Micron RealSSD P400e 6Gbps 200GB Enterprise SSD Review

INTERNAL COMPONENTS

The Micron RealSSD P400e is a 7mm slim design 2.5″ form factor that allows for very easy integration into a multitude of devices and server racks. The slim factor also enables the SSD easily slide in as a boot device.

Initial disassembly of the P400e displays a grey metallic grey metal case with a shim inserted. This shim allows the user to configure the SSD as either a 9.5mm or 7mm device, simply by switching the shim. The Marvell controller faces down towards the bottom of the shell.

On removing the PCB from the bottom shell, one notices the thermal pad. This blue pad provides the Marvell 9174 SATA 6Gb/s controller with the means of easy heat dissipation. With enterprise SSDs being subjected to higher temperatures than standard consumer equipment, heat dissipation is very important. This thermal pad allows the processor to run cooler over the course of its life, increasing the lifespan.

Under the thermal pad we can observe the Marvell 9174 controller.

The top of the PCB shows the 29F128G08CFAAB NAND packages, which are 25nm MLC synchronous NAND with a speed of 166MT/s. There are 16 modules of 16GB of capacity that total 256 GB of raw NAND flash memory. Only 200GB is user addressable, and this is due to the hefty bit of overprovisioning that Micron has included with this device. Overprovisioning increases the endurance of the device, and also keeps performance steady over a period of time.

The flip side of the PCB shows us the remainder of the NAND packages, along with the small chip on the bottom right. This is the 256MB DDR3-1333 SDRAM chip that is produced by Micron themselves.