Micron unveils ultra low-latency NVMe SSDs for enterprise and cloud data centres

Micron is bringing HDD-type storage to the NVMe-table by offering up to 15.36TB of storage on its new range of flash drives

As NVMe-based SSDs significantly outperform SATA-based SSDs in reading and writing data, they are the storage weapon of choice for enterprises deploying sophisticated cloud architectures.

Hardware veteran Micron, that first entered the NVMe flash market in 2016, has unveiled its third-generation range of NVMe SSDS, promising increased performance and power efficiency.

The new 9300 series NVMe SSDs, aimed at the cloud and enterprise segments, provide the industry’s lowest average write latency, enabling virtually real-time data retrieval.

The SSDs clock at 3.5GB/second for both reads and writes. By balancing throughput in both directions, Micron says the 9300 series delivers more consistently speedy response times for data-centric applications compared to competitors.

The 9300s are also equipped with data integrity features such as data-path protection and power-loss protection for in-flight and at-rest data.

For perspective: the new range performs almost nine times faster and is 35 percent more efficient than the industry’s snappiest SATA-based SSDs. They’re also easier on the juice, consuming 28 percent less power than Micron’s previous NVMe offerings.

Micron is bringing HDD-type storage densities to the table by offering up to 15.36TB of storage on the new drives. Enterprises can choose from two versions depending on requirements: A ‘PRO’ version designed for read-intensive workloads (available in 3.84TB, 7.68TB or 15.36TB capacities), and a ‘MAX’ variant for mixed-use applications (available in 3.2TB, 6.4TB and 12.8TB capacities).

Both versions will be available in U.2 (2.5-inch, 15 mm) form factor, support PCIe Gen3 x4 NVMe and be rated for a mean time between failures of 2 million hours.

Raghunath Nambiar, corporate VP and CTO for AMD datacenter ecosystem and application engineering, said AMD’s EPYC processor was an ‘ideal match’ for Micron’s new data-busting drives.

“With 128 lanes of PCIe available in a single socket, the AMD EPYC processor is an ideal match for the new Micron 9300 NVMe drives and for the data-centric workloads such as database applications, big data analytics and software-defined storage solutions that are increasingly found in the modern data centre,” he said.