First PCIe 6.0 SSD enters mass production with 28GB/s speeds, 5.5 million IOPS, and liquid cooling — Micron 9650 Series SSDs support air and liquid cooling

If you thought NVMe SSDs were already super-fast, think again. Micron has officially introduced the world's first mass-produced PCIe 6.0 SSD. The all-new Micron 9650 series takes full advantage of a PCIe 6.0 x4 interface to achieve up to a whopping 28 GB/s in read speeds, double that of the world's fastest PCIe 5.0 SSDs. The drive is optimized for high-performance workloads and designed for deployment in data centers. The price wasn’t disclosed, but the drive is intended for use in data centers.

Micron will have several iterations of the 9650 featuring the 9650 Pro and 9650 Max. The Pro variant will feature three capacities: 7.68 TB, 15.36 TB, and 30.72 TB. The Max variant offers lower capacities, with options falling short of the full capacity seen in the standard lineup. Sequential read speeds reach up to 2.1 GB/s, while sequential writes reach up to 1050 MB/s, with both models maintaining consistent performance under load.

The difference lies in how each handles performance under load, particularly between the two. In a random access scenario, the Pro model handles up to 1.5 million IOPS, while the Max variant reaches even higher throughput. Random and sequential endurance figures are similar, with both exhibiting similar performance characteristics. To illustrate, the 9650 Pro 30.72TB features a random endurance specification of 56,064 TBW. The 9650 Max 25.6TB provides a random endurance rating of 140,160 TBW.

In summary, based on Micron's figures, the latest 9650 provides 40% higher write performance than PCIe Gen 5 SSDs, 67% greater random read rates, and 22% better random write speeds. Take this info with a pinch of salt, as Micron did not share the exact PCIe 5.0 SSD model it is referring to, but most outgoing PCIe 5.0 SSD write speeds sit around the 10GB/s to 13GB/s range.

Surprisingly, power consumption has not increased to match the extra performance the 9650 offers over PCIe 5.0 drives. Micron's 9650 is rated at up to 25 watts, the same as the most power-hungry enterprise PCIe 5.0 SSDs consume today. But if you want to compare consumer PCIe 5.0 SSDs, which generally top out at 12 to 15 watts, the 9650 consumes up to 67% more power than those drives.

What has changed is that the cooling requirement now differs, as the drive’s design has shifted to accommodate liquid cooling, while the previous version relied on different thermal dynamics. The introduction of OEM liquid cooling is already happening with PCIe 5.0 SSDs in the datacenter world to help tame the heat generated by these high-power-consuming drives. It might seem silly to cool a device that draws so little power, but keeping multiple drives cooled properly still matters. Solidigm was the first manufacturer to release a liquid-cooled enterprise SSD.

Drives like the ones in question are likely to be prioritized as demand for high-speed access grows, with AI-driven workloads demanding faster access. Just like GPUs, AI systems will leverage every available ounce of performance, with modern interfaces pushing the limits of speed. Also, don't expect Micron's announcement to be any indication of a consumer PCIe 6.0 coming out anytime soon; not only is the AI race consuming NAND flash at an extraordinary rate, but consumer platforms have not yet adopted PCIe 6.0 (and won't until 2030), making a consumer variant completely useless.

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