Intel Announces DC P4500 And P4600 Series SSDs With 3GB/s Reads For Enterprise

The DC P4500 has been tuned to perform optimally with read-centric workloads, and is rated for three full drive writes per day. The DC P4600 can handle heavier workloads, offers increased endurance and features better QoS under load.

It should be note that both SSDs feature the same PCB, NAND flash and onboard controller. However, the differences between the two product families lies with the firmware and over-provisioning (for increased durability in the case of the DC P4600).

In an interesting turn of events, the controller used in the new SSDs has been “demoted” from an 18-channel design to 12 channels. However, Intel says that this modification does not impede performance, and in fact, allows the new SSDs to offer higher performance across the board compared to its predecessors.

Both SSDs adopt some optional features of the NVMe 1.2 specification including NVMe MI (Management Interface). NVMe MI works out-of-band meaning that the feature can be leveraged independent of the operating system. This makes management easier for environments where multiple operating systems may be used.

Speaking of performance, the DC P4500 offers 64K sequential read/write speeds of 3,290 MB/s and 1,890 MB/s respectively. 4K random read/write speeds are listed at 710,000 IOPS and 68,000 IOPS respectively. The DC P4600 offers identical 64K sequential read performance and slightly better writes (2,100 MB/s). However, things get interesting with 4K random writes, which jump from 68,000 IOPS on the DC 4500 to 257,000 IOPS.

The DC 4500 is available in U.2 and add-in card (AIC) form-factors in capacities of 1TB, 2TB and 4TB. The DC 4600, on the other hand, is available in 1.6TB, 2TB and 3.2TB capacities in a U.2 form-factor. If you go the AIC route, you can choose from 2TB or 4TB capacities.

Both the DC 4500 and DC 4600 are backed by 5-year warranties, and are available now.