Supermicro unveiled a 160-bay NVMe SSD storage server (ASG-4116S-NU160R) at FMS 2026, targeting massive data density requirements for AI training pipelines.
At FMS 2026, Supermicro showcased the ASG-4116S-NU160R, a single-socket AMD EPYC server featuring 160 U.2 NVMe drive bays in a compact 4U form factor. Combined with 122–128TB-class NVMe SSDs such as the Solidigm D5-P5336 122.88TB, this system delivers approximately 20 petabytes of storage in a single chassis.
The design employs slide-out trays for efficient servicing, with the upper tray housing SSDs and the lower tray containing the CPU, memory, and networking components. This architecture is critical in dense storage systems, allowing drive and component maintenance without removing the entire unit from the rack. When the drive shelf is extracted, the layout becomes clear: rows of 10 drives flank a center column on each side, with the 160 drives arranged across the shelf.
The center section houses PCIe switches—a necessity given that 160 NVMe devices running at four lanes each would require 640 PCIe lanes, before accounting for network interface cards. Supermicro's solution mirrors traditional top-loading SAS storage servers, but substitutes PCIe switches for SAS expanders.
The front panel is substantially equipped beyond the main 160-bay configuration. Four E1.S NVMe bays sit adjacent to the IPMI port, dual USB ports, and two 10-gigabit Ethernet ports (Broadcom BCM57416), alongside a VGA port and power button. The CPU tray, which also slides out for service, houses three available PCIe Gen5 x16 slots for 400GbE NICs and DPUs.
The system uses a single AMD EPYC 9005 CPU rated up to 360W. By comparison, achieving equivalent capacity with 24-bay 2U servers would require approximately seven units, consuming an additional six CPUs and 72 DIMMs. This design yields substantial cost and space efficiencies.
At an estimated cost of $8–10 million with 122TB-class SSDs, the system reaches 19–20 petabytes within 4U. While the PCIe switch architecture limits per-drive sequential throughput, it enables lower per-drive power consumption. Powered by dual 2.6kW redundant supplies, the entire system—drives, NICs, and CPU included—consumes approximately 130–137 watts per petabyte at the outlet, a figure below the power required by approximately 500 hard drives of equivalent capacity.
The ASG-4116S-NU160R represented the densest storage platform at FMS 2026. Its storage volume approximates 5 terabytes of memory in NVMe form alone. This server also serves as an example of how prototype drives like SanDisk's E3.S SSDs could, when deployed in comparable systems, deliver substantial DRAM cost savings—eliminating up to $300,000 in DRAM per server and reducing power consumption by over 10 kilowatts for AI factories deploying such systems at scale.