How NVME Zoned Namescapes will improve SSD performance

In June, the NVMe standard got updated with support for a new feature called NVMe Zoned Namespaces. In a fresh article, AnandTech explains the benefits of these zones, which promise to improve performance, reduce overprovision by up to 10x, and reduce DRAM needs by 8x. It sounds quite impressive, but the downside is that operating systems and other software will need to be updated to support zoned storage. Because of this, at least for the near future, the feature will be primarily for the datacenter storage market.

Overall, ZNS is one of the next steps in mirroring the use of SSDs in the way SSDs are actually designed, rather than an add-on to hard drive methodology. It is a promising new feature. It looks likely to see more widespread adoption than previous efforts like open-channel SSDs, and the cost and capacity advantages should be more significant than what SMR hard drives have offered relative to CMR hard drives.