Micron Release Next Generation Client-SSD’s

Micron is one of the leading manufacturers of memory chips, and as such they’ve just released their next generation consumer-class solid state drive; the M600 SATA SSD. We as end-users won’t have the pleasure of buying this drive right away, because it will start as an OEM-only drive. It could however very well be at the heart of the next mobile gadget you purchase. We can also expect it to appear as a Crucial drive in the not so distant future.

“The M600 sets a new bar for power, security and efficiency in client SSDs and delivers on our vision to provide the most advanced storage solutions,” said Darren Thomas, vice president of Micron’s storage business. “OEMs expect Micron to deliver leading-edge SSDs that give their products an advantage and a noticeably better user experience. The M600 fulfills that promise.”

There are two things that sets this drive apart from the rest. The first of them is the power consumption, as the M600 consumes less than 2 mW in sleep mode and has an average power draw of 150 mW during active use. As a comparison, a traditional 2.5-inch hard drive uses up to 2000 mW when used and 130 mW in idle. The gap isn’t as big when we compare to other SSD’s on the market, but it is still a difference.

Micron didn’t have to compromise the performance in any way to achieve this low power consumption, the drive actually promises exceptional performance. The drive has been tested to perform 100K IOPS on random reads and 90K on the writes. The numbers for the sequential tests are just as impressive with 560 MB/s when reading and 510 MB/s when writing. Even the smallest 128 GB model can deliver these speeds. That is something new and it is the second thing that sets the M600 apart from the crowd.

This is achieved by using Micron’s own 16 nm process technology, the most advanced flash on the market. It is packed in Micron’s 128 Gb NAND so even the smallest form-factors can benefit from large storage. The longevity should be guaranteed as well with the 1 TB model being rated to reach up to 400 TB total bytes written (TBW), that is enough for 220 GB a day, every day, for five years.

Further more, some of the models use the Dynamic Write Acceleration (DWA) technique. A fake SLC caching mechanism that works in real-time to dynamically switch between SLC and MLC conversions in the NAND. This is the what makes the small drives just as fast as the large ones.

Encryption is more important than ever these days, and Micron of course have added an AES-256-bit hardware encryption to the drive. It complies with the TCG Opal 2.0 standards and the Microsoft eDrive protocol for easy management under Windows 8 environments. The drive also has a long list of other features we’re used to and are expecting by now, such as RAIN on-board fail-over protection and client-class power-loss protection for data in the buffer. The adaptive thermal-monitoring dynamically adjusts power consumption based on system temperature, ideal for ultra-small, thermally constrained systems.

The Micron M600 is offered in 128, 256 and 512 GB mSATA and M.2 module configurations, where the M.2 module is offered in both 80mm and 60mm versions. The 2.5-inch, 7 mm drive will be available in capacities from 128 GB to 1 TB. Shipping has already started, so expect products to be available very soon.

Thank you Micron for providing us with this information

Images courtesy of Micron