Changes in NVM Express Revision 2.0

Command Set NVMe Base NVMe-MI™ Transport

This document is intended to help the reader understand changes in the refactored NVMe® 2.0 family of specifications.

NVMe 2.0 is a set of the following eight specifications:

  • NVM Express® Base Specification Revision 2.0
  • Command Set Specifications
    • NVM Express® NVM Command Set Specification Revision 1.0
    • NVM Express® Zoned Namespaces Command Set Revision 1.1
    • NVM Express® Key Value Command Set Revision 1.0
  • Transport Specifications
    • NVM Express® over PCIe Transport Revision 1.0
    • NVM Express® RDMA Transport Revision 1.0
    • NVM Express® TCP Transport Revision 1.0
  • NVM Express® Management Interface Revision 1.2

This document captures three categories of NVMe 2.0 changes that are independent of the refactoring of NVMe into the above noted set of eight specs.

The first category of changes is New Features that are optional capabilities. These features may be implemented by a revision 2.0 compatible device based on market need.

The second category is changes from past behavior. One set of changes here includes extensions of past functionality.

The final category of changes are incompatible changes from past behavior, or new mandatory requirements for how a feature shall be implemented (where there may have been multiple reasonable interpretations of previous specification language).