Micron Technology introduced three new SSDs built with its G9 NAND, targeting the performance and efficiency requirements of AI data centers. The launch includes the industry’s first PCIe Gen6 SSD, a record-capacity E3.S SSD, and a low-latency mainstream Gen5 SSD. These products are designed to keep GPUs continuously fed with data, reduce idle cycles, and improve overall system energy efficiency.
The Micron 9650 PCIe Gen6 SSD delivers up to 28 GB/s sequential read speeds and 5.5M IOPS random reads, positioning it for real-time AI training and inference workloads. It offers up to 67% better energy efficiency on random reads than Gen5 SSDs and comes in both air- and liquid-cooled form factors. The 6600 ION SSD achieves unprecedented density, scaling up to 245TB per drive and delivering 88PB per rack, making it a candidate for AI data lakes while reducing storage footprint and power consumption. Meanwhile, the 7600 PCIe Gen5 SSD balances affordability and sub-millisecond latency, achieving strong performance on RocksDB workloads where predictable responsiveness is critical.
Micron emphasized its vertically integrated approach—combining its own controller, NAND, DRAM, firmware, and manufacturing—to improve supply chain security and reliability. The drives also include security features such as hardware root of trust, SPDM 1.2 support, and self-encrypting drive capabilities. Samples of the 9650 and 7600 SSDs are shipping now, while the 122TB version of the 6600 ION will follow in Q3 2025 and the 245TB drive in 2026.
• Micron 9650 PCIe Gen6 SSD: 28 GB/s reads, 5.5M IOPS, liquid-cooled option, U.S. government-compliant versions
• Micron 6600 ION SSD: up to 245TB per drive, 88PB per rack, 37% better efficiency than HDDs
• Micron 7600 PCIe Gen5 SSD: sub-1 ms latency, 27% faster writes, up to 79% better energy efficiency than peers
• Ecosystem partners include Dell, NVIDIA, AMD, Supermicro, CoreWeave, WEKA, Astera Labs, Broadcom, and Marvell
• Public showcase planned at the Future of Memory and Storage Summit, Aug. 5–7
“With the industry’s first PCIe Gen6 SSD, industry-leading capacities and the lowest latency mainstream SSD—all powered by our first-to-market G9 NAND—Micron is not just setting the pace; we are redefining the frontier of data center innovation,” said Jeremy Werner, senior vice president and general manager of Micron’s Core Data Center Business Unit.
🌐 Why it Matters: AI data centers face storage bottlenecks as GPUs scale to trillions of parameters and inference pipelines demand ultra-low latency. Micron’s move to Gen6 PCIe SSDs and ultra-dense drives addresses both throughput and density challenges, positioning flash as the backbone of AI infrastructure while reducing reliance on power-hungry HDDs.
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