Kioxia Brings Liquid Cooling Ready NX1 SSDs to AI Data Centers

Kioxia has introduced its new NX1 enterprise SSD series, designed to meet the growing demands of AI driven workloads and modern hyperscale data centers. The new drives use the compact E1.S form factor and target GPU powered servers that require both high performance and efficient thermal management.

One of the biggest highlights is support for direct liquid cooling. The 9.5 mm models can work with either liquid or traditional air cooling, giving data center operators greater flexibility when designing new server platforms. The thicker 15 mm versions rely on air cooling only.

The NX1 family connects through the PCIe 5.0 interface with NVMe 2.0 support. Kioxia also includes compatibility with OCP Datacenter NVMe SSD 2.6, Flexible Data Placement technology, and optional self encrypting drive capabilities for organizations that require stronger data protection.

Higher Performance with Advanced Flash Technology

Kioxia equips the NX1 series with its eighth generation BiCS Flash TLC memory and a proprietary controller. The company also uses its CMOS directly Bonded to Array technology, which improves efficiency, storage density, performance, and long term reliability compared to previous generations.

The new lineup offers capacities from 1.92 TB to 15.36 TB and supports one full drive write per day. According to Kioxia, the NX1 delivers up to 38 percent faster sequential write speeds and up to 20 percent better random write performance than the earlier XD8 E1.S SSDs introduced in late 2024. Sample shipments have already begun, bringing the new drives one step closer to large scale deployment.

The Future of Enterprise Storage

If you follow the rapid growth of AI infrastructure, the NX1 series is worth watching. Support for liquid cooling shows that storage vendors are adapting to the same thermal challenges that already affect modern GPUs and processors. Faster SSDs with more efficient cooling could help data centers improve performance while reducing energy consumption and making better use of available rack space.

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