Micron has demonstrated the Crucial T700 8TB at CES 2024, a concept product that will blow the best SSDs out of the water. The Crucial T700 8TB combines four individual T700 2TB SSDs in a RAID array on a standard AIC card cooled by Frore Systems' AirJet Mini cooling technology.
The T700 8TB is rated for sequential read and write speeds up to 45 GB/s and 42 GB/s, respectively, with a sustained speed of 40 GB/s. We witnessed the drives delivering constant 42 GB/s with ease during Micron's demo, which consisted of running the Iometer benchmark. It's public knowledge that heat has always been the biggest enemy for PCIe 5.0 SSDs, so these drives come with bulky and sometimes active coolers to stay cool. Running and stressing four T700 drives together produces considerable heat, but that's where Frore Systems' AirJet Mini factors into this equation.
AirJet Mini is an innovative solid-state active cooling solution that can dissipate up to 5.25W of heat at a minimum noise level of 21 dBA. According to Frore Systems, AirJet Mini only sips 1W of power, making it an excellent thermal solution for compact devices like laptops, SSDs, or mini-PCs. The AirJet Mini cooler could keep the T700's operating temperatures within check during full load. Micron registered two drives at 76 degrees Celsius and the other at 78 degrees Celsius. That's pretty impressive since our tests showed that while the T700 has an average power draw of 7.14W, the drive can pulled up to 11.89W when pushed to the limit.
The Crucial T700 8TB revolves around a modified Gigabyte Aorus Gen5 AIC adaptor that provides housing for up to four PCIe 5.0 SSDs. The adapter enables transfer speeds up to 60 GB/s, so Crucial's quadruplet of T700 SSDs is still far from saturating the interface. The AirJet Mini comes in a single self-contained module, requiring four of them, one to cool each T700 drive. The AirJet Mini sits on a copper heat spreader mounted on the SSDs.
It's a great solution if you need high-speed storage for your PC but lack the landscape or the necessary number of M.2 ports for a four-way RAID. Micron calculates that the T700 8TB represents a 40% reduction in PCIe card size. Performance isn't the only attractive thing with the T700 8TB; the drive's silent operation has equal appeal. Frore Systems' AirJet Mini thermal cooler eliminates the need for a noisy cooling fan. If you look at the original Aorus Gen5 AIC adaptor, it had a 5cm blower-type fan that actively cools the four SSDs.
Unfortunately, Micron hasn't yet committed to releasing the SSD with AirJet Mini cooling. The concept product may or may not arrive on the retail market.
