177 Petabytes per Rack: Micron's Largest SSD is Here
After smaller versions, Micron has introduced the 6600 Ion server SSD with 245 Terabytes. It's not the fastest, but it's quite large.
The 6600 Ion in both form factors: U.2 and E3.L (from left).
(Image: Micron)
Mid-last year, Micron showed its SSD series “6600 Ion” with particularly high capacities for data centers. Now the company has doubled the capacity: up to 245 TByte per drive are offered. The Ions still rely on PCIe 5.0 with four lanes, even though Micron, like other manufacturers, already has PCIe 6 SSDs on offer.
With the Ion 6600, the highest speed is not even necessary because it works with Quadruple Level Cells (QLC), meaning it can store four bits per cell. This can only be written comparatively slowly compared to TLC or other NAND designs, but still read quickly. For the 245 TByte version, Micron's datasheet (PDF) specifies 13.7 GByte per second for reading and 3 GByte/s for writing. Both apply to sequential access. For random writing of 4K blocks, the Ion only achieves 42,000 IOPS, many PC SSDs manage much more here.
Higher Data Density, Lower Power Consumption
But that's not what Microns new drives, built in U.2 or E3.L form factors, are all about: they are designed for particularly high capacities per rack in data centers. They are intended to make large amounts of data available quickly, primarily for reading. An obvious application scenario is training data for AI models. Compared to hard drives, such SSDs are not only faster but also hold more data with lower power consumption.
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According to Micron, the 245 TByte SSD only requires 30 watts during operation, which is said to be half that of hard drives with the same total capacity. A five-year continuous operation warranty is provided, during which the drive can be completely written to once a day, which is mathematically barely feasible. Impressive capacities can be achieved with optimized storage racks. Micron specifies 4.9 Petabytes per height unit, or almost 177 Petabytes for a complete rack (36U). With hard drives, an entire cabinet is said to hold only 31.7 Petabytes.
According to Micron's announcement of the SSD, it is already being shipped. The company does not provide prices. Given the current costs for the previous series 6500 Ion, the 245 TByte model is likely to easily land in the massive six-figure range. Micron's example of a rack with 720 of these drives would then roughly cost a three-digit million amount. However, since such devices are usually sold directly by the manufacturer via framework agreements or by specialized service providers in project business, large discounts are not unlikely.
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