The disk is the NAS

[jabbr]

NVMEof ... basically extends the PCIe/NVME protocol over the network ... and now:

https://www.servethehome.com/kioxia-em6-25gbe-nvme-of-ssd-launched/

[AudioDoctor]

To a Luddite like me, how is this better than a traditional NAS?

[jabbr]

14 hours ago, AudioDoctor said:

To a Luddite like me, how is this better than a traditional NAS?

You don't need a full server to operate as the NAS. Essentially the SSDs plug almost directly into the fiberoptic cables and each at 25GbE. Overkill for audio, though there is zero concern of SSD or drive noise travelling over the fiberoptic interface. Given the speed and latency of fiber, there is essentially no difference between a local SSD and a network SSD.

 

One of the new smart network cards from Xilinx/Mellanox would act as the RAID  controller and a large networked storage array would present itself to the computer as in memory. Consider that DDR4-3200 is 25GBs and you can stripe/aggregate so literally a 100Gbe link is like 1800 memory and 200Gbe is like 3200 memory -- not that audio needs full memory bandwidth, but the distinction of local vs remote disc storage and in memory storage is moot.