NVM Express, Inc. today announced important new features and engineering change notices (ECNs) across the set of 11 NVM Express (NVMe) specifications. These advancements further strengthen NVMe technology to meet the growing demands of data-intensive AI, cloud, enterprise, and client applications.

The updated specifications include:

• NVMe 2.3 Base Specification
• Command Set Specifications (NVM Command Set 1.2, ZNS Command Set 1.4, Key Value Command Set 1.3, Subsystem Local Memory Command Set 1.2, Computational Programs Command Set 1.2)
• Transport Specifications (NVMe over PCIe Transport 1.3, NVMe over RDMA Transport 1.2, NVMe over TCP Transport 1.2)
• NVM Express Management Interface (NVMe-MI) 2.1 Specification
• NVMe Boot 1.3 Specification

"The newly released NVMe set of specifications introduces features that directly address operational challenges by empowering administrators with increased visibility and control over their storage for business-critical and data center applications," said Amber Huffman, President of NVM Express. "NVMe technology is architected for continuous evolution to remain the essential, high-performance interface for the storage of today and tomorrow."

Key New NVMe Features

• Rapid Path Failure Recovery: Permits communication with the NVM subsystem through alternative channels, allowing for rapid recovery in the event of the loss of communication to a controller to avoid data corruption and duplication of outstanding commands.
• Power Limit Config: Provides complete control over the maximum power of an NVMe device, particularly important for older systems with limited power capabilities.
• Self-reported Drive Power: Allows the host to measure and monitor NVMe device power, as well as power consumption over the lifetime of the device, addressing ongoing maintenance and sustainability concerns.
• Sanitize Per Namespace: Enables cryptographic erase sanitization on individual namespaces, as opposed to broadly impacting the entire NVM subsystem.
• Configurable Device Personality: Supports mechanisms that allow a host to securely modify the NVM subsystem configuration, easing inventory management for device providers.

The NVM Express specifications and the new feature specifications are available for download on the NVM Express website.

To learn more about the newly released NVMe features, attend the NVM Express presentation track on August 6 and 7 at FMS: the Future of Memory and Storage 2025, in Santa Clara, CA