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In a nutshell: Micron has unleashed its new 9550 NVMe SSD, claiming it delivers the fastest performance of any data center SSD on the market, while also leading the pack in AI workloads and power efficiency. According to the spec sheet, the drive boasts sequential read speeds of up to 14 GB/s, positioning it as one of the fastest SSDs on the market, with sequential write speeds reaching up to 10 GB/s, significantly outperforming its rivals.
Under the hood, Micron has combined its in-house Gen5 SSD controller, NAND flash memory, DRAM, and firmware into a tightly integrated product. This top-to-bottom design allows the 9550 to achieve impressive performance numbers, with up to 14.0 GB/s sequential reads and 10.0 GB/s sequential write speeds. It's designed to meet the demanding requirements of top OEMs and hyperscalers.
The Micron 9550 also flexes its muscles showing impressive I/O capabilities, achieving up to 3,300 KIOPS (35% better than competitors) and up to 400 KIOPS (33% faster). These are crucial for AI workloads, such as large language model training, which requires high sequential reads, and graph neural network training, which relies heavily on random reads.
For Nvidia's Magnum IO GPUDirect Storage technology, the Micron 9550 SSD provides up to 34% higher throughput. The company claims that this drive sets a "new benchmark for AI storage solutions."
However, raw performance is only half the story. The 9550 delivers this compute power while consuming up to 43% less energy compared to other data center SSDs running AI workloads, potentially leading to significant operating cost savings at scale.
The 9550 also incorporates a range of advanced technologies like NVMe 2.0, OCP 2.0 support, security features like self-encryption, and full OCP 2.5 telemetry for monitoring performance and health. It will be available in capacities from 3.2 TB up to a massive 30.72 TB, with U.2, E1.S, and E3.S form factors.
The big CPU makers were quick to validate Micron's new storage play. In the press release, AMD's Raghu Nambiar noted that their "deep collaboration" with Micron will ensure the 9550's capabilities are fully unlocked on Epyc servers for AI and enterprise apps. Intel's Debendra Das Sharma also gave a nod to the SSD's alignment with their latest PCIe Gen5 Xeon platforms from 4th-gen through the upcoming 6th-gen processors.
Micron seems to be on a roll as of late. Earlier this month, the company launched the Crucial P310 2230 Gen4 NVMe for gaming handhelds and compact notebooks, claiming to be the "industry's fastest" 2230 consumer SSD.