Micron releases 9550 series data center NVMe SSD
Micron has announced the launch of the 9550 series data center NVMe SSDs. Micron claims this is currently the world’s fastest data center SSD, specifically designed to manage critical workloads requiring extreme speed, scalability, and energy efficiency, including artificial intelligence (AI), performance-centric databases, online transaction processing (OLTP), and high-frequency trading.
The 9550 series data center NVMe SSDs are divided into the read-intensive 9550 PRO and the mixed-use 9550 MAX with 3DWPD endurance. Both feature Micron’s proprietary controller, 232-layer 3D TLC NAND flash, DRAM cache, and firmware, supporting NVMe 2.0b and OCP 2.0 specifications. They offer maximum sequential read and write speeds of 14GB/s and 10GB/s, respectively, and peak 4K random read/write speeds of 3300K IOPS and 400K IOPS, providing up to 30.72TB of capacity, as detailed below:
- 9550 PRO: 3.84TB, 7.68TB, 15.36TB, 30.72TB
- 9550 MAX: 3.2TB, 6.4TB, 12.8TB, 25.6TB
The 9550 series comes in various form factors, including 15mm U.2, 7.5mm E3.S, and 15mm E1.S, catering to diverse application environments. Additionally, the 9550 series is equipped with features such as SED, SPDM 1.2, SEE, and encryption, effectively safeguarding data security. Micron’s Secure Execution Environment (SEE) includes dedicated processing hardware with physical isolation, enhancing security further.
Micron states that the 9550 series employs Big Accelerator Memory (BaM) and GPU Direct Storage (GIDS) design, which enhances AI workload performance, outperforming competitors in GNN training by 60%, reducing training time by 33%, and lowering server power consumption by 29%. It also supports NVIDIA GPUDirect Storage (GDS), directly connecting GPU data needs to NVMe SSD storage, and bypassing the CPU. This improves AI workload efficiency on NVIDIA platforms, increasing throughput by 34%, enhancing energy efficiency by 76%, and reducing power consumption by 81%.
