Two SSD-makers have launched their high-capacity drives in an effort to target hyperscaler and AI workload demands.
Both Micron and Solidigm are making significant capacity jumps in their SSD offerings, which use different types of NAND but focus on energy savings and data center consolidation. On Tuesday, Micron released its new 6550 ION, a 61.44 TB triple-level cell (TLC) NAND drive using its latest G8 NAND node. On Wednesday, Solidigm released the latest version of its D5-P5336, a 122.88 TB quad-level cell (QLC) SSD.
With the rise of systems to support AI workloads, the need for higher density and lower power consumption is a concern, according to Jeff Janukowicz, an analyst at IDC. AI workloads are still at an early stage, but power usage and density concerns need to be addressed. Higher-density SSDs such as those from Micron and Solidigm can support AI model training, checkpointing and inferencing. Data centers and hyperscalers are also looking for ways to increase storage density, he said.
"The demand is now," Janukowicz said, adding that "having more options available is certainly advantageous."
Consolidation and energy
Solidigm's new drive increases its density, but not its power needs. Micron's 6550 also uses 20% fewer watts compared with similar drives. Micron said the drive can hit its performance numbers using 20 watts, as opposed to the 25 watts required by other 60-plus TB drives. That includes Solidigm's D5-P5336 61.44 TB version, which was released in mid-2023 and has been shipping this year, according to Micron.
Denser storage can lead to more sustainable data centers or increase the available power for compute clusters, according to Steve McDowell, founder and analyst at NAND Research. Hyperscalers have power budgets they need to stay within, and GPU clusters need more power.
[Denser SSDs] are cooler to run, cooler to operate and take up less rack space, meaning there is less power needed.
Steve McDowellFounder and analyst, NAND Research
"[Denser SSDs] are cooler to run, cooler to operate and take up less rack space, meaning there is less power needed," he said.
In May, Jim Handy, general director and semiconductor analyst at Objective Analysis, noted in a blog post that high-density SSDs of 60 TB to 100 TB are in demand, based on quarterly earnings from most SSD-makers. These drives are being used for AI training and inferencing, and offer more than double the capacity of HDDs that ship today, Handy wrote.
Having high density, low latency and low power consumption in a smaller space is also important to hyperscalers, he said in an interview with TechTarget Editorial.
"They are willing to buy SSDs that have all of that behind a single interface," Handy said.
Micron goes big
Micron's 6550 ION is a PCIe 5.0 SSD with top-end performance of 12 GBps and 1.6 million IOPS. The 6550 ION comes in E3.S, E1.L and U.2 form factors with backward compatibility for drop-in replacement.
Micron's new offering adds another high-capacity SSD option to the market alongside the Solidigm D5-P5336 61.44 TB version and Samsung's BM1743, which also offers a 61.44 TB drive. But unlike Solidigm and Samsung, Micron's new SSD uses its proprietary TLC-based G8 NAND. This is its current TLC NAND node, which Micron said is more energy-efficient than and comparative in cost to its G7 QLC NAND node.
Micron has been able to offer its most current generation of NAND in TLC, Janukowicz said. With QLC, SSD-builders need to be more cautious about endurance, although this is less of a concern the denser the drive is.
"By leveraging TLC, you're on a more mainstream node that's going to find more homes and other applications," he said.
Solidigm goes bigger
Solidigm is now doubling the density of its D5-P5336 SSD with a new version that has 122.88 TB of capacity. Like its earlier version, the new drive utilizes QLC and focuses mainly on consolidation and energy savings.
Solidigm is in front of the pack with bringing high-capacity SSDs to market, Janukowicz said. This product is being sampled by customers now.
"This will be the highest-density shipping SSD that will be out there, to my knowledge," Janukowicz said.
McDowell noted that Pure Storage offers a drive with its DirectFlash Module that is denser, but clarified that this offering is not exactly an SSD and is tied to Pure's arrays, so it cannot be purchased on its own.
"It's a little disingenuous to say [Solidigm's is] the first, but it's the first that's broadly available," he said.
AI model training and hyperscalers require high-capacity SSDs, but Solidigm is also targeting OEMs such as Dell or NetApp, McDowell said.
Adam Armstrong is a TechTarget Editorial news writer covering file and block storage hardware and private clouds. He previously worked at StorageReview.
