KIOXIA and Dell Technologies have announced the first 157-petabyte (PB) object store in a single standard 42U server rack. The Kioxia Dell 157 PB milestone, unveiled on November 11, 2026, uses 640 KIOXIA LC9 Series SSDs of 245.76 TB with Dell's software-defined ObjectScale storage platform.
The rack brings together 16 Dell PowerEdge R7725xd servers, each holding 40 LC9 SSDs, for a total of 157 PB of raw flash capacity in one cabinet. To put the scale in perspective, 157 PB is about 157 million gigabytes — enough to install a 190 GB game more than 820,000 times, according to TweakTown's comparison.
Why the Kioxia Dell 157 PB rack matters for AI
The solution targets AI training, big data analytics and data lake workloads, where unstructured data keeps growing. According to the companies, consolidating more data into fewer systems and racks reduces data center floor space, cabling, power consumption and cooling needs compared with HDDs or lower-capacity SSDs at the same total capacity.
The LC9 SSDs use KIOXIA's 8th-generation BiCS FLASH technology, with 3D QLC NAND and a 32-die stacked architecture, in the E3.L form factor. They are PCIe 5.0 NVMe 2.0 drives with a stated mean time to failure (MTTF) of 2.5 million hours and support for Flexible Data Placement, which reduces write amplification and extends SSD lifespan.
“AI is driving unprecedented growth in unstructured data, and customers need to scale capacity without scaling their data center footprint and power consumption,” said George Papadopoulos, SVP, Product & Engineering at Dell Technologies, in the official announcement.
“KIOXIA's 245.76 TB LC9 Series SSDs enable Dell Technologies to deliver a new level of storage density for AI and data-intensive workloads,” said Faraz Velani, Head of Go-to-Market for the SSD business unit at KIOXIA America.
One step beyond the 9.8 PB server
The Kioxia Dell 157 PB rack builds on a partnership that had already produced a 2U server with 9.8 PB using the same LC9 SSDs, according to TweakTown's coverage. KIOXIA introduced the LC9 in 2026 as the industry's first 245.76 TB NVMe SSD, aimed at generative AI, large datasets and vector databases.
The companies did not disclose pricing or general availability for the configuration, which is aimed at large-scale data center operators rather than end consumers.
Read also: Kioxia LD4: SSD E1.L with architecture for up to 122.88 TB in AI data centers
Image credit: illustration by TweakTown using material from KIOXIA and Dell Technologies, showing KIOXIA LC9 SSDs above a Dell ObjectScale server.
Sources
- KIOXIA and Dell Technologies Collaborate on the Industry’s First 157 PB Single-Rack Object Store (Business Wire, comunicado oficial da KIOXIA America, 11 de novembro de 2026)
- KIOXIA and Dell deliver an industry first 157 PB of storage in a single server rack (TweakTown, 11 de novembro de 2026)
Transparency: this article was produced with the assistance of artificial intelligence, cross-checking public posts and internet sources. Consult the original sources for more details.
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