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Quick Take: Micron 9550, The Industry’s Fastest Data Center SSD

Micron today announced its new 9550 NVMe SSD, setting a new benchmark as the industry’s fastest data center SSD. The new SSD meets the stringent demands of modern data centers, particularly those supporting AI and other performance-sensitive workloads.

Key Features and Performance

The Micron 9550 NVMe SSD stands out for its impressive speed and efficiency:

  • Sequential Read and Write Speeds: The SSD delivers up to 14GB/s read and 10GB/s write speeds, significantly outperforming current PCIe Gen5 competitors.
  • Random IOPS: It achieves up to 3.3 million IOPS for random reads and 400,000 IOPS for random writes, providing substantial boosts over existing solutions.

These capabilities make the Micron 9550 the fastest PCIe Gen5x4 data center SSD available, positioning it as an optimal choice for organizations seeking to accelerate their workloads.

AI Applications and Innovations

AI continues to be a primary driver for high-performance storage solutions. The Micron 9550 NVMe SSD addresses the escalating needs of AI workloads through its integration with innovative storage software like Big Accelerator Memory (BaM). BaM optimizes storage for parallel GPU processing, significantly reducing training times and maximizing IOPS, especially for graph neural networks (GNN) and other data-intensive AI models.

Sustainability

Micron’s focus on sustainability is evident in the 9550 NVMe SSD’s energy efficiency:

  • Energy Savings: In GNN training tasks, the SSD outperforms competitors by up to 60% while consuming 43% less energy per drive. It offers up to 15% higher performance for large language model inferences with 37% energy savings per drive.
  • Environmental Impact: These efficiencies translate to significant reductions in overall system energy consumption, aligning with growing industry emphasis on sustainable operations.

Analysis

AI applications drive the need for high-performance storage solutions. As models grow in size, efficient data processing becomes paramount. The Micron 9550 SSD addresses this need by providing the speed and efficiency required to handle large datasets and complex AI workloads.

The Micron 9550 NVMe SSD meets the high demands of AI applications, making it an attractive choice for performance-sensitive workloads. With its combination of speed, power efficiency, and innovative features like BaM integration, the Micron 9550 sets a new benchmark (literally) in the industry, driving advancements in both storage technology and sustainable practices.

Micron’s new 9550 NVMe SSD delivers a combination of performance, efficiency, and sustainability that makes it a “must evaluate” choice for any organization looking to satisfy the needs of enterprise-class high-performance workloads. With the new SSD, Micron maintains its position as a high-performance storage market leader while raising the bar for competitors. This is the right product for the moment.

Disclosure: The author is an industry analyst, and NAND Research an industry analyst firm, that engages in, or has engaged in, research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, which may include those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.