Micron joins the SSD greats with its first homebrew reminiscence controller in a drive

Micron's new 2200 SSD with its own in-house memory controller

Micron has revealed its first ever SSD working a homebrew reminiscence controller. That’s massive information within the strong state world – with the ability to construct SSDs from its personal reminiscence and reminiscence controller is what put Samsung on the prime of the tech tree, and now Micron has lastly stepped as much as the plate too.

The Micron 2200 SSD is a comparatively entry-level NVMe SSD, with out the straight line storage efficiency or endurance to fret the massive boys, and it’s most definitely going to be launched as an OEM drive for set up in enterprise PCs and laptops. But we might be very shocked if it didn’t see some consumer-facing rebadging underneath the corporate’s Crucial branding quickly.

Right now we don’t have any actual particulars in regards to the precise controller itself; Micron hasn’t launched any specs about it in any respect. So we don’t know what manufacturing node it’s constructed on or what number of cores it’s rocking, however we do have the essential specs sheet for the Micron 2200 SSD itself, and it’s not a nasty begin. So lengthy because it’s an inexpensive possibility, anyway.

The Micron 2200 SSD is available in three distinct flavours: a 256GB, 512GB, and a 1TB drive. They’re all sporting that very same in-house Micron controller, and all run throughout a PCIe 3.zero interface at x4 speeds, utilizing the NVMe protocol. They are, in fact, all utilizing Micron’s personal NAND flash reminiscence, of the 64-layer 3D TLC kind.

Read extra: These are the very best SSDs for gaming

In phrases of the particular efficiency we’re asymmetrical learn/write speeds, with all three drives reportedly able to hitting as much as 3,000MB/s and 1,600MB/s respectively when it comes to sequential efficiency. That places the Micron 2200 in the identical bracket as the primary Western Digital Black NVMe drive and the slowest, 250GB model of Samsung’s 970 EVO.

Micron 2200 SSD
Capacities 256GB | 512GB | 1TB
Controller Micron in-house
Form issue M.2
Interface PCIe 3.zero x4
Memory Micron 64-layer 3D TLC
Seq. learn 3,000MB/s
Seq. write 1,600MB/s
Endurance 75TB | 150TB | 300TB

The newest WD Black SN750 drive, nevertheless, has matched up its learn/write efficiency and better capability 970 EVO drives provide superior write speeds too. It’s additionally price pointing to the endurance of the brand new Micron drives – with the 1TB model delivering a warrantied endurance ranking of simply 300TB that’s half the assured lifespan of both the WD Black or Samsung 970 EVO of the identical capability.

But it is a first step on the controller ladder for Micron after its acquisition of Tidal Systems just a few years again, and a significant one for the corporate because it seeks to cement its place on the prime desk of strong state drive producers.

Western Digital has been making massively constructive strides because it began constructing drives utilizing its personal SanDisk reminiscence and its personal controllers. The newest WD Black SN750 is a implausible NVMe SSD and the corporate has just lately introduced the primary mainstream WD Blue SN500 too; an inexpensive NVMe drive working throughout a PCIe 3.zero x2 interface. We’ll have a assessment of WD’s new finances drive very quickly.

Using a mixture of its personal reminiscence and controllers is basically why Samsung has been in a position to dominate the marketplace for so lengthy. It was the primary to see the good thing about investing in its personal controller and is now the largest identify in shopper SSDs due to it. And with WD and Micron now each following swimsuit we may very well be wanting on the last consolidation of the SSD market.

Fingers crossed we see a retail model of Micron’s new SSD underneath the Crucial identify quickly so we will get a deal with on the way it performs in our gaming rigs.

 
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