At DesignCon 2025, Micron and Astera Labs made history by showcasing the world’s fastest PCIe 6.0 SSD, which achieved a remarkable sequential read speed of 27 GB/s. This breakthrough marks a significant milestone in storage technology, doubling the performance of the fastest PCIe 5.0 SSDs available today.
Why it matters: The demonstration highlights the potential of PCIe 6.0 technology to revolutionize high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI) applications by providing unprecedented data transfer speeds.
Technical Details: The Micron PCIe 6.0 SSD was paired with Astera Labs’ Scorpio P-Series Fabric Switch, which features 64 PCIe 6.x lanes and a four-port architecture. This setup enabled seamless data flow between storage, processors, and GPUs, crucial for demanding HPC and AI workloads.
The demonstration also utilized Nvidia’s Magnum IO GPUDirect Storage (GDS) software, establishing a direct data path between the Micron SSDs and an NVIDIA H100 GPU. This direct connection bypasses the CPU, reducing latency and enhancing processing speeds, which is particularly beneficial for AI and cloud storage workloads.
Performance Comparison: The Micron PCIe 6.0 SSD significantly outperforms the fastest PCIe 5.0 SSDs, such as the Crucial T705, which maxes out at around 14.5 GB/s. This represents a nearly twofold increase in read speed, marking a transformative leap in storage technology.
Benefits for Enterprise Users: PCIe 6.0 technology doubles the bandwidth of PCIe 5.0, offering up to 256 GB/s of bidirectional throughput on an x16 lane configuration. This increased bandwidth is vital for alleviating bottlenecks in AI training and inference tasks, making it a significant advancement for the HPC and AI industries.
The higher speeds and lower latency of PCIe 6.0 are designed to meet the high-performance demands of hyperscale data centers. However, widespread adoption in both enterprise and consumer markets is not anticipated until at least 2026 or later, due to the need for broader ecosystem support, including compatible CPUs, GPUs, and network interfaces.
Astera Labs has been actively developing PCIe 6.0 products, including the Aries retimers, which were showcased at GTC 2024. These retimers act as signal repeaters to boost PCIe signal integrity when using devices like PCIe bridges and extenders.
Looking ahead, Micron’s PCIe 6.0 SSD sets a high bar for performance, but the competitive landscape will evolve as more companies release their own PCIe 6.0 products. The collaboration between Micron and Astera Labs has pushed the boundaries of storage performance, highlighting the significant potential of this technology for future computing applications.
