In the name of Odin, Chinese manufacturer Asgard has launched their first DDR5 memory modules to market - beating some competing western companies that are still "gearing up" for it. Owned by the much less interestingly-named Shenzhen Jiahe Jinwei Electronic Technology Co., Ltd., Asgard likewise lost some of its flair in naming these DDR5 sticks - the best they could do was VMA5AUK-MMH224W3. The modules will be available in 32 GB, 64 GB and 128 GB per-stick densities.

The initial modules don't have any flair - they're built with the same green PCB that's actually the forerunner of today's colored ones. The company hs also announced that the modules win run at a relatively mild 4,800 MHz (the DDR5 specification goes up to 8,400 MHz), and that its timings coincide with JEDEC's "B" classification, which should mean 40-40-40. The voltage likewise remains at the JEDEC-set standard of 1.1 V. The company announced that mass-production rollout will only occur after there are actual CPUs and platforms that can take advantage of the DDR5 memory spec, and said that they expect Intel's Alder-Lake, Sapphire Rapids and Tiger Lake-U from the blue team, as well as Van Gogh and Rembrandt APUs from the AMD camp. No word on consumer pricing was available at time of writing.

Greenliant has secured major design wins with its EnduroSLC solid state drives (SSDs) in a wide range of demanding, extreme environment applications for customers that need best-in-class reliability and product longevity. Greenliant's proprietary EnduroSLC Technology substantially enhances data retention and extends the write endurance of 1-bit-per-cell SSDs with advanced hardware ECC capabilities and NAND flash management algorithms. EnduroSLC SSDs not only offer superior data retention capabilities under complex temperature conditions, but also support 50K, 100K and industry-leading, ultra high 250K+ program-erase (P/E) cycles, which are at least a 5x improvement over pseudo-SLC (pSLC) SSDs and a 50x improvement over MLC NAND-based products.

For systems that are in remote locations and costly to maintain-from satellite to subsea communications-customers recognize the value of EnduroSLC SSDs; they can reliably operate and retain data for long periods of time in harsh conditions. Long-life, write-intensive products, such as transportation black box recorders and industrial data loggers, have also benefitted from the enhanced features of EnduroSLC SSDs. EnduroSLC storage products are designed with Greenliant's advanced SATA, NVMe PCIe and eMMC controllers, operate at industrial temperatures (-40 to +85 degrees Celsius) and are backed by the company's Long-Term Availability program (http://bit.ly/SSD-LTA-program), providing an extra level of support.

Running the ZFS-based QuTS hero operating system, the GM-1000 focuses on data integrity and features powerful block-level inline data deduplication and compression. Near-limitless snapshots, real-time SnapSync, and many more business-oriented features are also included to achieve reliable service-level agreement performance and Big Data storage.

"The GM-1000 features a unique dual-NAS architecture that delivers cost-efficient and space-saving advantages, ideal for offloading services between the two NAS nodes or running cross backup," said David Tsao, Product Manager of QNAP, adding "Its ZFS storage and performance makes it perfect for massive file storage, virtualization, and post-production with outstanding reliability and cost-effectiveness."

Kingston Digital, the flash memory affiliate of Kingston Technology Company, Inc., a world leader in memory products and technology solutions, today announced the addition of 128 GB capacity options to three of its encrypted USB flash drives. The drives are part of a full line of encrypted solutions to suit customer needs of all levels.

Consumers and organisations have become more aware of data privacy and protection needs due to regulations such as GDPR and CCPA. Additional data security options have become a necessity as work-from-home increases. The simple inclusion of encrypted USB flash drives into a daily workflow is a simple step to ensuring data is safe. Whether it's personal, company or client information, finding the right encrypted drive can make all the difference between peace of mind and the worry of loss of data.

G.SKILL International Enterprise Co., Ltd., the world's leading manufacturer of extreme performance memory and gaming peripherals, is announcing new high-capacity, high-performance memory kit specifications based on 32 GB modules across several memory series, including Trident Z Royal DDR4-3200 CL16 256 GB (32 GB x8), Trident Z Royal DDR4-4000 CL18 128 GB (32 GB x4), Trident Z Neo DDR4-3600 CL18 128 GB (32 GB x4), and Trident Z Neo DDR4-3800 C18 64 GB (32 GB x2). Built with the latest high-density 16Gb components, these DDR4 memory kits are the perfect choice for pushing the performance limits of high memory capacity.

With the availability of higher density memory at the consumer level, G.SKILL memory is pushing the performance boundary to DDR4-3200 on current HEDT platforms with up to 8 modules of 32 GB for a total of 256 GB. As shown in the screenshot below, the Trident Z Royal DDR4-3200 CL16 256 GB (32GBx8) is validated on the latest X299-based ASUS ROG Rampage VI Extreme Encore motherboard and the Intel Core i9-9820X processor. Such extremely high-capacity memory kits are the ideal choice for powerful workstations or for systems running multiple virtual machines.

ZOTAC Technology, a global manufacturer of innovation, today launches the thin and powerful MAGNUS E Series ZBOX Mini PC for enthusiasts and creators to accelerate performance.

At just 62.2 mm / 2.45 in thin, the MAGNUS ZBOX Mini PC is re-engineered to empower the ideas of tomorrow into more attainable, tangible possibilities. The future of creating can be achieved on a thin and powerful compact system powered with a 9th Gen Intel Core processor and a discrete NVIDIA GeForce RTX graphics card. Equipped with premium connectivity, the all-new MAGNUS E Series Mini Creator PC enables everything from demanding workloads, creative workflows, home entertainment experiences, and virtual reality, gaming, and much more.

A report from technology market analyst Trendforce places SSD's pricing in sharp decline, with price per GB being projected to hit as low as $0.1 by year's end. Citing oversupply in the NADN flash market and an impending price war to allow manufacturers to sell out accumulating inventory, this is one of those clear cases of a win for consumers - which, after the shenanigans in the DRAM market, is about time. Trendforce further states that the price reductions should render 128 GB SSDs obsolete, as they mostly are by now, with 512 GB capacities becoming the mainstream choice for system integrators and DIY.

Pricing evolution in the market also places premium NVMe solutions at an only 6% premium over SATA offerings, showcasing the increased cost savings that manufacturers have achieved with the reduction in price for NVMe controllers, and the lower amount of physical materials needed to put an NVMe SSD together compared to a SATA-based alternative. Furthermore, Trendforce says that value PCIe-based solutions have a 0% price difference compared to SATA-based ones, so the option for the older form factor should only fall upon how many NVMe/PCIe sockets users' motherboards have available to populate.

DDR5 will be the next step in DDR5 memory tech, again bringing increased transfer speeds over the previous JEDEC (the standards body responsible for the DDR specifications) specification. The new memory technology will also bring the customary reductions in operating voltage - the new version will push the 64-bit link down to 1.1V and burst lengths to 16 bits from 1.2V and 8 bits. In addition, DDR5 lets voltage regulators ride on the memory card rather than the motherboard. CPU vendors are also expected to expand the number of DDR channels on their processors from 12 to 16, which could drive main memory sizes to 128 GB from 64 GB today.

DDR5 is being developed with particular attention to the professional environment, where ever-increasingly gargantuan amounts of addressable memory are required. One of the guiding principles over DDR5's development is a density increase (to allow 16 Gbit chips) that would allow for larger volumes of memory (and thus data processing) in the environments that need that. Reduced power consumption also plays a role here, but all of this will have a cost: latency. For end-users, though, this increased latency will be offset by the usual suspects (DDR memory companies such as Crucial, Corsair, just to name some started with the letter C) in tighter timings and increased operating frequencies. JEDEC's specification for DDR5 is set at 4800 MT/s, but it's expected the memory tech will scale to 6400 MT/s, and you know overclocking and performance-focused companies will walk all over the standard.

Gigabyte today announced they were expanding their SSD storage lineup (started with the UD PRO series SATA III SSDs) with M.2 solutions. The new SSDs transfer data under the NVMe protocol and carry the M.2 form factor, in 128 GB, 256 GB and 512 GB sizes.

According to Gigabyte's own product pages, the 256 GB version has a sequential read and write speed of up to 1200 MB/s and 800 MB/s, while the 128 GB model cuts those speeds down to 1100 MB/s read and 500 MB/s write.

Intel today released their mainstream answer to users' fast, NVMe-based storage needs, the SSD 760p. We've already covered this new consumer, mainstream SSD series in our news pieces; however, information and press decks have now come directly from Intel, allowing us a clearer picture of how Intel sees its products to fit into the consumer market - and hopefully, in consumer's choices.

Crucial, a leading global brand of memory and storage upgrades, today announced the immediate availability of 128GB DDR4 LRDIMMs, a new offering in its server memory product portfolio. The 128GB DDR4 LRDIMM is the highest density server memory module that Crucial has offered to date, and with speeds starting at 2666 MT/s, the new DDR4 server memory modules increase the installed memory capacity per server to help maximize CPU and server hardware capabilities.

Memory-dependent server applications like virtualization, in-memory database computing, and high-performance computing (HPC) require massive amounts of available RAM. These new server modules support a number of memory-intensive computing applications, such as Microsoft SQL, Oracle, Microsoft Azure, VMware VDI, Cloudera, Hortonworks and SAP HANA. Additionally, each module is 100 percent component- and module-tested to mission-critical server standards, ensuring quality from start to finish through a 34-stage manufacturing process and more than 100 tests and verifications. For qualified customers, the 128 GB LRDIMM server modules are also backed by the Crucial Reliance Program.

Following up on its CA3 NVMe SSD series launch from earlier this month, LiteOn introduced the new CV6 line of value SSDs featuring the SATA 6 Gbps interface. The drives come in 7 mm-thick 2.5-inch, and M.2-2280 form-factors (M-key), taking advantage of SATA 6 Gbps interface. The drives combine a Marvell 88SS1074 controller with Toshiba-made 3D TLC NAND flash memory. The controller features LDPC gen 3 error correction, and SLC caching, a feature with which it treats a small portion of the TLC NAND flash as SLC, juggling hot data in and out of it for more performance.

The 2.5-inch CV6 series is available in 128 GB, 256 GB, and 512 GB capacities, while the M.2 variant comes in 128 GB and 256 GB. All variants offer sequential transfer rates of up to 520 MB/s reads, with up to 450 MB/s writes. The 256 GB and 512 GB variants offer 4K random read performance of up to 85,000 IOPS, while the 128 GB variant offers 58,000 IOPS. 4K random write performance is rated at 28,000 IOPS for the 2.5-inch 128 GB variant, 30,000 IOPS for the M.2 128 GB variant; and up to 45,000 IOPS for both the 256 GB and 512 GB variants. The company didn't reveal pricing.

Phison has been working hard towards bringing to market a new, budget SSD controller in the form of its Phison E8 solution. The controller was designed with the purpose to try and dethrone Intel's 600p solutions from the budget, entry-level NVMe options, through offering increased performance at the same affordable prices. To do this, and so as to decrease power consumption, Phison opted for a PCIe 2x support for the E8 - this means the company is trading burst performance for decreased power consumption. E8-based SSDs are expected in capacities of 128 GB, 256 GB, 512 GB, and 1 TB, with prices lower than the current 600p and Phison's own E7-based products like the MyDigitalSSD BPX.

The Phison E8 controller should still offer plenty of increased performance over a typical HDD, and has been designed to work with 3D NAND technology. even with the firmware in its non-final stages, Tom's Hardware is reporting that the Phison E8's performance is already higher than Intel's 600p and WD's Black PCIe solutions. As we all know, though, firmware optimizations are paramount to SSD controllers' performance, so we can only expect these performance numbers to go up. All in all, it seems we'll have yet another low-cost NVMe SSD solution in the market, though desktop users will likely opt for a PCIe 4x solution, since that environment doesn't care about power consumption as much as a mobile solution would.

BIOSTAR has announced an evolution of their G300 SSDs that it introduced in August 2016. The new, revised G330 series maintains the overall design from the series it supersedes, but upgrades the controller to an SMI 2258 (from an SMI 2256). They're built on Micron's 3D TLC NAND, with a DRAM cache that boosts performance, and come in three different capacities (128, 256 and 512 GB) in a 2.5-inch form factor, with a 6.8 mm height.

The drives feature read speeds up to 565MB/s and write speeds up to 515MB/s over a SATA 6Gb/s interface, and come with a MSRP of $59 for the 128GB model (G330-128GB), $99 for the 256GB model (G330-256GB), and $169 for the 512GB model (G330-512GB).

G.SKILL International Enterprise Co., Ltd., the world's leading manufacturer of extreme performance memory and gaming peripherals, is thrilled to release new ultra-high capacity Trident Z RGB DDR4 memory kits based on 16 GB modules designed for Intel X99 and Z270 platforms.

Since the widely-acclaimed launch of Trident Z RGB memory series in December 2016, G.SKILL focused heavily on bringing high performance DDR4 16 GB RGB modules to the Intel X99 platform. Now, the Trident Z RGB is available in full sets of 8 modules for a total of 64 GB (8 GB x8) or 128 GB (16 GB x8) capacity, along with lighting control software support for the Intel X99 platform from most major motherboard vendors.

At CES 2017, Plextor announced their next SSD product line. Dubbed the M8Se, these will be restricted to NVMe SSDs with 15nm 3-bit-per-cell TLC of Toshiba manufacture, ranging from 128 GB, 256 GB, 512 GB and 1TB capacities leveraged by Marvell's Eldora controller.

The new mid-range NVMe SSD uses a new heatsink design (slight cost-reduction when compared with the one the M8Pe carries), that Plextor says will improve cooling by up to 20% - convenient, since throttling does happen with NVMe based SSDs - and particularly with Marvell's Eldora controller - as it did with Plextor's M8Pe line of SSDs. The card also features blue accent lighting. Plextor will also sell a heatsink-less M8PeGN model in the M.2 form factor.