NVMe: New Standard Interface for Solid State Drives

Solid-state drive (SSD) manufacturers are working with a new standard interface that allows SSDs to work at speeds closer to their full potential.

The introduction of this new interface, which is called Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe), is similar in importance to the now-ubiquitous USB connections used to link computers and peripheral devices, like external hard drives.

SSD developers have been using older and slower standard interfaces (like SATA and IDE) designed for use with electromechanical hard disk drives (HDDs) that operate at much slower speeds than SSDs.

Having a faster, standard interface, which is built from the ground up to accommodate SSD architecture, frees device manufacturers to focus on product improvements without having to worry about connection irregularities.

The new interface design was developed by a working group (NVM Express) made up of experts from more than 90 technology companies, including Cisco, Dell, EMC, HGST, Intel, LSI Corporation, Micron, NetApp, Oracle, PMC-Sierra, Samsung, SanDisk and Seagate.