March 17, 2025

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Micron 4600 2TB SSD Review: The New Baseline in SSDs


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The Micron 4600 SSD will have storage lovers rejoicing. The most powerful SSD is here, and it doesn’t have to compromise with high power draw. Sporting the SMI SM2508 controller alongside new 276-layer Micron TLC NAND, the Micron 4600 does just about everything you’d want a drive to do, and it helps signal an era where fast PCIe 5.0 drives are viable for all users without the usual corresponding drawbacks. While not quite a feat of engineering, it is nevertheless a step in the right direction for a troubled SSD market that has seen its ups and downs. This is definitely an up.

The Micron 4600 is an OEM drive, so it’s not exactly something widely available at retail and it also suffers from a relatively weak warranty as a result. This is okay, as it still indicates that similar retail drives are on the horizon. Even when standing on its own, it’s a fantastic drive with top-tier performance and game-changing power efficiency for its performance level. While we’d like to see this hardware in an 8TB drive, for most people the existing capacity range is sufficient. It makes us eager to see if Samsung can deliver a counterblow with its 9100 Pro.

You might wonder why you would need a drive this fast. Micron is marketing the 4600 toward professional applications, including AI, which does imply the drive is a good choice for HEDT (high-end desktop). The offering of an encryption-capable SKU complements this nicely, especially for use in a high-end laptop. There’s no question it’s also more than capable for gaming well into the future, and its peak performance stands above its peers. A drive like this is still certainly a luxury, but its entrance onto the scene establishes a new bar for SSDs as PCIe 5.0 storage comes into its own.

Micron 4600 Specifications

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Product

512GB

1TB

2TB

4TB

Pricing

Row 0 – Cell 1 Row 0 – Cell 2 Row 0 – Cell 3 Row 0 – Cell 4

Form Factor

M.2 2280

M.2 2280

M.2 2280

M.2 2280

Interface / Protocol

PCIe 5.0 x4 / NVMe 2.0c

PCIe 5.0 x4 / NVMe 2.0c

PCIe 5.0 x4 / NVMe 2.0c

PCIe 5.0 x4 / NVMe 2.0c

Controller

SMI SM2508

SMI SM2508

SMI SM2508

SMI SM2508

DRAM

LPDDR4

LPDDR4

LPDDR4

LPDDR4

Flash Memory

276-Layer Micron TLC

276-Layer Micron TLC

276-Layer Micron TLC

276-Layer Micron TLC

Sequential Read

10,300 MB/s

14,500 MB/s

14,500 MB/s

14,500 MB/s

Sequential Write

5,780 MB/s

11,500 MB/s

12,000 MB/s

12,000 MB/s

Random Read

800K

1,600K

2,100K

2,100K

Random Write

1,200K

2,100K

2,100K

2,100K

Security

TCG Opal 2.02/Pyrite 2.01

Row 10 – Cell 2 Row 10 – Cell 3 Row 10 – Cell 4

Endurance (TBW)

300TB

600TB

1,200TB

1,600TB

Part Number

MTFDLBA512THJ-1BP15-AB-YY

MTFDLBA1T0THJ-1BP15-AB-YY

MTFDLBA2T0THJ-1BP15-AB-YY

MTFDLBA4T0THJ-1BP15-AB-YY

Warranty

3-Year

Row 13 – Cell 2 Row 13 – Cell 3 Row 13 – Cell 4

The Micron 4600 is available at 512GB, 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB, with no 8TB listed at the time of review. That last capacity is a bit of a holy grail as it’s been difficult to reach, especially at a good price — though the WD Black SN850X made a decent effort. It’s hard to hold the lack of an 8TB SKU against a drive, but with Samsung announcing that the upcoming 9100 Pro will be available at 8TB, drives in the Micron 4600’s class are under more pressure. We would recommend at least 2TB at this point either way, and that is also where the Micron 4600 hits peak performance.

In this case, that’s up to 14,500 / 12,000 MB/s for sequential reads and writes, and up to 2,100K IOPS for both random reads and writes. This is close to the ceiling for a PCIe 5.0 SSD, and you can rest assured that you are at the cutting-edge with a drive like this. The drive comes in two variants, with only one having hardware encryption as a self-encrypting drive (SED), so pay attention to that when buying. Micron backs the drive with an anemic but typical OEM warranty at three years with a standard 600TB of writes per TB capacity. This means it offers a higher drive writes per day (DWPD) rating as the warranty is shorter — except for the 4TB SKU, which is only rated for 400TBW per TB.

As this is a new OEM drive, direct pricing is not available at the time of review.



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