Micron Joins the Race with Its Own High-Capacity SSD Offering
The competition in enterprise storage is heating up as Solidigm and Micron unveil their latest advancements in SSD technology. Both companies aim to redefine the data center landscape by delivering unprecedented storage density and energy efficiency, with a focus on supporting AI workloads.
The End of HDD Dominance?
For years, traditional hard disk drives (HDDs) have held an edge over SSDs in terms of capacity, often exceeding 20TB, while most SSDs remained under 10TB. However, the affordability and size gap between these technologies are narrowing rapidly, with SSDs now pushing into high-capacity territory previously reserved for HDDs.
Solidigm’s Leap to 122TB: The D5-P5336 SSD
Solidigm has raised the bar with the introduction of its 122TB D5-P5336 PCIe SSD, marking a significant milestone as the company doubles the capacity of its previous 61.44TB model. This SSD is not only a feat of engineering but also the first to boast unlimited Random Write endurance for up to five years.
The D5-P5336 leverages quad-level cell (QLC) technology, which stores four bits per cell for maximum density. Despite the industry challenge of reduced durability with higher bit-per-cell storage, Solidigm has significantly improved the endurance of its QLC drives. According to Roger Corell, the company’s senior marketing director, the drive can withstand five years of continuous random writes without degradation.
From a performance perspective, the SSD draws a modest 25 watts of power, delivers sequential read speeds of up to 7.4GB/s, and fully utilizes the PCIe 4.0 interface. Its 3.5-inch form factor also brings substantial energy and space savings, consuming 84% less storage power and reducing footprint by four times compared to legacy hybrid HDD systems. Solidigm anticipates beginning sample shipments in January, with general availability expected midyear.
Micron’s Entry: The 60TB 6550 ION PCIe 5 SSD
Micron Technology has unveiled its 60TB 6550 ION NVMe SSD, positioning it as the fastest and most efficient solution of its kind. Built on PCIe Gen5 technology and offered in the E3.S form factor, this SSD is tailored for demanding workloads such as AI data lakes, content delivery, public cloud storage, and analytic databases.
The 6550 ION achieves impressive throughput of 12GB/s while consuming just 20 watts at full operation and 4 watts when idle. Micron emphasizes the drive’s energy efficiency, citing improvements of up to 179% in read performance per watt and 213% in write bandwidth per watt compared to competitors. AI applications also see major benefits, with the drive delivering 147% higher performance in Nvidia Magnum IO GPUDirect Storage (GDS) and a 151% improvement in completion times for AI model checkpointing.
Revolutionizing the Data Center Landscape
These new offerings from Solidigm and Micron signal a turning point for enterprise storage. With capacities rivaling HDDs and unprecedented power efficiency, these SSDs promise to reshape the economics and capabilities of modern data centers, especially for AI-driven workloads. As these technologies roll out in 2024, the race to lead the next wave of data storage innovation is well underway.
