Micron Debuts World’s First PCIe 6.0 SSD With 28GB/s Read Speeds

We’re still barely getting PCIe 5.0 SSDs in consumer segments today, but datacenter markets is now getting the latest and greatest in the realm of high-speed storage that is the Micron 9650 SSD. This datacenter SSD is the first in the world to use PCIe 6.0 protocol, which once again doubles the maximum throughput of its predecessor, at 28GB/s.

Micron 9650 PCIe 6.0 SSD

Now, it should be make pretty clear by now that you can’t buy one, and you certainly can’t install it in your regular PC either. The new Micron 9650 SSD comes in several EDSFF form factors designed for specific datacenter environments, including E1.S 9.5mm, E1.S 15mm, and E3.S 1T – none of which is compatible with your run-of-the-mill M.2 form factor.

Technically speaking, no datacenter today will be able to tap into the new maximum sequential read speed of 28GB/s this SSD can offer. You’ll need PCIe 6.0 support on CPU and motherboard for this to work, and as of right now, no commercially-available CPU in the world supports this new standard. Still, it shouldn’t take long for chipmakers to get this sorted out in the next generation of datacenter chips.

Other specs of the Micron 9650 SSD are perhaps equally jaw-dropping: up to 30.72TB of storage per unit, 14GB/s sequential write, up to 5.5 million IOPS random read, and maximum endurance of 282,600 TBW. Naturally, an SSD this fast is designed for demanding workloads far beyond a home user can do, such as inference and training for AI models.

Pokdepinion: Datacenter sure moves fast.