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Micron Ships Gigantic 245TB SSD (nerds.xyz) 70

Posted by BeauHD from the industry-leading dept.
BrianFagioli writes: Micron says it is now shipping the world's highest-capacity commercially available SSD, and the numbers are honestly hard to wrap your head around. The new Micron 6600 ION packs 245TB into a single drive and is aimed squarely at AI infrastructure, hyperscalers, and cloud providers dealing with exploding data growth. According to the company, the SSD can reduce rack counts by 82 percent compared to HDD deployments offering similar raw capacity, while also cutting power usage and cooling requirements. Micron says the drive tops out at roughly 30W, which it claims is about half the power draw of comparable hard drive setups.

The announcement also feels like another warning sign for spinning disks in the enterprise. Hard drives still dominate bulk storage because of lower cost per terabyte, but SSD capacities keep climbing into territory that used to belong exclusively to HDDs. Micron is also touting major performance gains, claiming up to 84 times better energy efficiency for AI workloads and dramatically lower latency versus HDD-based systems. While nobody is dropping one of these into a home NAS anytime soon, the idea of a quarter petabyte on a single SSD no longer sounds like science fiction.

Micron Ships Gigantic 245TB SSD More | Reply

Micron Ships Gigantic 245TB SSD

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  • Is now approaching $1000.00. What are normal people supposed to do?

    • Good ol' Lambert's rules of neoliberalism:

      Rule #1: Because markets.

      Rule #2: Go die!

      https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/03/neo-liberalism-expressed-simple-rules.html

    • Is now approaching $1000.00. What are normal people supposed to do?

      Probably nothing. Are there many consumer level motherboards that can support a U.2 or an E.3 drive?

    • > What are normal people supposed to do?

      It looks like a omen to take up farming.

      Maybe I should pull some of my 4TB nvme sticks and buy my kid a used car...

    • Where do you buy stuff? Last year I got an external SSD Sandisk 2TB (SDSSDE30-2T00-G26) for ~160-180 € (I forgot the exact value) from a physical retailer. It's now 209.90 € from my retailer, and 207.69 € from Amazon.

    • Re:2TB SSD (Score:4, Interesting)

      by larryjoe ( 135075 ) on Friday May 08, 2026 @07:00PM (#66134968)

      Apparently this huge 245TB SSD will cost around $80k, which will be around 10x the cost compared to the same capacity HDD set. The HDD power will be 2-3x more, but that power is noise compared to the rack power needed by everything else. There is an advantage in form factor density compared to a set of smaller SSDs, but that density comes at the cost of performance due to a single interface, single queue, and more latency due to TRIM. Performance is a big deal because that's why the much higher cost of SSDs is justifiable. The only real reason for this huge SSD is to save rack space, and that is something, but is it worth the decreased performance?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Z00L00K ( 682162 )

        That price will drop, as usual with giant bleeding edge stuff - it will become cheaper.

      • Performance is not the first concern. Likely you would want to have a separate gateway server with 1-2T that caches reads and writes to RAM, and optimizes infrequent accesses to the SSD itself. Remember, if you expect to update a single 64Kb file on a large capacity SSD, then you're doing it wrong.

    • Is now approaching $1000.00. What are normal people supposed to do?

      Wait it out by deleting their old porn.

    • Re:2TB SSD (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Luckyo ( 1726890 ) on Friday May 08, 2026 @07:33PM (#66135018)

      Demand software developers start caring about memory print of their software again. Both in RAM and storage.

      Unironically. We've lived out at least a decade and a half of "this software stack is utterly unoptimized garbage" "who cares, just slap bigger system requirements. We're not spending money on optimizing something that doesn't matter to anyone since hardware is advancing so fast".

      It's good that every decade or so we get a memory and storage crunch and developers actually have to rediscover things like better compression algorithms and methods, proper garbage collection, and general software optimization.

      Seriously, have you seen the size requirements of modern games? Have you seen the retarded chugging of modern office software running win11 on 8GB RAM machines when they have to actually start swapping? Have you experienced the joys of Chrome and all the memes about it being a ramvore?

      What in the actual fuck are those tabs doing eating gigabytes of RAM? And why in the fuck are most Chromium based browser installs now almost a gig of storage?

      You could do the same things a decade and a half ago on 4 gigs RAM and tiny SSDs that were less than one gigabyte and the system flew and most things except the porn torrents could be stored on it.

      And then you consider "ok, what did we actually get for that insane increase in system demands?"

      Built in always on spyware. Slightly redesigned UI according to the latest fashion trends. A few arcane additional features barely anyone uses. Games with "that unreal look" that look worse than unreal games a decade ago. And "modern" webpages that essentially ask you one question: "Would you like scrips with those scripts so you can enjoy scripts while you're enjoying scripts".

      While reading a text based news article.

      Just kidding. They don't ask.

      • If I had mod points I'd vote this up right now.

      • What in the actual fuck are those tabs doing eating gigabytes of RAM? And why in the fuck are most Chromium based browser installs now almost a gig of storage?

        Never going to say that we can't optimize something better.

        But let's get real - the engines have got insanely more capable. We can do things with just CSS now that it took reams of JS to do before, if you could even do them.

        But -- we can do that because the browser engine is now capable of it.

      • Not gonna happen. The modern web is a huge mess, and lightweight browsers already exist, but good luck using them for anything except some obscure websites developed in 1999

      • Seriously, have you seen the size requirements of modern games?

        The size requirements of modern games have nothing to do with memory shortages and everything to do with abusing the fact that space was plentiful *TO OPTIMISE* gaming. For the most people few people give a shit if a game is 80GB or 120GB, but they give a lot of shits if the game is slower to load, if the game stutters while accessing assets (in both cases asset duplication can contribute to a larger size but also improved gaming performance), and people give a shit when their textures look like trash.

        What in the actual fuck are those tabs doing eating gigabytes of RAM? And why in the fuck are most Chromium based browser installs now almost a gig of storage?
        You could do the same things a decade and a half ago on 4 gigs RAM and tiny SSDs that were less than one gigabyte and the system flew and most things except the porn torrents could be stored on it.

        Not o

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

          "Safety, security, buy a better rig to run my shit because I'm not optimizing this for peasants" being the clarion call of the bottom feeder tier software development that was massively encouraged over last decade or so is indeed the thing I'm decrying.

          It's the IT version of "learn to code".

    • That's baloney. First link in Google ($309): https://www.bestbuy.com/produc... [bestbuy.com]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      No, it is not. It is around $300 for Samsung. Maybe do not believe the sensationalist headlines.

    • When prices change, evaluate priorities.

      If a tool costs a thousand dollars but will generate sufficient profit or save time or add convenience to justify the expense, I'd buy the tool. A thousand bucks is quite affordable for many skilled trades machine budgets. Tradespeople are normal people too.

      If a thousand bucks is not affordable, choose different parts accordingly, for example using multiple smaller and/or different storage drives.

      If a toy costs a thousand dollars and that is too expensive, choose a di

    • Is now approaching $1000.00. What are normal people supposed to do?

      Ignoring your hyperbole regarding actual prices, the answer is that you are supposed to be willing to pay up, or not to purchase at all. Just like C-3PO, your lot in life is to suffer.

    • I'm sure the Billionaire class will tell us normal people what to do. We put them on a pedestal, put them in office, or let them buy our votes in elections.
      And you're a Marxist if you aren't on board with allowing our innovative captains of industry to steer this country, no this entire world, to greater heights.

      Note: Crucial P310 2TB SSD is under $250.

    • Go out and enjoy life? ;-)
    • Buy an 1TB SSD and store less stuff. The 2020s are Moore's Law going in reverse.

  • Has there ever been a single case of reporting on the next density storage device where the article didn't use the words:

    ... dealing with exploding data growth. ...

    Yeah, we know. It is not big news. Stick to comparison with other solutions (did that some .. one silver star) and maybe something interesting with regard to analysis of what the next technology milestone will have to achieve.

  • Wanna bet? (Score:5, Funny)

    by evslin ( 612024 ) on Friday May 08, 2026 @06:10PM (#66134904)

    > While nobody is dropping one of these into a home NAS anytime soon, the idea of a quarter petabyte on a single SSD no longer sounds like science fiction.

    You're right, I won't be dropping one of these into my NAS. That would make it a single point of failure, and we can't have that. I'll need three of them.

  • ... for the low low price of a quarter peta-buck.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by phfpht ( 654492 )
      Maybe just a quarter mega-buck.

      But, regardless, far into the "if you have to ask, you can't afford it" realm.
  • No surprises on innovations in the AI / Data Center market:

    Built on PCIe® Gen5 and Micron QLC NAND performance, it is purpose-built for AI, cloud, and data centers to help scale sustainably.

    Call me when there's affordable big capacity flash drives to replace my spinning rust at an affordable rate.

  • 254,000 ea. Buy em before they are gone!
    • Imagine data center buyers sleeping outside waiting in line for SSD, CPUs, and RAM.

      In other news, the big fab vendors are scaling manufacturing as fast as they can but it's not fast enough because the supply chain is extremely deep and limited. It will take 2 years for things to recover because it's the flash, HDD, RAM, CPU, GPU/NPU fab/mfg capacity crunch from the AI bubble that's making everything retail and consumer electronics so expensive. When it finally implodes, there will be a massive glut of cap
  • In the early 1990s:
    “How could anyone ever fill a 10MB drive?”
    Answer:
    “Porn images.”

    Today:
    “How could anyone fill a 245TB SSD?”
    Answer:
    “Same way. Give me less than 6 months.”

  • How does this compare with an HD? Before you say hard drives are dead that's a critical thing, let's compare all the specs.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      And the cost? How does this compare with an HD?

      "an HD" ? It doesn't compare, no such beast exists.
      How does it compare against hard drives plural?

      1x SSD 245TB $80k
      vs

      1x Seagate Exos 32TB = $1300
      8x = 256TB at $10400
      (* 36tb is their largest exos but I can't find any available or a price)

      1x WD Gold 24TB = $800
      11x =264 TB at $8800
      (* The WD Red pro 24TB is the same price (!?))

      Both of those are 7200RPM and 6gb/sec over sATA

      The ssd uses PCIe Gen5. 4 lanes is 16gb/s, and 16 lanes would be 128gb/s
      A U.2 slot would only have 4 lanes, and E3.L can provide 16.
      They m

    • It will cost $40k-100k. Enterprise will use it to save data center OpEx and CapEx because it's 12x more power efficient and 15x to 60x more space dense. They're fine buying many megabucks of infrastructure even if individual components are expensive if it drives down their costs per unit resource,

  • Lose more shit at once, faster.

  • ... I'm sure we all know it's coming :-)

  • Wouldn't buy (Score:4, Interesting)

    by LostMyBeaver ( 1226054 ) on Saturday May 09, 2026 @01:30AM (#66135270)
    I am the specific target audience for these drives.

    And ... they are a TERRIBLE idea.

    Assume PCIex4 v5.0 for the interface. That's a theoretical 15.75GB/sec. To read this drive sequentially would take 4.25 hours.

    This is so slow it's absolutely useless for AI. Assume for a moment I loaded 8 of these into a 1u chassis. 800Gb XDR InfiniBand would be too slow, a double link would work. But you would be better off building half-U trays with four drives and an 800Gb link.

    That said, let's say you had half a rack of that. That would be 48x245TB or about 12PB. And remember this is performance storage, not reliable storage. Everything here should be treated as entirely volatile... it's just cheap/slow RAM, it's not bad.

    I think overall, I would architect a similar system on 64TB sleds because with the exception of rack space and power (and the drives use no power next to GPUs), 64TB drives destroy 245TB drives in every way.

    Once we hit PCIe v9.0 or so and 4Tb Ethernet or InfiniBand, then 245TB will start making sense.

    If Micron wanted a serious product, they would have dropped U.2 in favor of Ethernet or InfiniBand.

  • It's not that hard to build such an SSD. Yes, cooling can become a problem, but there are established ways to deal with that. Essentially it just boils down to comparatively simple packaging. You just put more chips onto boards and cram more boards into your case. Putting chips onto boards is something that scales very well.

    The hard thing is to do that cheaply.

    • It only pulls 30W max. This is a hugely more efficient storage device in terms of W/TB, mL/TB, and TB/port. Dell is going to be the first VAR to pimp them.

      • Yes, but you can easily achieve that by just slowing it down. It's CMOS after all. Considering you get speed anyhow by having lots of parallel chips, that's perfectly doable.

  • Just when I thought exFAT would finally end the filesystem wars (a filesystem that's implemented by all major OSes, supports files larger than 4GB, and will be royalty-free by May 2028), we may get SSDs larger than 512TB by then.

  • ...that relief won't come with large quantities of cheap 20Tb drives, but rather with large quantities of expensive (but cheap per Tb) 500 Tb drives?

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Crazee Edeee, his prices are INSANE!!!

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