Micron has released its latest high-performance NVMe SSD, which sure is a beast. As well as being the fastest PCIe Gen4 NVMe SSD by Micron, the 9400 NVMe SSD is Micron’s first SSD that offers 31 TB of storage capacity. The latest offering is optimized to handle data-intensive workloads, such as in critical clouds and data centers. In addition, the 9400 series is well capable of managing high-computing applications, such as those used in machine learning, artificial intelligence, and more.
What’s New
Succeeding the 9300 series from Micron, the 9400 NVMe series is designed to offer much more than what its predecessor did. The 9300 series was based on the U.2 form factor with a PCIe 3.0 x4 interface and used the 64-layer NAND. But since its release, data centers have started adopting PCIe 4.0 and U.3 form factor for better performance and to utilize NVMe, SAS, and SATA together.
Keeping the market demand in mind, Micron has now come out with the 9400 NVMe series, where they have adopted the U.3 form factor with a PCIe 4.0 x4 interface while also working with the 176-layer NAND. What’s more? The capacity per rack has doubled compared to the 9300 NVMe series, thanks to the 2.5” U.3 drives. Further, owing to the faster interface and the 176-layer NAND, the IOPS per watt has now increased by 77% over the 9300 NVMe series.
Micron 9400 PRO VS 9400 MAX
The 9400 NVMe series, designed for handling data center workloads, is available in two versions; the 9400 PRO and the 9400 MAX. Both are optimized for different purposes. The Micron 9400 PRO is designed more for read-intensive tasks, while on the other hand, the Micron 9400 MAX is optimized for read and write workloads both.
How are the two different from each other? Well, the storage capacity of Micron 9400 PRO is capped at 30.72 TB and can endure 1 TB of written data per day. Coming to the Micron 9400 MAX, it has given up 17% of its storage capacity in a bid to increase the write endurance to 3 DWPD. The storage capacity is limited to 25.6 TB, but this makes the SSD more suitable for carrying out mixed purposes.
Micron 9400 NVMe and Other SSDs
According to Micron, its 9400 series provides better overall performance than its market competitors. SSDs, including the Solidigm D7-P5620, Samsung PM1735, and the Kioxia CM6-V do give competition to the 9400 series, but they fall behind in certain aspects. These include capacity points, performance, speed, and more.
Micron was late in introducing its own 32 TB SSD into the market, but the 9400 series has shown that it was worth the wait. We hope you found the article helpful.