Micron announces new P400m 25nm MLC enterprise SSD

Today Micron is unveiling their new P400m SSD. This SSD is designed for data center servers and storage platforms and increases Microns impressive enterprise SSD portfolio. This 25nm MLC NAND SSD provides surprising endurance from standard MLC, with up to 10 full drive writes per day for five years.

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This provides an overall endurance of up to 7PB of lifetime data written to the drive depending upon the capacity utilized. Micron is backing up this endurance promise with a five-year warranty for this new product. The P400m is geared for a multitude of applications including Cloud, VDI, bootstorm management, social media and logging applications.

This terrific endurance is due to Microns implementation of their proprietary XPERT (eXtended Performance and Enhanced Reliability Technology) drive management. This suite of highly optimized firmware algorithms and hardware enhancements increase the endurance of MLC NAND and provides full data path protection. As part of their approach Micron utilizes the same RAIN (Redundant Array of Independent NAND) technology that we have seen utilized in their P320h PCIe SSD. Additional facets of the XPERT approach include Adaptive Read Management/Optimize Read (ARM/OR) and DataSAFE technology.

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The P400m comes in a slim 7mm form factor with capacities available in 100GB, 200GB and 400GB. The P400m is already validated through several key OEM partners and begins shipping within 60 days.

The SSD utilizes the trusty Marvell 9187 controller with Microns own custom firmware. This firmware is the engine that delivers sequential read and write performance of 350MB/s read and 300MB/s write. Random read speed comes in at 55,000 IOPS and random write performance is 17,000 IOPS.

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The yellow caps provide power hold up in the event of a host power-loss issue to protect user's data.

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Utilizing MLC NAND provides Micron with a lower cost solution than the typical enterprise SLC. By utilizing their XPERT technology Micron can provide much higher endurance than client and entry level MLC products. Micron also is utilizing their choice (high bin) MLC for this SSD, providing a great price vs. performance proposition for the P400m.

One of Microns key advantages as a NAND producer is their ability to keep the design and construction of the SSD in-house. This ensures complete quality control during the entire drive development, test, manufacture and shipping process. Micron has included a neat video that compresses the whole process of building an SSD into a nice quick view. We will leave you with this video, but keep your eyes open for our upcoming review of Microns new P400m!