Micron Enhances Enterprise Solid-State Drive Portfolio

The new drive, called the RealSSD™ P400e, enhances Micron's tiered enterprise SSD portfolio with an entry-level enterprise solution. Micron's portfolio now covers the entire enterprise storage spectrum, from boot applications (the new RealSSD P400e), to data storage (RealSSD P300) and caching applications (RealSSD P320h).

Storage architects and system administrators demand an increasingly lower total cost of ownership (TCO). Many have previously attempted to achieve this by using client SSDs that are not designed to handle rigorous 24 x 7 enterprise workloads. The new P400e meets those demands. By leveraging Micron's expertise in multilevel cell (MLC) NAND design, wear management and SSD firmware, the P400e drive delivers excellent input/output operations per second (IOPs) per dollar, along with enterprise endurance and reliability.

Our customers have been asking for an affordable, reliable, performance-driven, solid state storage option for DAS-level applications, and the P400e drive delivers on those key design requirements, said Gary Gentry, general manager of the enterprise SSD division of Micron's NAND Solutions Group. Micron continues to exhibit its vertically integrated strength by offering solutions like the P400e, which demonstrates our ability to marry advanced MLC NAND technology into leading storage systems architectures.

The P400e SSD ships in capacities ranging from 50 gigabyte (GB) to 400GB in a standard 2.5-inch, 7 millimeter (mm) Z-height form factor that is ideal for thin server blade designs. The drive's SATA 6 gigabit per second (Gb/s) interface is backward compatible to SATA 3 Gb/s, allowing customers to use the drive with today's infrastructure while also future-proofing their systems to leverage the faster interface. The P400e drive's focused steady-state performance1 offers a compelling reason to upgrade from spinning media. Additionally, Micron's 25 nanometer (nm) MLC NAND is the foundation of the P400e's low TCO, which is a key driver for the growing encroachment of SSDs into enterprise hard disk drive (HDD) slots.

Shipping now, Micron is qualifying the P400e drives with multiple original equipment manufacturer (OEM) customers. It will also be available to customers through Micron's extensive distribution network.