Micron Technology has announced the release of the Micron 9550 NVMe SSD, a cutting-edge data centre solution designed for exceptional AI workload performance.
A leap in performance and efficiency
You will be impressed by the Micron 9550 SSD, which is a testament to Micron’s expertise in integrating its controller, NAND, DRAM, and firmware into one groundbreaking product. Thanks to its superior performance and power efficiency for AI workloads, this new SSD is being hailed as the “world’s fastest data centre SSD.”
According to Micron’s press release, the 9550 SSD boasts impressive figures: It delivers 14GB/s in sequential reads and 10GB/s in sequential writes, which provides up to 67 per cent better performance compared to similar competitive SSDs. It also achieves random reads of 3,300 KIOPS and random writes of 400 KIOPS, surpassing competitive offerings by up to 35 per cent and 33 per cent, respectively.
These high sequential and random read and write speeds make the 9550 SSD particularly suitable for demanding AI workloads. For instance, large language models (LLMs) benefit from high sequential reads, while graph neural networks (GNNs) require high random read performance.
Efficiency in power consumption
Power efficiency in data centres is critical, especially as electricity costs continue to rise. The Micron 9550 SSD shines in this area by delivering outstanding power efficiency to support a variety of AI workloads. For instance:
- GNN training with BaM: Achieves up to 43 per cent lower SSD average power usage and up to 29 per cent reduction in overall system energy consumption.
- NVIDIA Magnum IO GPUDirect Storage uses up to 81% less SSD energy per 1TB transfer.
- MLPerf: Reduces SSD energy use by up to 35 per cent and system energy by up to 13 per cent.
- Llama LLM training fine-tuning with Microsoft DeepSpeed: Cuts SSD energy use by up to 21 per cent.
Versatility in capacity and form factor
The Micron 9550 SSD will be available in sizes 3.2TB to 30.72TB, catering to various needs. Different form factors, including U.2, E1.S, and E3.S, ensure a suitable option for every data centre configuration.
With its groundbreaking performance and power efficiency, the Micron 9550 SSD is poised to set a new standard in the industry, making it an ideal choice for data centres handling complex AI workloads.
