SSD testing at Astera Labs test bench.
SSD testing at Astera Labs test bench.
Micron has shown off the capabilities of its next-generation PCIexpress 6.0 SSD, hitting over 27GBps during a DesignCon 2025 showcase. In a partnership with Astera Labs, Micron paired two PCIe 6.0 SSDs with an Nvidia H100 GPU and Astera's PCIe 6.0 network fabric switch. Together they blew right past any other drives, doubling the performance of some of the best PCIe 5.0 alternatives.
Solid state drive performance has increased dramatically in recent years, with the latest PCIe 5.0 SSDs cresting 14GBps in sequential read and write speeds. These advances have allowed for faster PC boot and game load times, although the difference between different generations of SSDs isn't as dramatic as the difference between a hard drive and any SSD.
Still, Micro continues to push boundaries with its enterprise drives, and these PCIe 6.0 drives are the first in a next-generation design. In testing at the DesignCon event, the Astera Labs test bench was able to hit a sustained read speed of 27.14GBps. Such a speed would be impossible on a traditional X4 PCIe 5 SSD slot, which has a maximum bandwidth of 16GBps.
Astera Labs' setup to push SSD boundaries.
Astera Labs' setup to push SSD boundaries.
Credit: Astera Labs
Although there wouldn't be any real benefit in using drives like these in a consumer PC—aside from faster mass data transfer between two of these drives—there is much more benefit to be found in enterprise scenarios. In data centers, where masses of data are moved around continuously, the fastest SSDs can make a real difference to how a service operates. Doubling PCIe 5.0 performance with these new PCIe 6.0 designs could help improve the responsiveness of a range of cloud services.
This demonstration was designed to show how capable the new SSDs were and highlight the potential of Aster Lab's network switch. This Scorpio PCIe 6.0 network fabric switch was able to handle the incredible performance of these drives. It is specifically designed to handle fast data transfers between CPU, GPU, and various storage nodes in the most demanding of servers, such as those handling AI calculations, as per Tom's Hardware.
Toms also reported that Astera is working on a new signal booster for PCIe devices using riser cards and extenders. In enterprise settings, these "PCIe Retimers " boost the signal between multiple graphics cards. In enthusiast settings, though, you could easily imagine these being used to place GPUs in increasingly strange places within a desktop PC.
Want to buy an SSD you can make use of right now? Here are the best SSD deals for March.