Kioxia Launches CM10, Its First PCIe 6.0 Enterprise SSD
Kioxia unveiled the CM10 series, its first PCIe 6.0 enterprise SSD, on July 30. Built on 332-layer BiCS10 flash, it targets AI workloads with liquid cooling support.
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Kioxia announced the CM10 series of enterprise solid-state drives on July 30, 2026, marking the company's first foray into PCIe 6.0 SSDs. The drives are built on Kioxia's tenth-generation BiCS FLASH TLC memory, which stacks 332 layers and offers an areal density of about 29 Gbit/mm² with interface speeds up to 4,800 MT/s—33% faster than the previous BiCS8 generation.
The CM10 series is designed for AI workloads and supports NVIDIA's CMX architecture. Kioxia claims sequential read performance is up to approximately 92% higher than the previous generation, and random read performance up to roughly 85% higher. Based on the CM9's 14.8 GB/s sequential read, that translates to about 28.4 GB/s; similarly, the random read figure is up to 6.29 million IOPS, derived from the CM9's 3.4 million. The company did not provide write performance figures.
The drives come in E3.S, E1.S, and 2.5-inch form factors, with capacities ranging from 1.6 TB to 61.44 TB depending on the model. Endurance options include 1 DWPD for read-intensive workloads and 3 DWPD for mixed-use scenarios. The E3.S and E1.S variants support direct-cold-plate liquid cooling, while all form factors can be air-cooled.
The CM10 series complies with PCIe 6.0, NVMe 2.1, and the OCP Datacenter NVMe SSD Specification 2.72. It also supports NVMe Flexible Data Placement (FDP). Security features include SIE, SED, and planned SED FIPS 140-3, as well as CNSA 2.0 post-quantum cryptography and SPDM 1.4 attestation.
Kioxia began sampling the BiCS10 NAND in early July 2026. The CM10 drives are now being sampled to select customers and will be showcased at the Flash Memory Summit in Santa Clara, California, from August 4 to 6.
Kioxia is not the first to market with PCIe 6.0 SSDs; both Micron and Samsung have already released their own models.