Micron has rolled out what it claims is the first mass-produced PCIe 6.0 SSD, aimed squarely at AI data centres rather than gaming rigs.
According to Tom’s Hardware, the Micron 9650 series uses a PCIe 6.0 x4 interface and is rated for up to 28GB/s sequential reads and 14GB/s writes, which is roughly double the best PCIe 5.0 numbers on paper.
It lands in enterprise E1.S and E3.S form factors, with Micron positioning it as storage that keeps AI servers fed as models and datasets grow very large.
Micron is splitting the line into 9650 Pro and 9650 Max. Pro comes in 7.68TB, 15.36TB and 30.72TB, while Max offers 6.4TB, 12.8TB and 25.6TB.
Random performance is listed at 5,400 KIOPS reads and 500 KIOPS writes for both, but mixed workloads are where Micron draws a line between them.
In a 70/30 random read write split, Micron rates the Pro at up to 1,100 KIOPS, while the Max goes higher at 1,500 KIOPS, which is the version you buy when downtime costs more than the hardware.
Endurance is a divider, with the Max models getting the tougher numbers. Micron states that a 9650 Pro 30.72TB is rated for 56,064 TBW of random endurance, while a 9650 Max 25.6TB is rated for 140,160 TBW.
Micron claims the 9650 is 40 per cent faster in writes than PCIe Gen 5 SSDs, 67 per cent faster in random reads, and 22 per cent faster in random writes, though it does not specify which Gen 5 drive it is benchmarking against.
Power is not going through the roof, at least for the intended market. Micron rates the 9650 at up to 25 watts, which sits in the same ballpark as the hottest-running enterprise PCIe 5.0 drives.
Cooling is the key indicator, as Micron now offers air and liquid options, with liquid cooling supported on the E1.S version.
It sounds daft until you picture a rack stuffed with multiple 25-watt drives side by side, where heat stacks up fast.
Micron is basically betting that AI servers will hoover up PCIe 6.0 storage as soon as platforms can take it, while consumer PCIe 6.0 remains a non-event because mainstream systems are not expected to adopt it until 2030.
