• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • About
    • Stephen Foskett
      • My Publications
        • Urban Forms in Suburbia: The Rise of the Edge City
      • Storage Magazine Columns
      • Whitepapers
      • Multimedia
      • Speaking Engagements
    • Services
    • Disclosures
  • Categories
    • Apple
    • Ask a Pack Rat
    • Computer History
    • Deals
    • Enterprise storage
    • Events
    • Personal
    • Photography
    • Terabyte home
    • Virtual Storage
  • Guides
    • The iPhone Exchange ActiveSync Guide
      • The iPhone Exchange ActiveSync Troubleshooting Guide
    • The iPad Exchange ActiveSync Guide
      • iPad Exchange ActiveSync Troubleshooting Guide
    • Toolbox
      • Power Over Ethernet Calculator
      • EMC Symmetrix WWN Calculator
      • EMC Symmetrix TimeFinder DOS Batch File
    • Linux Logical Volume Manager Walkthrough
  • Calendar

Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat

Understanding the accumulation of data

You are here: Home / Everything / Enterprise storage / Micron Builds a Ford Taurus: The P400e SSD Hands-On Review

Micron Builds a Ford Taurus: The P400e SSD Hands-On Review

December 5, 2011 By Stephen Leave a Comment

The Micron P400e is a mainstream SSD for enterprise server use

Solid-state drives (SSD’s) have been around for a while, but they have never been a mainstream alternative for enterprise server booting and applications. SSD’s were positioned as high-performance storage for special use cases and were too expensive for mainstream adoption. But that might change with the latest generation of SSD’s, as exemplified by the new Micron P400e that recently landed on my front doorstep.

“Just Right” For the Mainstream

When Ford introduced the midsized Taurus automobile in 1986, many predicted that it would be a failure. The large front wheel drive car with futuristic “jellybean” styling was just too different from existing Ford models. But the car became a huge success in the United States, selling over 2,000,000 examples in that first generation in becoming the standard for American families and business people.

The magic of the Ford Taurus was its “just right” nature: it was big enough for a family but not so big they could not easily be driven; it was luxurious enough for a businessman but not overly expensive or ostentatious; it was forward-looking but approachable. From a design standpoint, the Taurus was radically different in that it was engineered by a single team inside and out and based on up-to-date yet mature technology.

The new Micron P400e SSD is a lot like the Ford Taurus: it’s roomy enough for everyone, fast yet affordable, and up-to-date if not cutting-edge. Like the Taurus, I expect major server builders to buy P400e SSD’s by the handful. In the early 1990’s, HP bought a Taurus for every mobile worker. Today, I could definitely see a company like HP equipping every server with the “just right” P400e SSD.

Solid Performance and Capacity

The Micron P400e and C300 have nearly-identical performance characteristics

The P400e combines Micron’s proven 6 Gb/s SATA SSD controller with MLC flash but adds enterprise features like hot plug support and full data path protection. Unlike earlier enterprise SSD’s, which focused on performance with expensive SLC flash chips, the P400e “makes do” with mainstream components. Micron SSD’s have a solid history of reliability (I’ve bought two myself) and the P400e enhances this with enterprise class software.

Micron sent me a P400e SSD to test, and I have been pounding on it for over a month now. Installed in my Sandy Bridge test rig, the P400e boots quickly, performs smoothly, and is much quieter than any hard disk drive (HDD). I connected it to the 6 Gb/s SATA port on my ASUS P8H67—M Pro motherboard.

For comparison purposes, I also attached and tested a Micron C300 SSD. Both Micron SSD’s were large capacity models that should perform better than smaller, cheaper versions. Although the P400e is available in 50, 100, and 200 GB sizes, Micron provided me with the 400 GB model. My C300 tester is a 256 GB example.

For testing, I used ATTO Disk Benchmark under Windows 8 Server Developer Preview, set to overlapped I/O and a queue depth of 4. Both drives performed nearly identically in this test, leveling off at between 200 and 250 MB/s with 128 kB writes and reads. This translates into over 20,000 IOPS for smaller (512 byte to 4 kB) read and write operations.

The Micron P400e SSD is a solid performer if not a speed demon

Stephen’s Stance

The time has come for an affordable enterprise grade SSD, and Micron has delivered this with the P400e. Although OEM only, this excellent SSD should find its way into end-user hands as server vendors decide to switch their mainstream offerings from spinning hard disk drives to SSD’s. With an excellent combination of performance, features, and low-cost (less than $2 per gigabyte), the P400e really is the mainstream choice.

You might also want to read these other posts...

  • Electric Car Over the Internet: My Experience Buying From…
  • Introducing Rabbit: I Bought a Cloud!
  • Tortoise or Hare? Nvidia Jetson TK1
  • Running Rabbits: More About My Cloud NUCs
  • Liberate Wi-Fi Smart Bulbs and Switches with Tasmota!

Filed Under: Enterprise storage, Everything, Virtual Storage Tagged With: Asus, ATTO, C300, Disk Benchmark, Ford, Ford Taurus, Micron, P400e, P8H67-M Pro, reviews, Sandy Bridge, SSD, Windows 8

Primary Sidebar

The best way to predict the future is to invent it.

Alan Kay

Subscribe via Email

Subscribe via email and you will receive my latest blog posts in your inbox. No ads or spam, just the same great content you find on my site!
 New posts (daily)
 Where's Stephen? (weekly)

Download My Book


Download my free e-book:
Essential Enterprise Storage Concepts!

Recent Posts

How To Install ZeroTier on TrueNAS 12

February 3, 2022

Scam Alert: Fake DMCA Takedown for Link Insertion

January 24, 2022

How To Connect Everything From Everywhere with ZeroTier

January 14, 2022

Electric Car Over the Internet: My Experience Buying From Vroom

November 28, 2020

Powering Rabbits: The Mean Well LRS-350-12 Power Supply

October 18, 2020

Tortoise or Hare? Nvidia Jetson TK1

September 22, 2020

Running Rabbits: More About My Cloud NUCs

September 21, 2020

Introducing Rabbit: I Bought a Cloud!

September 10, 2020

Remove ROM To Use LSI SAS Cards in HPE Servers

August 23, 2020

Test Your Wi-Fi with iPerf for iOS

July 9, 2020

Symbolic Links

    Featured Posts

    Introducing Rabbit: I Bought a Cloud!

    September 10, 2020

    Frequent Flier Kung Fu for Novices

    March 12, 2012

    We Live in the Future: Robotic Cat Litter Boxes!

    May 8, 2010

    My Core i7 Macintosh SE

    May 25, 2017

    The Rack Endgame: Converged Infrastructure and Disaggregation

    September 19, 2014

    On the Death of Innovation, or “These Kids These Days!”

    May 21, 2012

    How To Connect Everything From Everywhere with ZeroTier

    January 14, 2022

    My Advice For New Business Travelers: Get The Credit Cards!

    March 20, 2014

    MacBook Users: Encrypt Your Drive with OS X FileVault! It’s Easy and Free!

    December 20, 2012

    Cisco’s Trojan Horse

    September 15, 2014

    Footer

    Legalese

    Copyright © 2022 · Log in