Crucial has reportedly discontinued the MX500 line of SATA SSDs after nearly 7 years of market presence. The MX500 is arguably the most popular line of SATA 6 Gbps SSDs, and comes in both the 2.5-inch and M.2-SATA form-factors. The drive continued its run into 2020s given its extremely low price-per-GB, and reasonable levels of performance to serve as a warm storage solution in client PCs. The market is changing, with the advent of cheap QLC NAND NVMe SSDs, an increase in the number of NVMe slots on today's motherboards, and a reduction in SATA ports, which mean that it is time for Crucial to retire the MX500. The MX500 is still in stock with retailers, and comes in capacities of up to a respectable 4 TB, although at prices similar to NVMe Gen 3 or Gen 4 drives based on QLC NAND, such as Crucial's own P3 Plus. The 4 TB variant of the P3 Plus Gen 4 NVMe SSD in fact costs less than the 4 TB MX500, but with significantly higher performance.

Micron Technology today announced that it is releasing its Crucial DDR5 Pro Overclocking (OC) gaming memory with new speeds of 6,400 megatransfers per second (MT/s) to provide a smoother, faster gaming experience. This product update follows its initial February release of the gaming memory solution, which ran at 6,000 MT/s. The Crucial DDR5 Pro OC Gaming Memory's new higher speed enables gaming at higher frame rates per second, accelerates multitasking and boosts productivity.

The updated gaming memory offers twice the data rates of DDR4 and 25% lower latency for seamless, rapid-fire gameplay. Underpinned by Micron's cutting-edge DRAM innovation, the DDR5 Pro OC Gaming Memory solution is built using Micron's sophisticated 1ß (1-beta) node technology to deliver performance gains, quality and reliability.

Memory and SSD maker Crucial noticed an uptick in support requests by users claiming that their Gen 5 or Gen 4 NVMe SSDs would drop to PCIe Gen 1 speeds, besides being unable to boot into Windows after a restart. Crucial then did some digging, and localized the issue to users with motherboards based on the AMD X670E chipset, AMD's flagship Socket AM5 platform chipset. While not a function of the chipset itself, it turns out that there is a flaw in the way AMD designed the PCI-Express I/O of the X670E platform, specifically the PCIe Gen 5-capable M.2 NVMe interfaces that are attached to the CPU, causing them to drop in speeds to Gen 1. This problem isn't surfacing on the AMD B650 or the B650E, or even the X670—it is oddly specific to the X670E, despite the Gen 5 M.2 NVMe slots not being wired to the chipset.

While AMD made no public statement on the technical aspect of the flaw, if we were to guess, this could be a faulty implementation of PCIe ASPM (active state power management) at the firmware level, which reduces the speed of the PCIe link layer to reduce power. The default setting for PCIe ASPM in most motherboard UEFI setup programs tends to be "disabled," although there could be a bug in the firmware of X670E motherboards, causing it to engage, and in a buggy manner. Most UEFI BIOS setup programs tend to have two separate sets of PCIe ASPM settings—one for the CPU-attached PCIe root (which includes the x16 PEG and CPU-attached NVMe slots), and the other for downstream PCIe connectivity from the chipset.

Micron Technology, Inc., today announced the availability of the Crucial P310 2280 Gen 4 NVMe solid-state drive (SSD), which offers two times faster performance than Gen 3 SSDs and 40% faster performance than Crucial's P3 Plus, giving gamers, students and creatives a boost in speed when they boot and use data-intensive applications. With capacities up to 2 terabytes (TB) and read and write speeds of 7,100 and 6,000 megabytes per second (MB/s) respectively, the P310 2280 SSD enables more customers than ever to gain access to gaming performance without paying gaming prices. This launch expands Micron's P310 portfolio to address PCs, laptops and PlayStation 5, closely following the July launch of its award-winning Crucial P310 2230 SSD, which is targeted at users of handheld gaming consoles and mini PCs.

"Micron's Crucial P310 2280 SSD delivers blazing fast gaming-level speeds, allowing users to do it all faster — from gaming to booting Windows to running multiple creative apps at the same time — without compromising on quality," said Jonathan Weech, senior director of product marketing for Micron's Commercial Products Group. "Architected with our advanced 3D NAND technology and optimized to deliver the utmost power efficiency, the 2280 SSD empowers everyone from gamers to creatives to squeeze more out of their battery life when using data-rich apps."

Micron Technology, Inc., today announced the availability of the Crucial P310 2230 Gen 4 NVMe solid-state drive (SSD), which empowers enthusiasts of handheld gaming and users of mini PCs and ultrathin laptops to store more games and data-intensive content at their fingertips without sacrificing speed or performance. With read and write speeds of 7,100 and 6,000 megabytes per second (MB/s), respectively, and capacities up to 2 terabytes (TB), the P310 2230 SSD packs a unique punch, offering high performance and capacity in a compact, power-efficient form factor.

"Today's contemporary games are storage- and performance-hungry, and this is especially true for handheld gamers who want to be able to quickly access all their favorite games at their fingertips," said Jonathan Weech, senior director of product marketing for Micron's Commercial Products Group. "We've built our Crucial P310 2230 Gen 4 SSD to satisfy this need for speed and more capacity, providing a dynamic, power-efficient SSD that allows gamers to build their dream gaming libraries, load multiworld games faster and extend battery life for a richer gaming experience on the go."

Micron Technology, Inc., today announced the availability of Crucial LPCAMM2, the disruptive next-generation laptop memory form factor that features LPDDR5X mobile memory to level up laptop performance for professionals and creators. Consuming up to 58% less active power and with a 64% space savings compared to DDR5 SODIMMs, LPCAMM2 delivers higher bandwidth and dual-channel support with a single module. LPCAMM2 is an ideal high-performance memory solution for handling AI PC and complex workloads and is compatible with the powerful and versatile Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 mobile workstations.

"LPCAMM2 is a game-changer for mobile workstation users who want to enjoy the benefits of the latest mobile high performance memory technology without sacrificing superior performance, upgradeability, power efficiency or space," said Jonathan Weech, senior director of product marketing for Micron's Commercial Products Group. "With LPCAMM2, we are delivering a future-proof memory solution, enabling faster speeds and longer battery life to support demanding creative and AI workloads."

A Crucial "CT12G56C46S5" Non-ECC Small Outline Dual In-line Memory Module (SODIMM) is available to pre-order from Amazon UK—the 12 GB capacity product was spotted by everyone's favorite PC hardware sleuth;—momomo_us. March 31 appears to be the official shipping out date—current pricing is £44.99 ($57.50). Additionally, customers have the option to reserve a related 24 GB Kit (2x 12 GB) kit (CT2K12G56C46S5), priced at £87.99 (~$112.36). According to product descriptions, Crucial's upcoming laptop 5600 MHz RAM "can downclock if system specification only supports 5200 MHz or 4800 MHz."

"Non-binary modules" DDR5 modules hit retail last year—we have witnessed a slow trickle out of 24 GB and 48 GB capacity sticks, granting unusual memory configurations on compatible AMD and Intel platforms. The CT12G56C46S5 and CT2K12G56C46S5 are supported by "Core 13th Gen and Ryzen 6000 Series laptop CPUs and above." Crucial's latest DDR5 SODIMM could be the first 12 GB capacity model to reach retail, unless a rival manufacturer sneaks out an equivalent item prior to March 31.

Micron Technology, Inc., today announced two new Crucial Pro Series products with the addition of overclocking-capable memory and the world's fastest Gen 5 SSD. The Crucial DDR5 Pro Memory: Overclocking Edition modules are available in 16 GB densities up to DDR5-6000 to deliver higher performance, lower latencies and better bandwidth to fuel gaming wins and reduce performance bottlenecks. These powerful DDR5 overclocking DRAM modules are compatible with the latest DDR5 Intel and AMD CPUs and support both Intel XMP 3.0 and AMD EXPO specifications on every module, eliminating compatibility hassles. Built with leading-edge Micron 232-layer TLC NAND, the Crucial T705 SSD unleashes the full potential of Gen 5 performance.

Lightning-fast sequential reads and writes up to 14,500 MB/s and 12,700 MB/s (up to 1,550K/1,800K IOPS random reads and writes) respectively, enable faster gaming, video editing, 3D rendering and heavy workload AI application processing. With DDR5 Pro Overclocking DRAM and the T705 SSD, enthusiasts, gamers and professionals can harness the speed, bandwidth and performance they need for AI-ready PC builds capable of processing, rendering and storing large volumes of AI generated content.

Crucial launched its Crucial T700 Gen 5 SSD family midway through last year—a "marquee product" within their (at the time) new Pro Series family—thanks to industry-leading performance. Micron's consumer brand boasted about the T700's technical prowess: "sequential read/write speeds (of) up to 12,400 MB/s and 11,800 MB/s respectively." The Micron 232-layer TLC NAND-equipped SSD range was leaked two months ahead of an eventual May 2023 launch, and history is seemingly repeating itself with a semi-related product in early 2024. Hardware sleuth, momomo_us, has uncovered Crucial T705 and T705 Limited Edition models—the latter appears to be outfitted with a special white variation of the company's "SSD5" corrugated passive heatsink design (as seen in W1zzard's T700 review). Crucial's "SSD3" model suffix indicates a barebones package—minus the chunky "premium" aluminium and nickel-plated copper heatsink.

An alleged T705 specification sheet was leaked to social media over the past weekend—courtesy of Deepbluen's response to the initial momomo_us post. Crucial seems to be targeting industry leading performance once more—their 2 TB T705 model leads the pack with 14,500 MB/s read and 12,700 MB/s write speeds. The capacity range topper (4 TB) trails a little bit behind at 14,100 MB/s read and 12,400 MB/s (respectively), with the 1 TB model exhibiting a relatively sluggish 13,600 MB/s read and 10,200 MB/s (respectively). The leaked sheet does not contain any details regarding Crucial's choice of controller, as well as DRAM cache numbers and endurance figures. We see a repeat of the T700's Micron 232-layer TLC NAND, but we will have to wait a little longer to find out whether Phison's E26 controller is making a comeback (with entailing potential technical issues).

Crucial, the client-focused brand of memory giant Micron Technology, showed off a handful new innovations at its booth along the sidelines of the 2024 International CES. First up, is a prototype USB4 portable SSD and prototype desktop SSD. These are proofs of concept, and not actual products. With this, Crucial is testing the waters with USB4 and its delicious 40 Gbps bidirectional bandwidth, which unlocks a new generation of fast removable storage devices. The prototype USB4 portable SSD comes in a tiny chassis about the size of a burner phone. It is a PCB with an M.2-2280 slot with PCIe Gen 4 x4 wiring, connected to an ASMedia ASM2464PD USB4 bridge chip. An OEM Micron Gen 4 SSD with 232-layer 3D TLC NAND flash and LPDDR4 DRAM cache, is installed on this drive. The CDM reading for this drive is 3821 MB/s sequential reads, with 885 MB/s sequential writes.

Next up, is a larger desktop SSD prototype (which again, isn't an actual product but a proof of concept). Its metal chassis is about the size of a 3.5-inch HDD. Inside is at least one M.2-2280 Gen 4 slot (there are probably more); with a preinstalled drive. An ASMedia ASM2464PD handles things here, too. The performance is mostly similar, at 3792 MB/s sequential reads, but with significantly increase 3803 MB/s sequential writes. This may seem unspectacular because Thunderbolt 4 has been delivering 40 Gbps for many years now, and we've had TB4-based external SSDs; but USB4 somewhat democratizes this kind of bandwidth.

Micron Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: MU), today announced the availability of the Crucial T500 Gen 4 NVMe SSD as an expansion of its award-winning NVMe solid-state drive (SSD) portfolio. The Crucial T500 SSD is a best-in-class PCIe 4.0 NVMe drive, which leverages Micron's advanced 232-layer 3D NAND technology with industry-leading NAND I/O speeds of 2.4 gigabytes per second (GB/s) and is engineered to improve performance for console and PC gamers, photo and video editors and content creators. Available in two options, the T500 SSD with the heatsink is specifically designed for platforms like the PlayStation 5 (PS5) and PC gaming rigs, while the version without the heatsink fits well in laptops, desktops and workstations.

The T500 offers up to a 40% higher performance-to-power ratio, and speeds that are two times faster than the previous Gen 3 NVMe SSD offering. With lightning-fast sequential read and write speeds up to 7,400 MB/s and 7,000 MB/s respectively, Crucial T500 SSDs enable gamers to load games up to 16% faster, get quicker game texture renders and reduced CPU utilization with Microsoft DirectStorage. Likewise, it is easy to install and has up to 2 TB of storage - making it perfect for PS5 upgrades or UHD/8K+ videos. The T500 also delivers up to 42% faster performance in content creation applications, allowing users to run heavy workloads and render photos or videos faster.

Eurocom is launching the highly upgradeable and customizable Nightsky RX415 Superlaptop with 15.6" display, Intel Core i7-13900HX processor, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 or 4060 graphics, up to 64 GB DDR5-5600 memory and up to 16 TB of solid state storage.

"The EUROCOM Nightsky RX415 offers high level of customization and user upgradeability as part of Eurocom's design principles. It is heavy duty, yet lightweight with aluminium alloy chassis." Mark Bialic, Eurocom President said. "The EUROCOM Nightsky RX415 is designed for both professional users as well as gamers. Unlike any other laptop on the market it comes loaded with 10 physical ports providing unprecedented connectivity.M Mark Bialic, Eurocom President said. "With the Eurocom Trade in Program Customers can now get up to 25% off a brand new EUROCOM Nightsky RX415 with an eligible Trade-In."

When Crucial cancelled its Ballistix gaming brand, it was unclear if the company would launch higher-end products in the future, although the company never said it wouldn't. Back in May of this year, Crucial launched its Pro series of memory, which was not exactly pro, at least not for the readership here which is used to an entirely different level of RAM. This was largely due to Crucial sticking to JEDEC spec, even though the company did launch some DDR5 5600 MHz modules.

Now—some six months later—it appears that Crucial is getting ready to deliver some higher performance modules with its new DDR5 6000 MHz modules, although at launch, they will only be available in a kit of two 24 GB modules. Although Crucial claims JEDEC spec, the 48-48-48 timings appear to either be slightly tighter than the original JEDEC spec, or JEDEC has updated the specs since they were announced. Although nothing about these modules screams high-end or pro, there's one thing that makes these stand out against the competition, they operate at 6000 MHz using only 1.1 Volt, whereas most 6000 MHz DIMMs on the market today, operate at 1.35 Volt higher. In addition to that, as these are JEDEC spec DIMMs, there's no need to enable XMP/EXPO settings to make them work at 6000 MHz, which could be a benefit to some. There might be some potential for tweaking these modules as well, something we'll have to wait for reviews to find out about. Crucial is asking for US$166.99 for the 48 GB kit, which puts them at a price disadvantage compared to its competitors, as you can get a similar kit for as little as $115 or possibly even less.

The advent of PCIe 5.0 SSDs with Phison's E26 controllers has been a double-edged sword. While these SSDs offer impressively high data throughputs, they come with a significant drawback: severe overheating issues that can cause the SSDs not only to throttle down but to shut off entirely. TechPowerUp first noted this issue back in May, in our Corsair MP700 review, where the uncooled drive shut down after 86 seconds of reads and after 55 seconds of writes. Regarding criticism from tech reviewers, Corsair has released a firmware update (version 22.1) for its MP700 SSD to ensure that it throttles down rather than shutting off when overheated. Yet, many other SSDs like the Crucial T700, Seagate FireCuda 540, Gigabyte Aorus Gen 5 10000, and ADATA Legend 970 still suffer from temperature issues.

However, it's crucial to note that these extreme overheating problems occur only when the SSDs run without any cooling. While some manufacturers have planned firmware updates to address the issue, Corsair is the only company that has taken tangible action so far. Crucial has released a new firmware (PACR5102), but the ComputerBase report indicates that the SSD continues to shut off at high temperatures. The problem, though, can generally be mitigated with proper cooling. Whether using the included cooler or placing the SSD under a motherboard cover, temperatures usually stay below the critical limit, thus avoiding a complete shutdown. When we tested the SSTC Tiger Shark Elite 2 TB with Phison E26 (with updated firmware) without adequate cooling, the SSD continued to operate and throttled down, indicating that the remaining SSDs using this controller need a proper firmware update that throttles the SSD instead of shutting it down.

Micron Technology, Inc., today announced the Crucial X9 Pro Portable SSD and Crucial X10 Pro Portable SSD, two new performance offerings in the Crucial Pro Series product portfolio, designed for content creators such as photographers, videographers, designers, or any performance-seeking consumer. Both drives utilize Micron TLC NAND and leverage a revolutionary single-ASIC portable storage architecture to enable a breakthrough, ultra-compact, lightweight form factor and allows Micron to ship the most capacity per square millimeter in the industry. With either the Crucial X9 Pro and X10 Pro, users can safely store, transport and backup important videos, photos, files and more on the go, without cloud or internet access at lightning-fast speeds.

"We recognize that fast, efficient workflow processes are essential to the success of videographers, photographers and other content creators," said Jonathan Weech, senior director of product marketing for Micron's Commercial Products Group. "We designed and built our two new portable SSDs, the Crucial X9 Pro and the Crucial X10 Pro, to specifically address these demanding workloads. With more photos and videos being taken than ever before, consumers are looking for ways to save, preserve and protect their digital lives reliably and quickly. These two new Crucial Pro Portable SSDs are a great choice for anyone who needs dependable, fast, high-capacity storage."

Not entirely unexpected, Seagate is getting ready to launch its first PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSD which will be going under the name of FireCuda 540 and now details of the upcoming drive have appeared online courtesy of Amazon UK, B&H Photo and others that have put up the product for pre-order. For those worried about the lack of a 4 TB SKU, you can relax, as the company is planning a 4 TB SKU, which is made clear from the pictures posted by Amazon UK. However, changing the digit in the model number that represents the drive size, doesn't bring up any info about a 4 TB SKU at the moment.

It doesn't look like the FireCuda 540 will be competing with the fastest PCI 5.0 NVMe drives, as it's only listed as offering sequential drives speeds of up to 10 GB/s, although this applies to both read and write speeds for the 2 TB SKU, with the 1 TB SKU being somewhat slower with read speeds of 9.5 GB/s and write speeds of 8.5 GB/s. The 1 TB SKU is good for 1,000 TB TBW, with the 2 TB SKU doubling this to 2,000 TB and the 4 TB SKU apparently hitting 3,949 TB or as Seagate put it, this allows you to erase 90 percent of the drive every day for five years. B&H Photo has the drives listed at US$189.99 for the 1 TB SKU and US$319,99 for the 2 TB SKU—making both SKUs cheaper than Crucials T700—with Amazon UK listing the 1 TB SKU for £203.48 and no pricing for the 2 TB SKU. It's unclear when the Seagate FireCuda 540 will launch, but it can't be far away.

Micron Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: MU), today announced the Crucial Pro Series which features memory and storage products designed for gamers, content creators, workstation professionals or anyone needing the benefits of a robust, high-performance computing experience with plug-and-play functionality. The Crucial T700 PCIe Gen 5 SSD, the marquee product in the new Pro Series category, offers industry-leading sequential read/write speeds up to 12,400 MB/s and 11,800 MB/s respectively. Random read/write speeds of up to 1,500K IOPS enable faster gaming, video editing, 3D rendering or heavy workload applications. Another addition to the Crucial Pro Series is the Crucial DDR5 Pro and DDR4 Pro DRAM offerings with heat spreaders, providing out-of-the-box performance to improve system speed, bandwidth and responsiveness without the hassle of LEDs and the risks associated with overclocking and latency tuning.

"Today's demanding applications and user workloads require increased performance, along with greater storage capacity and memory bandwidth, to fully leverage the capabilities provided by the latest generation of CPU platforms," said Jonathan Weech, senior director of product marketing for Micron's Commercial Products Group. "The world class Crucial T700 Gen 5 SSD provides unrivaled performance to tackle gaming, UHD/8k+ photo and video editing, heavy workload applications and large data sets. Crucial DDR5 Pro DRAM offers speeds up to 5600MT/s with sleek new heat spreaders that deliver enormous bandwidth under the heaviest of workloads to ensure consistent, maximum performance for gamers and creatives alike."

Last year, Crucial canned its Ballistix brand of gaming focused memory, but it seems like the company still wants to offer its customers a more premium product, as Crucial has just introduced its new Pro series of memory products. Crucial will offer its new Pro series in both DDR5 and DDR4 flavours at either DDR5-5600 or DDR4-3200 speeds. It should be noted that the DDR4 modules still rely on a green PCB, while the DDR5 modules get the same black PCB as Crucial's regular DDR5 modules. Beyond the heatsink, there isn't much that differs between the Pro series and Crucial's regular modules, but there is one thing that might matter to potential buyers.

Crucial has added support for AMD EXPO and Intel XMP 3.0 to its Pro series of modules. In the case of AMD EXPO this only applies to DDR5 modules, whereas the DDR4 modules support Intel XMP 2.0, in this case a feature its standard DDR4 modules lack. This should make it easier for end users to take advantage of the extra performance offered by some of these modules. That said, as Crucial has stuck to JEDEC timings, taking the Pro DDR5-5600 UDIMM kit as an example, you end up with timings of 46-46-45-45 at 1.1 Volts, where competing products have timings in the range of 36-36-36-36, although usually at 1.25 Volts or higher. Even as far as JEDEC timing goes, Crucial has chosen the middle ground for DDR5 5600, as there is a timing option from JEDEC that supports 40-40-40-40, which would make more sense for a more premium product. Price wise, a 32 GB kit with two 16 GB modules of DD5-5600 modules carries an $11 price premium over Crucials standard modules, with a retail price of US$114.99 versus US$103.99, but there are better options out there at this price point.

Crucial T700, the company's flagship M.2 NVMe Gen 5 SSD, runs hot—like every other drive based on the Phison E26-series controller (such as the Corsair MP700). ComputerBase.de discovered what the drive does without some sort of cooling. The E26 controller has a Tjmax value of around 86°C, and what happens when it's reached depends on the drive in question. The Corsair MP700 can turn itself off to protect the controller—something that will definitely cause your machine to hang with a BSOD.

The Crucial T700, on the other hand, aggressively throttles down the controller in an attempt to lower temperatures. While the drive won't stop (and your machine won't hang), its performance drops to hard drive levels, with CrystalDiskMark (CDM) measurements pointing to around 101 MB/s (of course, with much lower access times than a HDD). Both Crucial and Corsair offer the drive with large heatsinks, and recommend users to use them. This should severely limit the adoption of Gen 5 NVMe SSDs among notebooks, where the notebook chassis has room for only bare drives. However, some OEMs specializing in larger high-end gaming notebooks and desktop-replacement workstations, can find ways to connect the drives to the notebook's main cooling system using flattened heatpipes. You can catch ComputerBase's review of the MP700 in the source link below.

Crucial's T700 PCIe Gen 5 NVMe SSD series has been previewed a couple of times, showing some impressive sequential read and write performance, and now, Crucial has announced that it is available for pre-order, directly from Crucial's own store. The release date is set for May 30th.

In case you missed it earlier, the Crucial T700 PCIe Gen 5 NVMe SSD offers sequential performance of up to 12,400 MB/s for read and up to 11,800 MB/s for write (11,700 MB/s and 9,500 MB/s for the 1 TB version). Available in 1 TB, 2 TB, and 4 TB capacities, and with or without the heatsink, the Crucial T700 uses Micron 232-layer TLC NAND paired up with Phison's E26 controller. The endurance rating (TBW) for the Crucial T700 SSD series is set at 600 TB for the 1 TB version, 1200 TB for the 2 TB version, and 2400 TB for the 4 TB version, and it is backed by a 5-year limited warranty.

Crucial T700 marks the brand's return to the high-end SSD segment after years of catering to the mainstream segment with well-priced drives that the company can move in high volumes. The company had retired its Ballistix brand to mark its withdrawal from the high-end. The drive combines Micron's 232-layer 3D TLC NAND flash with a Phison E26-series controller and LPDDR4-based DRAM cache, and takes advantage of the PCI-Express 5.0 x4 host interface, with NVMe. A small section of the tech press was sampled with these drives and permitted to do performance previews.

Every SSD manufacturer's favorite benchmark, CrystalDiskMark (CDM), shows the drive clock 12.4 GB/s sequential reads (1 MB, QD8), along with 9.22 GB/s (1 MB QD1). Sequential writes are as high as 11.87 GB/s (1 MB QD8), and 9.66 GB/s (1 MB QD1). IOMeter testing revealed that the sustained write speeds are rather low, with the T700 holding onto top speeds only up to 25 GB, beyond which write performance falls off a cliff to 3.8 GB/s. Find more such interesting results in the source link below.

Crucial is keen to drum up early interest for an upcoming SSD model, and the Linus Tech Tips team has received and tested a sample unit. The T700 is a PCIe Gen 5 NVMe M.2 SSD storage solution based around a Phison PS5026-E26 controller, which is a very common choice for the current generation of PCIe 5.0 SSDs available on the market. Micron 3D NAND chips look to be present on the T700's PCB, and a Crucial-branded heatsink is mounted to the provided sample unit. It is interesting to note that the uncovered T700 unit bears a striking resemblance to Phison's E26 Engineering Reference sample, although the latter appears to feature SK Hynix memory chips, instead of Micron.

The LTT team posted benchmark results from a Crystal Disk Mark test session, and the T700 achieved maximums of 12.4 GB/s sequential read and 11.9 GB/s write speeds. This represents an almost two fold jump over the performance of Crucial's PCIe 4.0 based P5 Plus SSD, which is a substantial improvement and also very impressive considering the T700's usage of a passive cooling solution.

Micron Technology, Inc., today announced the upcoming availability of two new consumer storage products, the Crucial P3 Plus Gen4 NVMe and Crucial P3 NVMe solid state drives (SSDs), as an expansion of its award-winning Crucial NVMe SSD product portfolio. The all new Crucial P3 Plus SSD product line will deliver attractive price-performance metrics with sequential read/write speeds up to 5000/4200 MB/s, while next-generation Crucial P3 SSDs will provide read/write speeds up to 3500/3000 MB/s. Both drives will be available in capacities up to 4 TB, making them the ideal scalable storage solutions that professionals, creatives, gamers and other high-performance users need.

"For users that have been waiting to upgrade their PCs to Gen4 SSDs, the wait is over. With the forthcoming availability of the new Crucial P3 Plus SSD, anyone seeking high-performance SSDs can upgrade to NVMe Gen4 storage and affordably futureproof their PC," said Teresa Kelley, vice president and general manager of Micron's Commercial Products Group. "Both the Crucial P3 Plus and P3 SSD products will strengthen our overall SSD portfolio and NVMe product category by offering competitive choices for high-performance storage that enables users to get more done in less time."

Out of nowhere, Micron has announced that it will end production of its Ballistix RAM products that are the high-performance and gamer focused RAM products from its Crucial brand. The details available so far doesn't state a reason for the discontinuation of these products. That said, Crucial has launched a wide range of DDR5 products, but so far none under the Ballistix brand and that is obviously a permanent move now. The company said it would focus on "the development of Micron's DDR5 client and server product roadmap, along with the expansion of the Crucial memory and storage product portfolio."

Furthermore the press release mentioned that "the company will continue to support the performance compute and gaming communities with its award-winning SSD products, such as the Crucial P5 Plus Gen 4 PCIe NVMe SSD, Crucial P2 Gen 3 NVMe SSD, and the popular Crucial X6 and Crucial X8 portable SSDs." It seems like Micron has decided to change the focus of it's consumer focused Crucial brand yet again, as the company has done several times in the past, but it's going to remove a major player in the consumer DRAM market, which isn't a good thing, especially as Micron was one of few DRAM manufacturers to offer high-end RAM modules, since neither Samsung or SK-Hynix is in this market. That said, it looks like Crucial will at least continue to offer its standard RAM modules, but they tend to follow JEDEC spec and aren't particularly exciting.

Micron, today announced the immediate availability of Micron Crucial DDR5 desktop PC memory products that deliver up to 50% faster data transfer speeds over previous-generation DDR4 memory, providing mainstream PC users with enthusiast-level performance. Whether a PC is used for business, learning, creativity, interactive entertainment or personal use, the computing experience is defined by performance, flexibility and efficiency. Micron's DDR5 memory technology advancements offer higher bandwidth per core, nearly doubling the effective memory bandwidth to provide multi-core CPUs with the data they need for multi-tasking and other demanding PC applications.

DDR5 allows for better power efficiency, decreasing operating voltage to 1.1 volts. Plus, its unique features enable future chip density to grow from today's 16 GB up to 24 GB, 32 GB and beyond, quadrupling the module density of DDR5 over DDR4 DRAM. This provides headroom and future scalability for DDR5-enabled systems. Improved bus efficiency results in higher effective bandwidth. By combining higher bandwidth, lower power and higher density, DDR5 enhances performance for emerging PC applications such as 4K and 8K content creation, interactive entertainment, personal and business productivity, and virtual reality experiences. By feeding hungry multi-core CPUs, DDR5 memory also helps make multitasking more efficient without bogging down system performance.