Micron: Up to 2TB 2.5-Inch and 1TB M.2 1300 SSDs With 96-Layer TLC 3D NAND

Micron Technology, Inc. added a cost-efficient SSD to its client computing portfolio.

The 1300 SSD makes flash storage accessible to more users, enabling its adoption in a broader set of personal computing devices for a better mobile computing experience. Consumers who are eager to move from rotating media to SSDs value fast performance, quick start-up, and reliability – whether for desktop, mobile or workstation PCs. SSDs address these needs better than power-hungry HDDs, yet their higher prices have kept users from shifting to SSDs. The company redesigned the 1300 SSD series to close the price gap.

“The deployment of advanced 3D NAND technologies has led the client SSD market to branch into value and higher-performance storage segments,” said Gregory Wong, president, Forward Insights. “Micron’s latest client SSD solutions provide a coherent migration path from HDD to value-oriented SSDs.“

The 1300 SATA SSD is a 96-layer TLC 3D NAND-based SSDs, available in capacities up to 1TB (in M.2) and 2TB (in 2.5-inch). This product introduction extends the firm’s leadership in high-density SSD design and high-volume manufacturing of performance 3D NAND-based flash drives. The ability to build drives with small footprints like the M.2 SSD form factor, which is as small as a stick of gum, also hinges on the company’s leadership in 3D NAND technology.

“We are driving innovation to deliver on the personal computing needs of users who want thinner, lighter and less power-hungry devices,” said Roger Peene, VP, product planning and strategy, storage business unit, Micron. “Expanding our broad SSD portfolio with high-density 96-layer NAND storage delivers greater performance, form factors and efficiency at lower cost to meet the demanding needs of today’s mobile workers.“

The 1300 SSD enhances storage performance for mobile, desktop and workstation PCs with 2.7x higher read throughput over HDDs. ^(*)  It delivers sequential reads/writes up to 530MB/520MB/s and random reads/writes up to 90,000/87,000 IO/s.

In addition, the 1300 SSD, designed to be power efficient, extends battery life between charges for the mobile worker. It uses 75 milliwatts of power, which is 45% of the active (R/W) power of an average HDD. ^(**) It also supports Windows 10 Modern Standby requirements including adaptive thermal management and near-instant transmission to low-power mode for increased productivity. The SSD also offers features to protect valuable data such as asynchronous power-loss protection for data at rest and optional Opal 2.0 self-encryption.

The 1300 SSD is an extension of the company’s 1100 SATA client SSD. Continuing the widely adopted SATA connectivity.

^(*) Comparing solid state client drives to 5,400rpm, SATA 2.5-inch internal HDDs; data transfer rate 140MB/s average.
^(**) Same HDD, 1.6 watts average on R/W power, while the Micron 1300 SSD requires an active average power of 75mW, as measured running MobileMark productivity suite. All IO/s and power usage data collected from publicly available datasheets as of the time of this writing.