On March 10th, news broke that although Microsoft doesn't manufacture SSDs themselves, a sudden appearance of a product labeled "Z1000" bearing Microsoft's branding has emerged, likely indicating a custom design for their own data centers.
The Microsoft Z1000 SSD boasts a total capacity of 960GB, equipped with four Toshiba BiCS4 96-layer stacked eTLC flash memory chips, each offering 256GB of storage. Additionally, it features 1GB of Micron DDR4 cache.
The drive also includes a cache chip and numerous vacant soldering pads for capacitors, suggesting that versions with 1920GB or 3840GB capacities might be in the works, or perhaps these are provisions for future expansions.
The standout feature here is the controller, which isn't from a mainstream brand but comes from CNEX Labs, with the model number CNX-2670AA-CB2.
Details on this controller's specifications are a bit hazy, but given its manufacturing date of May 18, 2020, it's pretty clear it doesn't support PCIe 5.0.
CNEX is a private holding company established in 2013, co-founded by Yiren Huang, a chip engineer with past experience at Huawei, Cisco, Brocade, and Alan Armstrong, who worked at Marvell Semiconductor. Their focus is mainly on developing solid-state drive controllers among other things.
In 2017, Huawei sued CNEX for violating non-compete agreements and stealing trade secrets, only to be counter-sued by CNEX for espionage. Ultimately, Huawei faced a defeat.
CNEX stated this served as a "costly lesson" for Huawei.
