Micron Technology recently unveiled its new 6550 ION NVMe SSD, the world's first 60TB capacity E3.S form factor and PCIe Gen5 interface SSD, designed for data-intensive and AI-driven applications to bring unprecedented performance and energy efficiency to the data center.
High performance and low power consumption: Pushing the limits of storage
The release of the Micron 6550 ION marks another leap forward in data center storage technology. It delivers industry-leading 12GB/s sequential read and write bandwidth while consuming only 20 watts of power, a class-leading performance. Thanks to advanced G8 NAND technology and innovative OCP 2.5 support, the 6550 ION delivers ultra-high performance at very low power consumption, especially when handling high-capacity NVMe workloads such as large-scale AI data lakes, networked storage, file and object storage.
Compared to the existing 60TB SSD, the 6550 ION is significantly ahead in several performance dimensions. For example:
179% increase in sequential read speed and 179% increase in read bandwidth per watt;
150% improvement in sequential write performance and 213% increase in write bandwidth per watt;
80% improvement in random read performance and 99% improvement in read IOPS per watt.
What's more, the 6550 ION also outperforms the competition for AI workloads, delivering a 147% performance improvement and a 104% improvement in energy efficiency in NVIDIA's GPUDirect Storage (GDS) tests.
Improve data center efficiency: Reduce footprint and increase density
In addition to its outstanding performance, the Micron 6550 ION also achieves a breakthrough in data center storage density. As the world's first E3.S SSD to support 60TB capacity, the 6550 ION is designed to save space while improving storage efficiency. With this innovation, the 6550 ION can store more data in the same rack space. For example, a high-density server such as the HPE ProLiant DL360 Gen11 can accommodate up to 20 E3.S drives per rack unit (U), resulting in 1.2 petabytes of data per rack unit, which is 67% denser than traditional U.2 drives.
With this high-density solution, data centers can dramatically reduce the physical space required, reduce overall operating costs, improve energy efficiency, and optimize the use of hardware resources. Compared to traditional 2U servers, the 6550 ION's high-efficiency storage solution can increase storage capacity in the same rack unit by nearly 3.3 times and greatly improve performance.
Figure：Micron unveils 60TB PCIe Gen5 NVMe SSD
Superior durability and safety
In addition to capacity and performance, the Micron 6550 ION has a lot of optimizations in terms of durability and security. The drive offers industry-leading endurance with support for 1.0 random drive writes per year (RDWPD), which is up to 42% more endurance than the competition. For AI training tasks that require high-frequency writes, the 6550 ION can guarantee a longer service life and higher reliability.
In addition, the 6550 ION is equipped with robust security features, including SPDM 1.2 authentication, SHA-512 cryptographic signature generation, as well as TAA compliance and FIPS 140-3 L2 certification, ensuring that data is protected from any threats during transmission and storage. These features make the 6550 ION ideal for enterprise-grade AI infrastructure and government-grade applications.
Promote the application of AI and big data
In terms of industry cooperation, Micron has partnered with a number of leading companies to further revolutionize data center technology. AMD said the partnership with Micron provides strong support for its 5th Gen AMD EPYC processor-based platform to help customers address the demands of growing AI and data-intensive workloads. In addition, enterprises such as VAST Data and WEKA have also integrated Micron 6550 ION SSDs into their data platforms to provide more efficient and energy-efficient AI computing solutions.
With the continuous expansion of data centers and the deepening of AI applications, the capacity, performance, and energy efficiency of storage solutions have become key factors in determining the competitiveness of data centers. With the launch of the Micron 6550 ION NVMe SSD, it provides data centers with a new and efficient storage solution that not only meets today's needs, but also lays a solid foundation for tomorrow's AI-driven data centers.
