needed.

Comparison and Application Context

Understanding where the P73300-B21 fits relative to other drive categories helps in making the optimal selection for your specific needs.

Read-Intensive vs. Mixed-Use vs. Write-Intensive SSDs

HPE's SSD portfolio is segmented to match workload profiles:

Read-Intensive (This Drive): Highest capacity per dollar, optimized for >70% read operations. Lower DWPD (e.g., 0.5-1). Ideal for data lakes, web serving, VDI.
Mixed-Use: Balanced for near-equal read/write mixes. Moderate DWPD (e.g., 1-3). Used for transactional databases, email servers, and general virtualization.
Write-Intensive: Built for extreme write workloads like log writing, write caching, or high-frequency trading. Highest DWPD (e.g., 10+), often using more enduring SLC or eMLC NAND.

Choosing the P73300-B21 for a read-intensive scenario ensures cost-efficiency without over-provisioning for unnecessary write endurance.