Micron today introduced its 4600 PCIe 5x4 NVMe client SSDs, aimed at creators, professionals, and gamers. The SSD utilizes PCIe Gen 5 speeds with lower power consumption, making it 107% more efficient than its Gen 4 predecessor (according to Micron). Micron is also marketing the drive toward AI, promising lower load times for LLM and AI workloads (specifically, Llama 2). The SSD comes in a 2280 form factor in 512GB, 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB capacities. The SSD uses G9 TLC NAND and a 6nm SMI 2508 eight-channel controller to achieve these lower load times. The drive is rated for 2,100 KIOPS random read / write speeds and up to 14.5 / 12 GB/s sequential read / write speeds.
"With the 4600 NVMe SSD, users can load large language models in less than one second, enabling PC experiences in data-intensive applications, especially for AI,” said Prasad Alluri, vice president and general manager for Client Storage at Micron. “As AI inference runs locally on the PC, the transition to Gen5 SSDs addresses the increased need for higher performance and energy efficiency.”
The same TLC NAND is also used on Micron's 2560 M.2 SSDs, and has other functions such as power-loss protection and firmware activation without reset. Like the Micron 2560, the 4600 does not have a heatsink bundled with it, making it compatible with laptops and other portable devices. The drive is DirectStorage capable, has SPDM security features, and comes with a three-year warranty.
SanDisk also just recently released its PCIe 5.0 SSD, which has an advertised power draw of 7 watts (though, a the cost of using QLC over high-performing TLC NAND). It will be up to OEMs to choose these SSDs for system builds, but with improved storage and power efficiency, we'll likely start seeing these drives in PCs and other devices soon. With AI integration gaining momentum, SSDs capable of lowered access speeds are certainly desirable.
