The computing power of AI is constantly increasing. The power density of GPU servers has exceeded 30kW per cabinet, and traditional air-cooling technology is facing its heat dissipation limit. Solid-state drives (SSDS), as the core components of data storage, their heat dissipation efficiency directly affects the overall energy consumption and reliability of the data center. The breakthrough in liquid-cooled SSD technology is reshaping the cooling system of AI data centers.
Technical principles and core breakthroughs
Liquid-cooled SSDS achieve efficient heat conduction through direct contact or indirect contact heat dissipation design, using liquid as the cooling medium. Compared with air, the thermal conductivity of liquids is enhanced by 1,000 to 3,000 times, which can precisely eliminate the heat generated by storage devices. Take the D7PS1010 launched by Solidigm as an example. Its innovation lies in the cold plate liquid cooling design, which adopts a 9.5mm/15mm cold plate kit covering both sides of the SSD's heat dissipation surface, breaking through the limitation of traditional single-side heat dissipation and maintaining a stable temperature even in a hot-swapable state. The zero-fan architecture eliminates the traditional cooling fans, reducing the thickness of the server cabinet to 1U and increasing the computing density by 40%. Phase change material optimization: Some schemes adopt two-phase immersion liquid cooling, which absorbs heat through the latent heat of vaporization of the fluorinated liquid, achieving a heat dissipation efficiency of 300W/cm², which is three times higher than that of single-phase cold plates.
Industry application and measured benefits
Energy efficiency revolution. Liquid-cooled SSDS reduce the PUE (Power Utilization Efficiency) of data centers from 1.52.0 of traditional air-cooled ones to 1.11.2. Huawei's all-liquid cooling solution has been measured to have a PUE as low as 1.09, with an annual power-saving rate exceeding 35%. The server of Wiwynn that adopts 3D-printed microchannel cold plates has a 48% improvement in heat dissipation performance. At the same time, it supports a 3.5kW single-module cooling capacity and is compatible with a 35-fold performance leap of AMD MI350 GPU.
Reliability breakthrough. The ER3 series of immersion liquid-cooled SSDS from Jianxing Storage Technology maintain a data error rate (UBER) of less than 1E16 and an average mean time between failures (MTBF) of over 3 million hours even under a full-load working condition of 55℃, meeting the high-intensity write requirements of AI training scenarios.
Space and cost optimization. After Supermicro's DLC2 liquid cooling system is equipped with liquid-cooled SSDS, the power density of a single frame reaches 250kW, the noise is reduced to 50dB (equivalent to a quiet office environment), and the PUE approaches 1.02, saving 40% of the heat dissipation energy consumption compared to traditional air cooling.
Technological Evolution and Challenges
From the perspective of technical route differentiation, cold plate liquid cooling is the mainstream solution, which achieves local enhanced heat dissipation through customized flow channel design. The internal fin accuracy of the cold plate of Solidigm D7PS1010 reaches 33 microns, which can precisely match the hot spot distribution of the chip. Immersion liquid cooling is adopted by the Jianxing ER3 series with a fully immersed design. The coolant directly contacts the components, increasing the heat dissipation efficiency by 30%. However, the sealing and maintenance challenges need to be addressed.
The bottlenecks in industrial chain collaboration, such as the compatibility of coolant, require balancing thermal conductivity and material corrosiveness, and different media such as ethylene glycol water solution and fluorinated liquid correspond to specific scenarios. The lag in standardization lies in the fact that unified standards have not yet been formed for cold plate interfaces, leakage detection, etc., increasing the complexity of system integration.
Cost and operation and maintenance challenges: The initial investment of liquid-cooled SSDS is 20% to 30% higher than that of air-cooled ones, but the total cost of ownership (TCO) has decreased significantly. Take a 10MW data center as an example. The liquid cooling solution can save over 200 million yuan in electricity costs in five years.
Future trend
Fabric8Labs' ECAM process for 3D printing cold plate technology can directly print copper micro-mesh structures at room temperature, increasing the surface area by 900% and improving the boiling cooling efficiency by 1.3 ° C /100W, which is suitable for the future heat dissipation requirements of 5KW-class SSDS.
Intelligent thermal management predicts the power spectrum of the chip through AI and dynamically adjusts the coolant flow rate to optimize the energy efficiency ratio by another 15%.
Multi-scenario penetration has expanded from core data centers to edge nodes, and pilot deployments have begun in scenarios such as 5G base stations and autonomous driving.
Liquid-cooled SSDS are not only an upgrade in heat dissipation technology but also the cornerstone of the AI computing power revolution. The market size of liquid-cooled SSDS is expected to exceed 10 billion yuan in 2025. This technological breakthrough marks that the critical point for data centers to move from the "air-cooled era" to the "liquid-cooled era" has arrived.
