Micron's new 15TB SSD is almost affordable

Image Credit: Micron

Micron’s latest enterprise SSD, the 9300 Pro, is now available for sale in Germany, at a price lower than what might be expected. 

The 15.36TB drive, which is a smidgen smaller in capacity than the largest hard disk drive currently on the market (a 16TB Toshiba HDD model), costs “only” €2.474,78 plus sales tax or around $2,770 (about £2,140). 

While that is far more expensive than smaller capacity SSDs (Silicon Power’s 1TB SSD retails for under $95 at Amazon), it is less than half the average price of competing enterprise SSDs like the Seagate Nytro 3330, the Western Digital Ultrastar DC SS530, the Toshiba PM5-R or the Samsung SSD PM1633a. 

HDD still wins the price/capacity comparison

And just for the comparison, a 14TB hard disk drive, the MG07 from Toshiba, retails for around $440, about a sixth of the price, which gives you an idea of the price gulf between the two. If you are looking for something bigger, then the Samsung SSD PM1643 is probably your only bet at €7294.22 excluding VAT.

Bear in mind that these are 2.5-inch models which are far smaller than 3.5-inch hard disk drives. They also connect to the host computer using a special connector called SAS (Serial Attached Small Computer System Interface). The Micron 9300 Pro connects via the U.2 PCIe (NVMe), offering read speeds of up to 3.5GBps.

For the ultimate data hoarder, there’s the Nimbusdata Exadrive which boasts a capacity of 100TB albeit in a 3.5-inch form factor.

Desire Athow
Managing Editor, TechRadar Pro

Désiré has been musing and writing about technology during a career spanning four decades. He dabbled in website builders and web hosting when DHTML and frames were in vogue and started narrating about the impact of technology on society just before the start of the Y2K hysteria at the turn of the last millennium.