Western Digital launched the WD Red line of hard drives and solid state drives specifically for NAS applications. The rigors of NAS involves not just near 24x7 uptime, but also the ability to work in RAID volumes, as most NAS servers ease the process for end users to set up RAID volumes for data redundancy. Data Storage-focused tech publication Blocks & Files alleges that some WD Red HDDs are shipping with shingled magnetic recording (SMR), a physical-layer data recording technique that makes the drive unfit for RAID, and in turn unfit for most serious NAS setups.

SMR is a recording technique that aims to achieve higher data density per platter, by partially overlapping tracks, by taking advantage of write tracks being wider than read tracks. Think of it as trying to cram a little more than one line of text per ruling, in a ruled notepad. The biggest trade-off with cramming in more data using SMR is a heavy loss in random write performance. The controversy of Western Digital shipping SMR WD Red drives came to light when Alan Brown, a network administrator with the UCL Mullard Space Science Laboratory, noticed that a brand new WD Red HDD kept getting kicked out of RAID arrays during resilvering (rebalancing of data with the addition of a new disk to an existing RAID array).

TerraMaster, a professional brand that specializes in providing innovative storage products, including network attached storage and direct attached storage, is proud to share with content creators and multimedia professionals its lineup of Thunderbolt 3-equipped, direct-attached storage solutions for faster video and data access. Utilizing the power of Thunderbolt 3 which allows 40 Gbps of data transfer, the TerraMaster TD Thunderbolt 3 is a plug-and-play solution for personal usage all the way to small production needs. Perfect for Mac Pro media professionals and compatible devices which needs large storage but high-speed access in a portable package.

Thunderbolt 3 is the latest generation of connectivity technology that utilizes 40 Gbps of bandwidth to connect directly with the computer. Thunderbolt technology also allows connecting multiple devices simultaneously via daisy chain allowing you to scale or interconnect your Thunderbolt devices from just one source. The TerraMaster D2 Thunderbolt 3 is a 2-bay drive supporting professional grade RAID0 or RAID1 for your choice of improved performance or data redundancy.

OWC today announced the all-new Accelsior 4M2 ultra high-performance PCIe M.2 NVMe internal SSD that delivers over 6,000 MB/s real-world speeds in capacities up to 8 TB. The Accelsior 4M2 is the fastest SSD ever built by OWC and is the perfect storage solution for large format video editing, VR/AR/MR environments, extreme gaming, compute-intensive applications and other high bandwidth needs.

Whether you have the Mac Pro 2019, a Mac Pro 2012 or 2010, or PC tower, the Accelsior 4M2 delivers the blazing performance, unstoppable reliability and stunning versatility that are the hallmarks of OWC's brand reputation. As a half-length x8/x16 compatible card, this game-changer offers true versatility, so users can install it in full-length PCIe 3.0 or 2.0 slots as well. Even Thunderbolt 3-equipped laptops can experience the performance boosting benefits of Accelsior 4M2 with Plug-and-Play ease using the OWC Mercury Helios 3S PCIe expansion chassis (sold separately). In other words, it's incredibly versatile.

Just in time for AMD's 3rd generation Ryzen Threadripper processors and the AMD TRX40 chipset, GIGABYTE launched the AORUS Gen4 AIC Adapter, an add-on card that converts a PCI-Express 4.0 x16 upstream link to four M.2-22110 slots with PCI-Express 4.0 x4 wiring, each. This isn't the first card of this kind, but is certified to work with PCIe gen 4.0 SSDs. The TRX40 platform provides at least two PCI-Express 4.0 x16 slots, from which one can be allocated to your graphics cards, and the other to a fast storage solution like this, so you can use your motherboard's NVMe RAID features. The card is backwards compatible with older generations of PCIe.

The card features a large copper heatsink that cools the drives under the airflow of a fan. The PCB of this card features a PCI-Express 4.0 x16 interface, four M.2-22110 slots with PCI-Express 4.0 x4 wiring, each, and a controller that uses eight thermal diodes to sense drive temperatures and accordingly adjust the speed of the 50 mm lateral-flow fan that pushes air through the heatsink and out of the rear panel. The card also has four LEDs that provide link+activity indication. It meets the electrical specification of PCI-Express gen 4.0, and features gen 4.0 re-drivers. An aluminium alloy shroud and back-plate with brushed-metal finish and diamond-cut edges make for the rest of it. We expect this card to be priced around USD $130. A credible source tells us that the card will also be included with some of GIGABYTE's premium TRX40 motherboards.

TerraMaster, a professional brand that specializes in providing innovative storage products, including network attached storage and direct attached storage, is announcing today the availability of its new storage solution for SME, professional and power users. The TerraMaster F5-422 features a powerful hardware configuration to bring excellent performance where it matters; for professionals and SME applications looking to maximize shared storage. Thanks to the introduction of the 10 GbE LAN, the TerraMaster F5-422 can deliver data faster. Backed by TerraMaster's latest TOS operating system, the F5-422 delivers an excellent feature set to any use. The TerraMaster F5-422 has an MSRP of $599.99 USD.

The F5-422 features a quad-core 1.50 GHz Intel CPU which has a boost clock of 2.30 GHz. 4 GB of DDR3 memory compliment the processor as well as built-in AES NI encryption. For maximum accessibility, the F5-422 features a 10 GbE port as well as 2x 1 GbE LAN, the F5-422 can be made available to a wide number of users without the bottleneck of traditional single LAN connections. The TerraMaster F5-422 is rated up to 670 MB/s write speeds and 650 MB/s read performance on a 5x 6 TB Seagate IronWolf RAID5 setup. Perfect for professionals like video editors working with 4K videos or others that need rapid access to large data with strict speed requirements.

While Helium-filled HDDs continue to push the capacity envelope, air-based solutions, too, are seeing great advancements to help fulfill the world's hunger for data and growing performance demands. Our R&D teams are pushing the boundaries of what's possible for HDDs while continuing to drive lower $/TB. Today Western Digital is excited to add the 10 TB Ultrastar DC HC330 HDD to its DC HC300 family.

The new Ultrastar DC HC330 is based on our proven and mature HC300 family of products, and if you have already qualified other capacity points in this family, you now have a very simple migration path, and best possible TCO within the HC300 family with the 10 TB HDD product. Furthermore, at 10 TB, the Ultrastar DC HC330 provides you with the same capacity as our previous Helium-based 10 TB, but uses fewer disks and heads to deliver even better value.

ASUS today rolled out the latest in its series of M.2 NVMe RAID add-on cards, the Hyper M.2 x16 Card V2. A successor to a similar card ASUS released back in 2017, this one comes with improved electrical components, so each of its four slots is guaranteed to put out 14 Watts of power. The card splits a PCI-Express 3.0 x16 link to four M.2-22110 slots, each with PCI-Express 3.0 x4 wiring. There's no PCIe switch logic involved, so your motherboard is required to support PCIe lane segmentation (most HEDT motherboards since 2016 do). The card supports Intel VROC (virtual RAID on CPU), and is tested to work on AMD Ryzen Threadripper processors. ASUS didn't change the thermal solution. You still get a chunky aluminium shroud covering the whole card, and lateral-flow fan pushing air across the drives, which can be turned off. The company didn't reveal pricing.

AMD X570 is the company's first in-house design socket AM4 motherboard chipset, with the X370 and X470 chipsets being originally designed by ASMedia. With the X570, AMD hopes to leverage new PCI-Express gen 4.0 connectivity of its Ryzen 3000 Zen2 "Matisse" processors. The desktop platform that combines a Ryzen 3000 series processor with X570 chipset is codenamed "Valhalla." A rough platform diagram like what you'd find in motherboard manuals surfaced on ChipHell, confirming several features. To maintain pin-compatibility with older generations of Ryzen processors, Ryzen 3000 has the same exact connectivity from the SoC except two key differences.

On the AM4 "Valhalla" platform, the SoC puts out a total of 28 PCI-Express gen 4.0 lanes. 16 of these are allocated to PEG (PCI-Express graphics), configurable through external switches and redrivers either as single x16, or two x8 slots. Besides 16 PEG lanes, 4 lanes are allocated to one M.2 NVMe slot. The remaining 4 lanes serve as the chipset bus. With X570 being rumored to support gen 4.0 at least upstream, the chipset bus bandwidth is expected to double to 64 Gbps. Since it's an SoC, the socket is also wired to LPCIO (SuperIO controller). The processor's integrated southbridge puts out two SATA 6 Gbps ports, one of which is switchable to the first M.2 slot; and four 5 Gbps USB 3.x ports. It also has an "Azalia" HD audio bus, so the motherboard's audio solution is directly wired to the SoC. Things get very interesting with the connectivity put out by the X570 chipset.Update May 21st: There is also information on the X570 chipset's TDP.
Update May 23rd: HKEPC posted what looks like an official AMD slide with a nicer-looking platform map. It confirms that AMD is going full-tilt with PCIe gen 4, both as chipset bus, and as downstream PCIe connectivity.

QNAP Systems, Inc. today introduced the QDA Series, a range of drive adapters that provide users with the ability to install various drives into their PC/workstation (Windows , Linux ) or QNAP NAS to meet various storage needs. When used with a QNAP NAS, drives installed using QDA Series drive adapters can be easily monitored using the QTS Storage Manager app.

The QDA-A2AR drive adapter accommodates two 2.5-inch SATA drives within a 3.5-inch SATA drive bay with up to 6 Gb/s file transfer speeds. No software driver is required, and it can be installed in a PC/workstation (Windows, Linux) or QNAP NAS. Supports hardware RAID, and provides a disk mode switch tool for selecting RAID modes (Individual, JBOD, RAID 0, or RAID 1). Windows users can use the QNAP External RAID Manager utility to view the RAID and disk information.

QNAP Systems, Inc. (QNAP) today launched the TR-002, a 2-bay hardware RAID expansion enclosure that can be utilized as a NAS storage expansion solution, and also as hardware RAID storage for Windows/macOS/Linux computers and NAS. The TR-002 connects to a PC/NAS via USB 3.1 Gen.2 Type-C and provides a dependable storage solution for various user requirements.

The TR-002 supports individual, JBOD and RAID 0/1 storage configurations. QNAP NAS users can use the TR-002 with their NAS to set RAID parameters and create a storage pool by using the "Storage and Snapshots" app within QTS. Alternatively, the TR-002 can be used as an external storage device for the NAS. Windows, macOS and Linux users with limited storage upgrade options can also use the TR-002 as an expansion unit, and a dedicated QNAP External RAID Manager utility (for Windows and macOS) can help them view disk health, change RAID configurations, check logs, and update the firmware of the TR-002.

OWC has released the second generation of its super-fast ThunderBlade external SSD, with a lower price point and improved performance. For creative professionals and prosumers who work to capture and process 4K or 8K video, the updated ThunderBlade Gen 2 can be the difference between staying under budget and on-schedule on a project or not.

The new ThunderBlade is stackable and runs cooler than the previous iteration, while still maintaining a near-silent environment with its fanless operation, all factors that can be critical in an operation on the go or in a tight space. With dual Thunderbolt 3 ports users can daisy-chain up to five additional ThunderBlades, and by connecting more than one drive with SoftRAID, speeds can be increased up to 3800MB/s. The newest ThunderBlade can complete a 1TB content transfer in under four-and-a-half minutes.

Today Toshiba America Electronic Components Inc. is adding 12 TB and 14 TB models to both its N300 NAS Hard Drive and X300 Performance Hard Drive series. The new 12 TB and 14 TB models use a helium-sealed design, enabling the 3.5-inch mechanical design to deliver increased storage density with a lower hard drive operating power profile. Toshiba laser welding technology and hard drive case is designed to keep the helium securely sealed inside the drive enclosure.

The new 12 TB and 14 TB models operate at 7,200 rpm and come with an ultra-high 256MB data buffer. The N300 NAS and X300 models use Toshiba's advanced Stable Platter Technology to minimize vibrations by stabilizing the motor shaft at both ends for improved tracking accuracy and maximum performance during read and write operations.

HighPoint has announced the release of a bootable Quad M.2 NVMe RAID card. The SSD7102 features a PCIe x16 connector for plugging into a users' system, and is essentially an expansion card that can house up to four M.2 NVMe SSDs - four 4x PCIe NVMe SSDs comes up to 16 total PCIe lanes, so the math definitely does check out. HighPoint has gone around CPU-bound limitations in recognizing this type of multiple devices folded into a single one with the usage of a PLX8747 PCIe bridge chip. Custom firmware allows these four drives in RAID to serve as a bootable device.

Seagate Technology, a world leader in data storage solutions, today launched the industry's widest range of advanced 14 TB hard drives, enhancing the company's enterprise and specialty drive portfolio. Consisting of IronWolf and IronWolf Pro for network attached storage (NAS) applications, the BarraCuda Pro desktop drive, surveillance-optimized SkyHawk, and Exos X14 for hyperscale data centers, this purpose-built portfolio empowers customers to consume, manage and utilize digital data more effectively and efficiently while establishing new benchmarks in speed and capacity.

With this offering, Seagate continues to lead the industry in driving data storage technology toward a lower cost per terabyte through hard drive optimization, versatility of application, and unmatched capacity. Whether for personal use, creative and design computing, online gaming, or large-scale surveillance systems and hyperscale environments, Seagate drives are opening up new data management opportunities across a wide range of markets.

QNAP Systems, Inc., a leading provider of networked storage and computing solutions, today announced the release of a new TS-x32XU rackmount NAS series, consisting of the 4-bay TS-432XU, 8-bay TS-832XU and 12-bay TS-1232XU with single power and redundant power models to choose from. The TS-x32XU series inherits the classic exterior design and all features of the TS-x31XU series and combines it with a new 64-bit Alpine AL-324 ARMv8 Cortex-A57 quad-core 1.7 GHz processor by Annapurna Labs, an Amazon company, and DDR4 memory. These hardware improvements bring performance boosts and enable support of snapshots, Qtier 2.0 tiered storage and RAID 50/60. With the high cost efficiency of the TS-x32XU, small businesses can benefit from faster operations and simplified workflows.

The TS-x32XU series comes with two 10GbE SFP+ network ports, two Gigabit network ports, four USB 3.0 Type A ports and one PCI Express (PCIe) 2.0 x2 slot. The hardware is capable of supporting versatile daily operational needs with additional expansion opportunities provided by the PCIe slot. Available QNAP expansion cards include the QXG-10G1T 10GBASE-T/NBASE-T Multi-Gigabit wired network adapter, QM2 M.2 SSD/10GBASE-T expansion cards and the USB 3.1 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) Type A expansion cards. With added hardware capabilities, the TS-x32XU NAS series can be used in more diversified applications and expanded to match growing business needs.

QNAP Systems, Inc. has extended the lineup of QM2 PCIe expansion cards with new models that support up to four M.2 SSDs slots on a single card. QM2 cards support either M.2 SATA SSDs or M.2 PCIe NVMe SSDs to enable SSD caching for boosted IOPS performance or to form an auto-tiering volume for optimal storage performance. QM2 cards also allow QNAP NAS users to maximize both storage capacity and performance by installing M.2 SSDs without occupying any 3.5-inch drive bays.

"When faced with a performance bottleneck, the random read/write speed of the hard drives in a NAS is one of the decisive performance factors," said Joan Hsieh, Product Manager of QNAP, continuing "QM2 cards can greatly boost the performance of QNAP NAS with PCIe slots, while the flexible configuration of SSD caching and I/O-aware Qtier all helps multiply NAS performance."

Western Digital Corporation is meeting the escalating fast-transfer and high-capacity demands of professional content creators by enabling real-time 4K and 8K workflows with three new professional-grade ultra-fast solutions in its powerful G-Technology G-DRIVE and G-SPEED Shuttle product families.

Working with large 4K and 8K RAW video means massive file sizes and is undoubtedly one of the largest pain points for content editors. With new cameras capable of capturing over 400 MB/s of RAW data, there is an opportunity for content professionals to create incredibly high-resolution footage and ever-more immersive viewer experiences. It is not uncommon for a production crew to be on-location for two or three months recording three to four terabytes per day of footage from multiple cameras. With this expansion of data capture, comes a potential bottleneck in maintaining a real-time workflow on location - until now.

ASUSTOR Inc. is launching ADM 3.1 today. This upgrade enhances and adds many features to meet the needs of customers from feedback. These include but are not limited to SSD Caching for accelerated hard disk performance, RAID scrubbing to keep hard drives healthy, Automatic RAID Repair, management of enterprise accounts and a new LDAP Client. Download ADM 3.1 today and experience the full range of new features.

Recently, TerraMaster officially released the latest generation of its thunderbolt product, the D5 Thunderbolt 3. This product adopts the latest Thunderbolt 3 technology, with a transmission rate of up to 40 Gbps. It supports the hardware RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 and other data backup technologies, which greatly improves file transfer efficiency and data security. Moreover, it is a medium specifically designed for photographers, video editors, and other media workers, to provide them with a large capacity, ultra-fast 5-bay RAID storage device.

In appearance, the D5 Thunderbolt 3 inherits the style of the previous TerraMaster storage series products by using a rugged, aluminium-alloy integrated housing. This is paired with a high-efficiency heat-control system, built in with intelligent temperature-controlled fans. With the Thunderbolt 3 dual interface and DisplayPort interface, you can connect 5 Thunderbolt 3 devices or display devices simultaneously. DisplayPort users can also connect it to the external 4K @ 60Hz high-resolution screens.

QNAP Systems, Inc. today rolled out the TS-328, the first quad-core 3-bay NAS that allows for building a RAID 5 array using only three drives. Compared with 2-bay NAS that only allow for building RAID 1 arrays, the TS-328 provides the choice of RAID 5 and can optimize available space while providing high data protection. The TS-328 provides feature-rich multimedia applications and video transcoding capabilities, and is an ideal solution for home users to centrally store, backup and manage files and data.

30% of QNAP NAS users prefer using RAID 5 arrays to benefit from optimized storage capacity, higher performance, and data protection. QNAP's first 3-bay NAS allows entry-level users to build a RAID 5 array on their NAS for a more cost-effective private cloud storage solution. The TS-328 also supports snapshots, allowing for users to quickly recover data in the event of accidental deletion/modification or ransomware attack.

OWC, a leading zero emissions Mac and PC technology company, is making drive juggling a thing of the past with the new OWC Mercury Elite Pro Quad. The new external storage solution offers four drive bays to provide massive amounts of storage from a single USB-C connection, with the flexibility to be utilized in Mac, PC and mixed Mac/PC environments. Designed for users who require high capacity storage with fast transfer speeds, the Mercury Elite Pro Quad is ideal for use by post- production firms, photographers, creative agencies, higher education programs, and small businesses.

Akitio, creators of premium, high quality, external storage solutions, today announced an important expansion of their storage product offerings - to integrate hard drives into select Akitio storage enclosures. The expansion creates a new line of products for Akitio as previously the company sold only unpopulated enclosures. The first Akitio enclosure that will be available with drives will be the new Akitio Thunder3 RAID Station and it will be populated with two Seagate 2TB Iron Wolf Pro drives. Akitio also plans to offer higher capacity drives and also incorporate them into other Akitio enclosures.

This new product expansion makes Akitio products even more flexible than they already were by offering consumers and businesses the option of purchasing either a fully populated, plug and play storage solution or an empty enclosure and installing their own drives.

Seagate Technology plc today announced the launch of the 5U84 high-density enclosure built with a next-generation operating system that together delivers performance, capacity and reliability. The 5U84 enclosure and firmware technology will enable businesses to store massive quantities of data in a high-availability enclosure that provides high performance access to data. What's more, Seagate Systems' operating system not only powers the high density 5U84, but dramatically improves the system's performance and reliability, increasing confidence in using high-density enclosures.

As with any technology, it is critically important to create layers of protection when it comes to data storage, particularly in markets such as video surveillance, where the integrity of the data is critical. Using next generation data protection technology, Seagate's Advanced Distributed Autonomic Protection Technology (ADAPT) can eliminate up to 95% of performance degradation during a disk drive rebuild when compared to traditional RAID solutions, meaning the 5U84 is essentially "self-healing". The technology disperses data across multiple drives, allocating more resources to rebuilds, thereby reducing the time needed, minimizing the risk of a data unavailability issue and giving the end user uninterrupted access.

ASRock introduced the Ultra Quad M.2 Card, an add-on card that lets you easily set up an M.2 NVMe RAID array with up to four drives with 32 Gbps bandwidth for each drive. In principle, this product does exactly what ASUS Hyper M.2 x16 Riser card does, but better. The first benefit is shorter traces- while the ASUS card has M.2 slots arranged horizontally along the plane of the card, with the topmost slot being farthest away from the PCI-Express interface, the ASRock card has them arranged diagonally, in a way that ensures each slot is close to the PCIe bus. ASRock also claims better thermals with a larger 50 mm fan (vs. 40 mm of the ASUS card) and longer thermal pads (110 mm vs 80 mm), power stability with a 6-pin PCIe power input, and software control over the fan. The card supports NVMe RAID on both Intel X299 and AMD X399 platforms. The card is expected to be priced around USD $69.99.ASRock presentation slides follow.

AMD has delivered on its teased promise, and today introduced a software-driven NVMe RAID driver that enables users to, you guessed it, create bootable NVMe arrays on their X399, Threadripper platform. The new solution demands that users download the appropriate drivers from AMD (follow the source links), and that you backup and dismantle your puny SATA RAID - note that you won't be able to use dual SATA and NVMe RAID on your platform. Any X399 motherboard will support this, there are no restrictions on the models of the NVMe drives, but your OS will have to be Windows 10 (build 1703).

The installation can be done via BIOS (which depends on manufacturer's BIOS releases and QA schedules - or via software with AMD's own RAIDXpert2 software. You can also opt for either of three RAID modes: RAID0 (striping), RAID1 (mirroring), and RAID10 (striping with mirroring). RAID10, by design, requires four or six NVMe devices. AMD is quoting scaling values that are close to 100% for RAID read scaling, and somewhere around 90% write scaling with up to 6 NVMe drives (1-6x Samsung 960 Pro NVMe SSD with 512 GB each). That amounts to almost 21.2 GB/s read, and 11.53 GB/s writes for a 6x NVMe SSD RAID. If you want the ultimate storage system performance for us mortal consumers, now you know where you can get it.