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Micron has enjoyed a long-standing, robust technical collaboration with Intel, ensuring early validation of our cutting-edge data center solid-state drives (SSDs) and the latest Intel® Xeon® 6 processors for servers. This collaboration allows our joint customers to deploy powerful Micron SSDs confidently in their storage solutions to maximize performance and reliability. OEMs, ODMs, and cloud service providers rely on this level of work for “shift left” product validation. This necessary prequalification requirement is essential for successful storage solution deployments.
This joint commitment to early engagement within the ecosystem was highlighted last year in a blog titled Driving innovation within the ecosystem, by Larry Hart, senior director of Solution Marketing in the Core Data Center Business Unit (formerly the Storage Business Unit) at Micron.
Recently, Intel launched its latest generation of Intel Xeon processors for servers, Intel Xeon 6 processors with Performance-cores (P-cores), formerly codenamed Granite Rapids. Just weeks before, Micron announced the release of the Micron® 9550 NVMe™ PCIe Gen5 SSD for artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC) use cases. Intel Xeon 6 processors with P-cores and the Micron 9550 SSDs are now in production and widely available in the open market. The Micron 9550, with its highly optimized, internally developed ASIC and firmware, coupled with high-performance and power-efficient Micron G8 NAND, is the perfect storage complement to high-performance Intel Xeon 6 processors with P-cores, optimized for compute-intensive and AI workloads.
Micron and Intel have tested the Micron 9550 SSD as part of Intel’s new "Intel® Performance Optimization Tested program". This program involves performance optimization testing with Intel Xeon 6 processors with P-core configurations and SSDs to identify and address configuration and scaling challenges.
This testing program leverages flexible I/O tester (FIO) to measure performance for workload patterns such as 4KB read/writes per second (IOPS), 128KB sequential read/writes per second (GB per second) and 4KB read/write latency at a queue depth value of 1. Testing starts with one SSD and scales up to four SSDs.
To support these joint efforts, Micron shipped several Micron 9550 PRO 7.68TB SSDs to the Intel testing team for this program. Intel focused its testing on the Intel Xeon 6500-series and 6700-series processors with P-cores.
The results were spectacular. Not only did the Micron 9550 meet Intel’s requirements on the first pass, but the Intel testing team also reported sequential writes (128KB transfers) at 11.1 GB/s, surpassing the Micron 9550 SSD’s stated 10 GB/s. The Intel testing team also confirmed that four SSDs scaled to 44.4 GB/s in their testing with Intel Xeon 6 processors with P-cores, that is, linear scalability! Similarly, Intel measured the 4KB random write performance significantly higher than our stated value. Why? Because Micron takes a conservative approach when documenting our product specifications.
Micron is proud to have the Micron 9550 SSD recognized by the "Intel® Performance Optimization Tested program". This collaboration accelerates our joint customers’ storage selection process as they design complex server systems based on Intel Xeon 6 processors with P-cores. It is also just one example of the long-standing engineering-level work between Intel and Micron, spanning memory and storage technology domains from engineering co-development to joint go-to-market planning.
“Micron has been and continues to be an exceptional contributor to Intel’s ecosystem for joint product enabling,” said Richelle Ahlvers, director of Ecosystem Enabling at Intel. “We look forward to further enablement collaboration with Micron on the next generations of PCIe SSD technologies, such as PCIe Gen6.”
“Intel has always held a unique position within Micron’s ecosystem on the storage side, partly for historical reasons and also due to Intel’s exceptional vision and capability to enable solutions in the server and PC ecosystems,” said Hart. “A program like the new "Intel® Performance Optimization Tested" is a testament to Intel’s commitment to the ecosystem, and we’re excited to be part of it.”
