General

Brand	Micron
Model	RealSSD C400
Capacity	256GB
Usage Class	Client

Interface

Host Interface	SATA 6Gb/s
Total Interface Bandwidth	6 Gb/s

Physical Dimension

Form Factor	2.5" 7mm

Flash & Endurance

NAND Flash	25nm MLC
Drive Writes Per Day
Total Bytes Written	72 TBW

Performance

Sequential Read	500 MB/s
Sequential Write	260 MB/s
Random Read IOPS	45000
Random Write IOPS	50000
Average Latency	55 μs

Reliability

Mean Time Between Failures	1.2 Million Hours
Uncorrectable Bit Error Rate	1.0×10⁻¹⁷
Power Loss Protection	No

Engineer's Note

The Micron RealSSD C400 256GB (MTFDDAK256MAM-1K1AB) is best suited for read-intensive boot, VDI, and edge-cache tiers where its SATA 6Gb/s interface, 500 MB/s sequential read, and up to 45,000/50,000 random read/write IOPS deliver notably faster application responsiveness than typical 3Gb/s-era enterprise SATA SSDs. With 25nm MLC NAND and 72 TBW endurance, it offers a balanced mix of performance density and write durability for mainstream server deployments that need predictable latency and higher mixed-workload throughput without stepping up to higher-cost PCIe storage.

Endurance & Reliability

With an endurance rating of 72 TBW, this SSD can handle about 20 GB of host writes per day for 10 years, which is more than sufficient for typical OS, boot, office, and light application workloads. In practical procurement terms, it is a solid choice for use as a system drive or read-centric client device where daily write volumes remain modest and predictable. From a reliability perspective, the specified UBER of 1.0E-15 indicates a very low unrecoverable bit error rate, supporting dependable data reads under normal operating conditions, while the 1.2 million-hour MTBF reflects a mature and stable hardware design. This model does not include power-loss protection, so it is best suited to environments where unexpected power interruption is controlled at the system level rather than write-intensive enterprise caching or transactional workloads that require onboard PLP.

Technical Specs & Insights

1. The SATA 6Gb/s interface, paired with full bus-saturating sequential read performance, enables straightforward drop-in upgrades for legacy enterprise platforms while keeping large file transfers and system imaging jobs consistently efficient.
2. Its strong random read capability helps virtualized environments and read-heavy databases return small-block data quickly, improving application responsiveness under mixed enterprise workloads.
3. With a [dwpd] DWPD endurance rating, the drive is built to sustain predictable daily rewrite volumes, making it suitable for business-critical deployments that demand steady long-term reliability.
4. The 25nm MLC NAND provides a balanced combination of durability, performance consistency, and cost efficiency that aligns well with mainstream enterprise storage use cases.
5. The typical latency of just 55 µs reduces storage wait time at the transaction level, helping servers process more requests with tighter QoS and smoother user experience.

Capacity Sweet

Lower capacity reference: 128GB Higher capacity reference: 512GB Both adjacent capacities in the same enterprise SSD family typically deliver broadly similar sequential read/write throughput and random IOPS to the 256GB model under normal enterprise workloads. The 256GB version is the sweet spot in this series. Compared with 128GB, it gives much better headroom for OS images, logs, swap, metadata, and application growth, reducing the risk of early capacity pressure. Compared with 512GB, it preserves nearly the same enterprise-class performance profile while offering a more balanced acquisition cost per drive and per node. It is especially well suited for boot and infrastructure storage in a mid-sized virtualized cluster, such as 24 to 36 hypervisor hosts.

FAQ