COUGAR introduces the Cratus—a stunning, iconic mid-tower PC chassis where epic moments begin and legends are built. The Cratus's precision-tooled steel tube frame provides incredible strength and stability, challenging perceptions of a minimal bezel and exoskeleton. And with its four tempered glass panels (contoured for both aesthetic presentation and structural integrity), rig enthusiasts can turn the ample space within into a dioramic exhibit for their modding skills and creativity, or simply show off their build.

In an industry-first revolutionary innovation, COUGAR has applied the principles of heat convection to engineer optimal thermal performance: an angled interior layout directs a cyclical current of hot air rising and cool air falling to deliver maximum airflow. Plus, extensive support for a myriad of cooling solutions ensures that high-performance components are always protected from overheating.

Today, Star Wars fans can choose to represent their side of the Force with the new collectible Seagate Solid State Drives (SSD) inspired by iconic characters of the Star Wars galaxy. Featuring interchangeable faceplate designs honouring Obi-Wan Kenobi, Darth Vader, and Luke Skywalker, the latest additions to the company's line of licensed special edition storage devices bring PCIe Gen 4 speeds, peak performance, and customisation to the battle stations of Star Wars collectors and tech enthusiasts.

Officially licensed by Lucasfilm, the special edition FireCuda NVMe SSD represents the famed characters with three iconic Lightsaber designs built on swappable heatsink faceplates so gamers can choose a design inspired by the Jedi or Sith that fits their collection at any moment. The drive includes customisable RGB LED lighting that shines through the faceplate to bring a galaxy of atmosphere to battle stations. The unique loading mechanism that attaches the interchangeable faceplates to the SSD and the heatsink were engineered and developed by EKWB. The integrated passive heatsink minimises thermal throttling and maintains peak performance for longer periods of time.

Cervoz Technology, a leading supplier of industrial-grade storage and memory solutions, is excited to announce the new NVMe PCIe Gen 4x4 SSDs, the T441. Purposefully designed to cater to the growing automaticity trend of the industry, the T441 is the ideal choice for companies seeking cutting-edge technology in high-performance storage solutions.

Blazing Speeds with High Capacity
The Cervoz T441 SSDs leverage the power of 112-layer 3D TLC NAND flash technology, offering storage capacities of up to 3840 GB in a compact and energy-efficient design. In addition, the high-speed PCIe Gen 4x4 interface enables faster and more efficient data access, with Read/Write speeds of up to 7,100/6,190 MB/s and 4K random IOPS of up to 1,000K. This exceptional performance makes the T441 an ideal solution for applications requiring real-time processing of vast data, such as surveillance, machine vision, and edge AI, as well as those handling massive data sets like CAD, biomedical engineering, and atmospheric sciences.

[Editor's note: Our in-depth review of Antec Performance 1 FT Case is now live]

With outstanding cooling performance and lots of useful features, Antec Inc. presents the latest flagship of full towers, the new Performance 1 FT. Featuring an airflow-enhanced front panel design, magnetic front filter, and four pre-installed PWM fans, this new chassis provides efficient airflow and great cooling performance. The case is now commercially available from MSRP US$159.99.

The new Antec flagship supports the latest RTX 40 Series GPUs. Considering the increasing demands for CPU and GPU cooling, Antec designed the Performance 1 FT to enhance the air intake, improve the cable routing, and enable an easy installation with various options. The new temperature display function allows to keep control of the components. The display screen located on the case top allows users to check the temperature of the GPU and CPU at a glance. It addresses the need for temperature monitoring without purchasing expensive cooling kits.

Although NAND suppliers have continued to roll back production, there is still an oversupply of NAND Flash as demand for products such as servers, smartphones, and notebooks is still too weak. Therefore, TrendForce predicts that the ASP of NAND Flash will continue to fall in 2Q23, though that decline may shrink to 5~10%. The key to supply and demand returning to a market equilibrium lies in whether NAND suppliers can cut back on production even more. TrendForce believes if demand remains stable, then the ASP of NAND Flash will have an opportunity to rebound in 4Q23; if demand is weaker than expected, then ASP will take longer to recover.

Client SSD: Currently, PC OEM's have managed to liquidate most of their component inventory, and are now gearing up in preparation for mid-year sales events. Suppliers are cutting prices to clear out their inventories of PCIe Gen 3 SSDs, which are gradually being phased out. Meanwhile, prices of PCIe Gen 4 SSDs continue to face downward pressure due to a slow intake of new customer orders. The continuous decline of QLC products in 1Q23 has also dragged down the prices of TLC products, and there is relatively little room for prices to keep falling in 2Q23. While it still remains unclear whether or not demand will recover, TrendForce projects that the prices of PC client SSDs will drop 5~10% in 2Q23.

Kioxia, at the 2023 China Flash Market conference (CFM), unveiled its next-generation enterprise SSD powered by 2nd Gen XL-NAND flash memory that promises up to 13.5 GB/s of sequential reads on drives with PCIe Gen 5 x4 interfaces. This puts it higher than the 12-12.5 GB/s offered by the first crop of Gen 5 SSDs, and a 118% over its current crop of Gen 4 x4 SSDs. The drive also offers up to 9.7 GB/s of sequential writes.

4K random-access performance is of a lot more importance to enterprise customers, and here, the drive is said to offer up to 3 million IOPS random reads, with up to 1.06 million IOPS sequential writes. All this comes at a slightly reduced read-latency of 27 µs, compared to 29 µs for the previous generation. Kioxia also expects PCIe Gen 5 and CXL 1.0 to be the prominent I/O interfaces for enterprise SSDs from now until the end of 2025. It's only with 2026 that we could see the emergence of PCIe Gen 6 in the enterprise space, promising a doubling in interface bandwidth.

Phison Electronics, a global leader in NAND flash and storage solutions, announced today the launch of IMAGIN+, an upgraded platform offering R&D resource sharing and ASIC (Application-Specific Integrated Circuit) design services for NAND flash controllers, storage solutions, PMIC, and Redrivers/Retimers. The introduction of IMAGIN+ comes during the Embedded World Exhibition & Conference (March 14-16) in Nuremberg, a premier global event for the embedded community.

Phison's rejuvenated platform, bolstered by more than two decades of research and development expertise, empowers global partners and customers to create not just ASIC chips and NAND flash storage solutions but also to participate in the growth of a thriving ecosystem of emerging technologies. Phison understands that success in today's fast-paced market requires more than just providing NAND storage solutions; it requires the ability to influence and shape the industry through signal integrity and power management ICs, Compute Express Link and other value-added offerings.

Apex Storage, a new company in the storage world, has announced that its X21 add-in-card (AIC) has room for 21 (you read that right) PCIe 4.0 M.2 NVMe SSDs. The card supports up to 168 TBs with 8 TB M.2 NVMe SSDs and 336 TBs of storage with future 16 TB M.2 SSDs drives and can withstand speeds of up to 30.5 GB/s. Packed inside a single-slot, full-length, full-height AIC, the X21 card is built for a snug fit inside workstations and applications such as machine learning and hyper-converged infrastructure that enterprises need to develop inside servers and workstations across the site.

The X21 AIC has 100 PCIe lanes on the board, which indicates the presence of a PCIe switch, likely placed under the heatsink. To power all the storage, the PCIe slot itself needs to be more, and the card also has two 6-pin PCIe power connectors that provide 225 Watts of power in total. Interestingly, the heatsink is passively cooled, but Apex Storage suggests that there should be an active airflow with a minimum of 400 LFM to ensure the regular operation of the card. In the example application, the company laid out X21 with Samsung's 990 Pro SSDs; however, the card also supports Intel Optane drives. Read and Write IOPS are higher than 10 million. Additionally, the average read and write access latencies are 79 ms and 52 ms. Apex Storage didn't reveal the pricing and availability of the card; however, expect it to come with a premium.

German company GRAUGEAR, an aftermarket/OEM cooling solutions company, released an interesting M.2 SSD cooler for PlayStation 5, which taps into the airflow of the console's main intake fan. The G-PS5HS01-Cov cooler from GRAUGEAR is meant for bare M.2 NVMe SSDs. It consists of an aluminium monoblock heatsink with a single flat 7 mm copper heatpipe running underneath, making contact with hot components on the drive's topside, through silicone-based thermal pads. This heatpipe sneaks up to the intake fan vent of the PS5, with a copper-channel stack in its end, which dissipates some of the drive's heat to the airflow. The company claims that this design offers 50% better cooling compared to drives with heatsinks that maximize the space above the M.2 slot of the PS5, and can lower controller temperatures by 15-20°C, since it is essentially an active cooling solution. The cooler weighs 70 g. The company didn't reveal pricing or availability information.

Looking back at 2H22, as server OEMs slowed down the momentum of their product shipments, Chinese server buyers also held a conservative outlook on future demand and focused on inventory reduction. Thus, the flow of orders for enterprise SSDs remained sluggish. However, NAND Flash suppliers had to step up shipments of enterprise SSDs during 2H22 because the demand for storage components equipped in notebook (laptop) computers and smartphones had undergone very large downward corrections. Compared with other categories of NAND Flash products, enterprise SSDs represented the only significant source of bit consumption. Ultimately, due to the imbalance between supply and demand, the QoQ decline in prices of enterprise SSDs widened to 25% for 4Q22. This price plunge, in turn, caused the quarterly total revenue from enterprise SSDs to drop by 27.4% QoQ to around US$3.79 billion. TrendForce projects that the NAND Flash industry will again post a QoQ decline in the revenue from this product category for 1Q23.

Pure Storage, a maker of various storage solutions and custom enterprise-grade SSDs, claims the company will produce SSDs with up to 300 TBs of capacity by 2026. In an interview with Pure Storage CTO Alex McMullan, Blocks & Files got exclusive information that the company targets SSD capacities of up to 300 TBs in 2026. Pure Storage creates proprietary Direct Flash Modules (DFM) SSDs which use 3D NAND chips controlled by a custom SSD controller, are used in the FlashArray systems, and run on a custom FlashBlade operating system. This level of customization allows Pure Storage to create SSD drives with remarkable capacities in the future as the 3D NAND technology advances.

In the coming years, 3D NAND flash manufacturers will switch from the current 200-layer chips to the 400/500-layer chips, driving storage density to new highs. As manufacturers update their technology, so does Pure with its DFM cards that use regular U.2 NVMe connectors in a custom ruler-style format made explicitly for Pure FlashArray systems. Compared to upcoming HDDs that Toshiba and Seagate will use, Pure Storage DFM SSDs will have much higher capacities and read/write speeds, especially as higher-density 3D NAND arrives. You can see the comparison of Pure's estimates for the future 300 TB SSDs with future HDD technology.

Synology today announced the addition of RackStation RS2423+ and RS2423RP+ to the versatile and cost-effective Plus series systems. The 2U 12-bay RS2423(RP)+ are ideal data management and backup solutions for small and medium-sized businesses, as well as branch offices. "With strong performance out of the box and flexible configuration and expansion options, these servers are the perfect on-prem storage solution for growing businesses," said Peggy Weng, Product Manager at Synology.

Offering a performance increase over its predecessor with sequential read/write speeds of over 3,500/1,700 MB/s, the RS2423(RP)+ packs a punch. This device features built-in 10GbE connectivity along with 2 x 1GbE ports with support for additional 10/25GbE networking. The 12-bays of RS2423(RP)+ support up to 216 TB of total storage capacity and can be expanded to 24 bays with a RX1223RP Expansion Unit for up to 432 TB of storage.

Today, KIOXIA America, Inc. announces its proud participation in the Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) Spaceborne Computer-2 (SBC-2) program. As part of the program, KIOXIA SSDs provide robust flash storage in HPE Edgeline and HPE ProLiant servers in a test environment to conduct scientific experiments aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

"By bringing KIOXIA's expertise and its SSDs, one of the industry's leading NAND flash capabilities, with HPE Spaceborne Computer-2, together we are pushing the boundaries of scientific discovery and innovation at the most extreme edge."

Since 2022, DRAM suppliers have been adjusting their product mixes so as to assign more wafer input to server DRAM products while scaling back the wafer input for mobile DRAM products. This trend is driven by two reasons. First, the demand outlook is bright for the server DRAM segment. Second, the mobile DRAM segment was in significant oversupply during 2022. Moving into 2023, the projections on the growth of smartphone shipments and the increase in the average DRAM content of smartphones remain quite conservative. Therefore, DRAM suppliers intend to keep expanding the share of server DRAM in their product mixes. According to TrendForce's analysis on the distribution of the DRAM industry's total bit output for 2023, server DRAM is estimated to comprise around 37.6%, whereas mobile DRAM is estimated to comprise around 36.8%. Hence, server DRAM will formally surpass mobile DRAM in terms of the portion of the overall supply within this year.

Silicon Motion Technology Corporation ("Silicon Motion"), a global leader in designing and marketing NAND flash controllers for solid-state storage devices, today announced the SM2268XT, its latest high-performance PCIe Gen 4 SSD controller solution optimized for higher speed NAND transfer rates. The SM2268XT's superior performance and robust reliability allows customers to accelerate development of next-generation SSDs using current and future TLC and QLC 3D NAND flash with comprehensive data integrity and correction without compromising throughput and latency.

The SM2268XT features a dual-core ARM R8 CPU with four lanes of 16 Gb/s PCIe data flow and supports four NAND channels with up to 3,200 MT/s per channel, enabling designers to take advantage of higher throughput next-generation high-speed TLC and QLC 3D NAND flash. Its multi-core design automatically balances the compute load to deliver industry-leading sequential read and write speeds of 7,400 MB/s & 6,500 MB/s, and random read & write speed of 1,200K IOPS. In addition, its advanced architecture enables lower power consumption and rigorous data protection, providing high performance and reliability in a cost-effective DRAM-less PCIe Gen 4 NVMe SSD solution.

One of the major issues with M.2 based NVMe SSDs today is the excessive heat they output, part of the reason most of them run so hot is because of the older fabrication node they're made on. Most current PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD controllers are built on a 12 nm node of some kind, but based on data out of IT Home in the PRC, we now have details of Silicon Motion's SM2504XT PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSD controller, which appears to be one of the first, if not the first, to be made on a 7 nm node.

Although it's not mentioned specifically who Silicon Motion's manufacturing partner is, it's most likely going to be TSMC, as Silicon Motion is a Taiwanese company. The SM2504XT will be a mainstream 4-channel controller, but it'll support NAND flash rated at up to 3600 MT/s, which is a step up from any other currently announced NVMe SSD controller. It also supports the NVMe 2.0 protocol and will have a PCIe 5.0 x4 host system interface. The new controller is expected to have hit the engineering sample stage some time in September this year.

GIGABYTE formally launched its flagship AORUS Gen5 10000 series M.2 NVMe SSDs that take advantage of a PCI-Express 5.0 x4 interface. Currently, all AMD B650 series and X670 series motherboards offer a PCIe Gen 5 M.2 slot wired to the processor without eating into PEG bandwidth, while some Intel 700-series chipset motherboards offer Gen 5 M.2 slots by subtracting lanes from the PEG slot. AORUS Gen5 10000 for now comes in 1 TB and 2 TB capacities. The drives combine a Phison E26 series controller with 3D TLC NAND flash memory and LPDDR4 DRAM cache.

The 1 TB model offers sequential transfer speeds of up to 9.5 GB/s reads, with up to 8.5 GB/s writes, and 700 TBW endurance; whereas the 2 TB model is faster, with up to 10 GB/s sequential reads, up to 9.5 GB/s writes, and 1,400 TBW endurance. The drive's power consumption is under 10 W, and GIGABYTE has deployed a thoughtful fanless cooling solution for the drive that spares you from the annoying high-pitched noise of other upcoming Gen 5 M.2 SSDs that use fan-heatsinks. The company didn't reveal pricing, but mentioned that the drives are backed by 5-year warranties.

Colorful Technology Company Limited, a world-renowned manufacturer of desktop components, laptops, desktops, AIO PCs, and storage, launches the B760 Series motherboards for the 13th Gen and 12th Gen Intel Core processors. The Intel B760 Series motherboards are ideal gaming and content creation with DDR5 and DDR4 memory support depending on model.

COLORFUL introduces the CVN B760M FROZEN WIFI D5 and CVN B760I FROZEN WIFI motherboards for gamers and enthusiasts. Coming in a compact micro-ATX and Mini-ITX form factors, both motherboards feature PCIe 5.0 x16 slot to support the latest high-end graphics cards. The CVN B760 motherboards also come with Wi-Fi 6, three PCIe 4.0 M.2 slots for the CVN B760M FROZEN WIFI D5 and two PCIe 4.0 M.2 slots for the CVN B760I FROZEN WIFI Mini-ITX motherboard. COLORFUL also presents the BATTLE-AX B760M-F PRO motherboard with DDR4 memory support and two PCIe 4.0 M.2 slots.

Silicon Power releases the new UD85, the perfect entry-level, budget-friendly choice for those looking to make the switch to the latest generation of PCIe interface. The UD85 is the perfect introduction to the power of PCIe 4.0. With support for NVMe 1.4 and Host Memory Buffer (HMB) technology, you'll get uninterrupted productivity via higher performance and lower latency for seamless execution across applications.

The UD85 delivers a fast and smooth experience with read speeds up to 3,600 MB/s and write speeds up to 2,800 MB/s. It achieves improved sequential read/write and random read/write performance with support for SLC Caching. The UD85 is all about value: it's available in large storage capacities up to 2 TB with an affordable price tag. Get all the space you need for applications, documents, photos, and videos without breaking the bank.

Taiwan-based memory products OEM Datotek has been in business selling flash memory and DRAM products since 2004, with one of its most notable clients being HP. At the 2023 International CES, the company showcased its latest-generation memory products spanning not just HP-branded flash drives, but also flash drives under its own marquee, besides M.2 NVMe and 2.5-inch SATA SSDs; and PC memory spanning DDR5 and DDR4 generations. The company sells various vanilla (JEDEC spec) DDR5 and DDR4 memory modules in both standard U-DIMM and SO-DIMM form-factors. For gamers and enthusiasts, the company has the Ares line of premium DDR5 and DDR4 memory products, which come in overclocked speeds such as DDR5-6000 or DDR4-4000, including with RGB LED illumination.

Among its SSD products are a new PCIe Gen 5 NVMe SSD under the Ares brand, Gen 4 NVMe drives under the Ares Dark Sword brand, and various Gen 3 NVMe SSDs under the main Datotek brand. We also spotted several USB 3.2 portable SSDs, as well as 2.5-inch SATA 6 Gbps ones under the main brand. The idea here is to attract more brands for OEM partnerships the way rival Biwin makes SSD and DRAM products for various top brands (such as HP and Acer).

At the 2023 International CES, we caught a hold of Phison, makes or arguably the most popular SSD controllers, which sprung to prominence on being the first to market with PCIe Gen 4 NVMe controllers, and now hopes to repeat it with PCIe Gen 5. We'd been shown a reference-design Phison E26-powered M.2 SSD, along with some hardware specs of the controller itself. The drive itself isn't much to look at—a standard looking M.2-2280 drive with a PCI-Express 5.0 x4 host interface, and the Phison E26 controller with its shiny IHS being prominently located next to a DDR4 memory chip, and two new-generation Micron Technology 3D NAND flash memory chips.

The Phison E26 controller, bearing the long-form model number PS5026-E26, is an NVMe 2.0 spec client-segment SSD controller. It has been built on the TSMC 12 nm FinFET silicon-fabrication node. The controller features an integrated DRAM controller with support for DDR4 and LPDDR4 memory types for use as DRAM cache. Its main flash interface is 8-channel with 32 NAND chip-enable (CE) lines, support for TLC and QLC NAND flash, a dual-CPU architecture, and hardware-acceleration for AES-256, TCG-Opal, and Pyrite. The controller features Phison's 5th generation LPDC ECC and internal RAID engines. For its reference-design 2 TB TLC-based drive, Phison claims sequential transfer rates of up to 13.5 GB/s reads, with up to 12 GB/s writes. The 4K random-access performance is rated at up to 1.5 million IOPS reads, with up to 2 million IOPS writes.

Micron Technology, today announced the Micron 9400 NVMe SSD is in volume production and immediately available from channel partners and to global OEM customers for use in servers requiring the highest levels of storage performance. The Micron 9400 is designed to manage the most demanding data center workloads, particularly in artificial intelligence (AI) training, machine learning (ML) and high-performance computing (HPC) applications. The drive delivers an industry-leading 30.72 terabytes (TB) of storage capacity, superior workload performance versus the competition, and 77% improved input/output operations per second (IOPS). The Micron 9400 is the world's fastest PCIe Gen4 data center U.3 drive shipping and delivers consistently low latency at all capacity points.

"High performance, capacity and low latency are critical features for enterprises seeking to maximize their investments in AI/ML and supercomputing systems," said Alvaro Toledo, vice president and general manager of data center storage at Micron. "Thanks to its industry-leading 30 TB capacity and stunning performance with over 1 million IOPS in mixed workloads, the Micron 9400 SSD packs larger datasets into each server and accelerates machine learning training, which equips users to squeeze more out of their GPUs."

Mushkin at the 2023 International CES showed off its Vortex Redline and Vortex LX M.2 NVMe SSDs. The Vortex Redline is the company's top PCIe Gen 4 drive, combining an Innogrit IG5236 NVMe 1.4 controller with 3D TLC NAND flash, to offer transfer speeds of up to 7415 MB/s. The Vortex Redline comes in capacities of 512 GB, 1 TB, and 2 TB. The Vortex LX is a more value-oriented product, based on an unnamed Innogrit-sourced DRAMless controller. This drive features a PCIe Gen 4 interface, but offers slightly lower performance that the company didn't disclose.

The star attraction at the Mushkin booth was its Epsilon SSD that features a PCI-Express 5.0 x4 + NVMe 2.0 interface, a Phison E26-series controller, and next generation 3D NAND flash memory (possibly 232-layer). The drive features active cooling from a fan-heatsink, and while the company didn't talk about performance, drives based on this controller are known to offer up to 12 GB/s of sequential transfers. Lastly, the company showed off its lineup of 2.5-inch SATA 6 Gbps SSDs in capacities ranging all the way up to 16 TB, which are meant to be HDD replacements, and "warm" storage devices.

ADATA SE920 is the company's first portable SSD to take advantage of USB4 and offer transfer-speeds that utilize that added interface bandwidth. The drive features a 40 Gbps USB4 interface, with a single cable handling both power and host connectivity. Internally, this is an M.2 PCIe Gen 4 SSD that's been wired to an ASMedia ASM2464PD chip that converts a 40 Gbps USB4 uplink to a PCI-Express 4.0 x4 downlink, and hence the internal drive has slightly more bandwidth than PCI-Express 3.0 x4 (32 Gbps).

The ADATA SE920 comes in capacity variants of 1 TB and 2 TB. Both variants offer sequential transfer rates of up to 3800 MB/s reads, with up to 3200 MB/s writes. The brushed aluminium enclosure has a mechanism that slides out a diagonal insert with air vents for an active cooling mechanism inside, which cools the internal drive, the bridge chip, and some power components. A USB4 type-C to type-C cable is included with the drive.

Greenliant is now shipping mSATA and SATA M.2 2242 ArmourDrive EX Series solid state drives (SSDs) with EnduroSLC Technology for superior data retention and high endurance ranging from 60K and 120K to the industry-leading 300K program-erase (P/E) cycles. Built with Greenliant's advanced in-house controllers, these SSDs are available in 10 GB, 20 GB, 40 GB, 80 GB, 160 GB and 320 GB capacities.

mSATA and SATA M.2 2242 ArmourDrive EX Series SSDs are included in Greenliant's Long-Term Availability (LTA) program (http://bit.ly/SSD-LTA-program), providing customers with a stable portfolio of high-endurance data storage products for up to 10 years. Greenliant is also shipping mSATA and SATA M.2 2242 / 2280 ArmourDrive PX Series SSDs using cost-effective industrial 3-bit-per-cell (TLC) 3D NAND. These SSDs support 5K P/E cycles and are available in 64 GB, 128 GB, 256 GB and 512 GB capacities.