Micron isn't done with consumer SSDs after all, unveiling a PCIe 5.0 QLC drive that should be both affordable *and* fast

I'm not going to lie to you, SSD pricing is pretty dire right now due to the memory apocalypse. As such, the end of 2025 was all doom and gloom about how we may not see sensibly priced storage for who knows how long—even Micron killed off its own Crucial brand, which had provided some of the best SSDs for gaming previously. And yet, a Micron-made SSD survives in 2026.

The company has just announced the Micron 3610 NVMe SSD, which it bills as "the industry’s first PCIe Gen5 QLC client SSD, powered by Micron G9 NAND." This release suggests that not only is Micron keeping at least a toe in the consumer market despite what was implied mere weeks ago, but that the company may even help pave the way back to reasonable storage pricing.

Historically, QLC isn't what you want anywhere near your SSD, due to its high bits per cell leading to sluggish performance and questionable reliability. But times are changing; last year, SK Hynix introduced 321-layer QLC flash memory chips that boasted 100% faster transfer speeds and up to 56% greater write performance than earlier QLC memory. Long story short, the greater NAND density afforded by QLC tech packing in the layers should eventually mean cheaper SSDs.

Thankfully, the Micron 3610 NVMe SSD doesn't disappoint on performance. As another DRAM-less drive, the 3610 is geared towards energy efficiency, apparently providing an "up to 43% improvement on performance per watt." It also enjoys a sequential read performance of up to 11 GB/s and a sequential write of up to 9.3 GB/s, making for a speedy game drive. However, that's not where the US-based company is aiming its spotlight.

Gaming does still get a look-in during the 3610's product trailer, but it's clearly not the main focus, with the SSD's suitability towards thrashing against large AI models instead being what's pitched as the headline act.

That's perhaps unsurprising for Micron, which goes on to elaborate, "It is capable of loading 20 billion-parameter AI models in less than three seconds, delivering real-time AI insights and high-quality experience for mainstream client devices."

The Micron 3610 NVMe SSD is available in three M.2 form factors—2280, 2242, and 2230—plus capacities up to 4 TB. It's worth noting the 1 TB model is slightly slower than the larger capacity options, only getting up to 7,200 MB/s on the sequential write. That's still fast enough for a lot of games and slim enough to fit inside even the thinnest of gaming laptops, but Micron is clearly more interested in supporting consumer demand for local AI workloads.

Much of CES 2026 has been AI-focussed, though that's despite lacklustre consumer enthusiasm, rather than being fuelled by it. Dell's presentation was a bit of a standout at this year's trade show for keeping their messaging decidedly AI-lite; Dell head of product, Kevin Terwilliger, even went as far as to say, "What we've learned over the course of this year, especially from a consumer perspective, is they're not buying based on AI. In fact I think AI probably confuses them more than it helps them understand a specific outcome."