GIGABYTE is giving finishing touches to its new motherboard targeted at creators who like to game, and premium desktop builders, the X570S AERO G. This marks the debut of the company's AERO brand, associated with notebooks, over to the desktop PC components segment. The board's aesthetics appear more in line with the company's VISION line of products. The Socket AM4 motherboard is based on the new AMD X570S chipset, a low-power version of the X570 that can make do with fanless cooling.

What sets the X570S AERO G apart is its five M.2 NVMe Gen 4 slots, leveraging the PCIe Gen 4 downstream connectivity of the X570S. You also get two PCI-Express 4.0 x16 slots (x8/x8 with both populated), and creator-relevant connectivity that includes 2.5 GbE wired LAN, Wi-Fi 6E, and GIGABYTE's highest onboard audio grade. Thunderbolt connectivity is unlikely to be found. The board will come with out-of-the-box support not just for Ryzen 5000 "Vermeer" processors, but also Ryzen 5000G "Cezanne" APUs, which it wires out through DisplayPort and HDMI ports.

Update Jul 5th: GIGABYTE formally launched the X570S AERO G. It lacks 10 GbE, unlike previously reported, offers 2.5 GbE, and comes with USB 3.2x2 (20 Gbps) ports.

GIGABYTE Technology, one of the top global manufacturers of motherboards, graphics cards, and hardware solutions, today announced the AORUS XTREME Gen4 AIC SSD with 28 GB/s ultra-fast access speed. This high capacity and extreme performance SSD builds in eight 4 TB 2nd generation PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSDs with PHISON PS5018-E18 controller, AORUS XTREME Gen4 AIC SSD offers ultra-high transfer bandwidth and superior access performance through RAID configuration.

The AORUS Xtreme Gen4 AIC SSD features ultimate thermal design with large aluminium finned heatsink, M.2 baseplate for passive cooling, 10 temperature sensors and active dual-fan heat dissipation design, while the exclusive SSD Tool Box offers users real-time status and temperature monitoring of SSDs. GIGABYTE AORUS Storage Manager allows users to configure a RAID array with a single click and 3-phase fan speed adjustment, which enabling AORUS XTREME Gen4 AIC SSD to keep cool and performing at a high level. It promises a non-throttling experience for users who phase for high capacity and breakthrough performance.

Intel has partnered with Sabrent to ship NUC 11 Pro Mini PCs with pre-installed Sabrent Rocket 4.0 M.2 NVMe SSDs, on the NUC11TNKv7. The drives feature Toshiba 96-layer 3D TLC NAND flash, and are capable of up to 5 GB/s sequential reads, and up to 4.4 GB/s sequential writes, taking advantage of the PCI-Express 4.0 x4 host interface. On machines with PCIe Gen 3, the drives can attain up to 3.4 GB/s reads, with up to 2.75 GB/s writes. Lower models of the pre-built NUC 11 Pro feature Transcend TS512GMTS430S M.2 SATA drives.

Kingston, the flash memory affiliate of Kingston Technology Company, Inc., a world leader in memory products and technology solutions, today announced the availability of the DC1500M, a U.2 data center NVMe PCIe SSD for mixed-use workloads. Leveraging a high-performance Gen 3.0 x4 PCIe NVMe design, the DC1500M delivers predictable random IO performance as well as predictable latencies over a wide range of workloads.

"DC1500M adds support for multiple namespaces making it ideal for environments including virtualisation and web hosting," said Tony Hollingsbee, SSD business manager, Kingston EMEA. "From high-performance cloud services, media capture and transport to a range of big-data applications, DC1500M sets the standard for applications where QoS and predictability of performance are paramount. Data centers need drives that are reliable, have serviceable form factors and are equipped with the enterprise-grade features that make it easier to maintain SLAs."

Microsoft's ambitious DirectStorage API, which attempts to solve the storage bottleneck in games, facilitating faster game load times, has been walled off from Windows 10. To use it, games now require the new Windows 11 operating system, and a GPU that supports the DirectX 12 Ultimate API. This limits the GPU choices to NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 20-series, RTX 30-series, and AMD's Radeon RX 6000 series.

The other hardware requirement intrinsic to DirectStorage is for you to use an NVMe SSD that uses Microsoft's "Standard NVM Express Controller" driver that's included with Windows. Another hardware requirement that's baffling is that the SSD should be at least 1 TB in capacity. DirectStorage facilitates compressed game asset data to be transferred directly to the GPU from the storage device, and for it to be uncompressed by the GPU (using compute shaders), so there is a significant reduction in storage sub-system latency, and CPU utilization, impacting game load times.

TEAMGROUP unveils the T-FORCE CARDEA Z44Q PCIe 4.0 SSD with two patented cooling modules, QLC Flash, and PCIe Gen 4x4 interface that supports the latest NVMe 1.4 standard and provides a massive capacity of up to 4 TB. Consumers can opt for different specs based on their preference and needs, and gamers can have everything from cooling, performance, and capacity in one SSD, and explore the infinite possibilities with T-FORCE CARDEA Z44Q PCIe4.0 SSD.

Equipped with QLC Flash, the T-FORCE CARDEA Z44Q PCIe 4.0 SSD supports the latest PCIe Gen 4x4 interface and NVMe 1.4 standards, meaning that it is compatible with PCIe Gen3.0 interface while offering up to 4 TB in capacity. The read/write speeds reach up to 5,000/4,000 MB/s, which are 10 times faster than traditional SSDs, making it a pioneer for the new TB M.2 era and the best choice for players in terms of cooling, speed, and capacity.

Seagate today announced its newest PC gaming SSD, the FireCuda 530, at the company's inaugural virtual gaming event, SG21. The new drive offers gamers the latest PCIe Gen4 NVMe SSD technology and the fastest performance from the company's line of PC gaming storage products - bringing speed, endurance, and high capacity to the peak of PC performance.

Delivering sequential read speeds of up to 7300 MB/s, the FireCuda 530 catalyzes PCIe Gen4 power with transfer rates up to two times faster than PCIe Gen3 SSDs and 12 times faster than SATA-based SSDs. The drive is built with a Seagate-validated E18 controller and the latest 3D TLC NAND to provide the most advanced speed and durability for PC gaming. Seagate also offers a minimalist heatsink option, specially designed by EKWB that swaps out cooling fins for a more massive, high-grade aluminium block with a finely textured finish, maximizing cooling.

Western Digital is reportedly preparing a firmware update for its WD Black SN850 M.2 NVMe SSD that restores the drive's write performance levels on PCs based on the AMD X570 platform. This problem is localized to X570, specifically to when the drive is installed on an M.2 NVMe slot that is wired to the X570 chipset. Drives that are installed on the slot that's directly wired to the Ryzen processor perform as expected (Ryzen 3000 "Matisse" and Ryzen 5000 "Vermeer").

The drive performs as intended on AMD B550, as well as Intel platforms that support PCIe Gen 4, as the only Gen 4-capable M.2 slots are the ones directly wired to the processor. Western Digital localized the problem to certain X570 motherboards that have their PCIe maximum payload size (MPS) value set at 128 bytes. This dictates the maximum transaction layer packet (TLP) that goes through the PCIe controller, and a low MPS value cripples performance. The firmware update by Western Digital possibly works around this limitation. The company is expected to release the firmware update by 12 July, 2021.

When solid state drives were first manufactured, they were designed using form factors similar to hard disk drives. But, because they are made from flash memory, SSDs can be designed in various form factors that best take advantage of the unique needs of respective client, hyperscale and enterprise compute environments. The form factor that is best suited for rack storage over the current industry-standard M.2 drive is the E1.S, according to experts at Phison Electronics Corp., a global leader in NAND flash controller integrated circuits and storage solutions. Phison's own E1.S SSD with the world's highest capacity storage is coming to market soon.

When first released, the M.2 form factor was popular in hyper-scale data centers due to its small size, low-cost structure, flexibility and scalability of multiple drives per server. But the M.2 form factor is not hot-pluggable and typically a challenge to service with the SSD installed on an internal motherboard socket. The M.2 form factor dimensions are also not ideal to fully utilize the space available in a 1U rack height (1.75") for storage capacity.

Sabrent today released a firmware update for its Rocket 4 Plus M.2 NVMe SSD. The new version 1.2 firmware addresses several caching and performance issues with initial batches of the drive that shipped with the version 1.1 firmware. The latest batches should come with version 1.2 firmware pre-installed. The update is released as a click-to-run drive firmware updater that works from Windows. The company recommends those with version 1.1 firmware to update their drives. Usual precautions, such as a data backup, as well as power backup during the firmware update, are recommended.

DOWNLOAD: Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus version 1.2 Firmware Update

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, and hardware solutions announced the launch of the newest X570S AORUS series motherboards primed to unleash the potential of the recently released AMD Ryzen 5000 series desktop processors with enhanced DrMOS direct power design and 6 layers and above ultra cool PCB for higher stability. The whole series equip with a brand new passive chipset thermal design and up to four sets of high thermal efficiency armored PCIe 4.0 M.2 slots with M.2 Thermal Guard III, which ensures effective heat dissipation of full operation on chipsets and 7000 MB/s high speed operating on NVMe SSDs without throttling by overheating. The brand new X570S series motherboards kick off the PCIe 4.0 era with extensive feature sets.

The flagship X570S AORUS MASTER motherboard is fitted with a 16-phase direct digital power design for the more solid power management and optimized overclocking performance. With advanced heat dissipation technology of Fins-Array II Stacked Fins Heatsink, Direct Touch Heatpipe II and Smart Fan 6, GIGIABYTE X570S motherboards can maintain cool and high performance under high loading operation. Furthermore, GIGABYTE Active OC Tuner technology integrated in select motherboards to provide a more flexible performance improvement.

QNAP Systems, Inc., a leading computing, networking and storage solution innovator, launched its first dual-port 100 GbE network expansion card - the QXG-100G2SF-E810. Featuring an Intel Ethernet Controller E810 and PCIe 4.0, the QXG-100G2SF-E810 provides up to 100 Gbps bandwidth for QNAP NAS or Windows /Linux devices to attain optimal performance in a wide range of applications and services. It is a perfect match for unleashing the full potential of QNAP's TS-h2490FU NVMe all-flash storage that can be paired with high-speed switches for high-performance, low-latency data centers.

"The QXG-100G2SF-E810 redefines ultra-high-speed networking with 100 Gbps connectivity," said Stanley Huang, Product Manager of QNAP, adding "Users can also configure network redundancy to achieve network failover via the switch for continuous service and high availability." The QXG-100G2SF-E810 is ideal for I/O-intensive and latency-sensitive virtualization and data centers, and boosts network efficiency with the support of iWARP/RDMA and SR-IOV (coming soon). When used in a server or workstation, it supports Windows Server (2016 or 2019) and Linux platforms (Drivers required).

SMART Modular Technologies, a SMART Global Holdings, Inc. company (Nasdaq: SGH) and a global leader in memory solutions, solid-state drives and hybrid storage products, today announced the new T5EN PCIe/NVMe M.2 2280 and U.2 flash drives for aerospace, defense and industrial applications that require durable, rugged, and secure memory storage.

Extending SMART Modular's T5E family of SSDs, the T5EN offers capacities up to 8 TB (M.2 up to 4 TB) Gen 3 x4 performance using 3D TLC flash with pSLC support. "With the growing trend toward NVMe in embedded systems, developing the T5EN was a natural progression and complement to our existing product line," explains Mike Guzzo, senior director of SMART Modular's RUGGED line of Flash products. Guzzo adds, "Fundamentally, the T5EN includes all of the existing advantages of the T5E, such as very high capacity, superior reliability for harsh environmental extremes, military erase algorithm support, as well as 256 bit encryption. These advantages equate to a higher level of protection for mission-critical data and instill confidence in the overall reliability of the data storage devices that support high-performing NVMe architectures."

Foremay, Inc., a leader of technology innovation in rugged solid state drives and one of the world's Top SSD companies, announced today its EC188 series rugged VPX SSD drives. These military and aerospace grade VPX SSDs offer the world's largest capacity with each single card up to 16 TB. Furthermore, Foremay's rugged VPX SSD drives bring unprecedented performance with read/write speeds up to 6.5/6.2 GB/s, and random read/write IOPS at 4KB up to 550K/600K. These cutting-edge features help defense and aerospace system builders design their next generation systems for air, space, ground (including sand, mud & wetland), and underwater applications.

The COVID-19 pandemic did not stop our sustained pace in seeking continuing excellence in technology innovation in rugged solid state drives," said Dr. Jack Winters, Foremay's CTO and co-founder. "Our rugged VPX SSDs were created during a harsh economic environment, and they will serve well in harsh deployment environments."

KINGMAX today unveiled the AX448 line of M.2 NVMe SSDs. These drives come in high capacity variants of 1 TB, 2 TB, and 4 TB, and take advantage of the PCI-Express 4.0 x4 host interface, and NVMe protocol. The 1 TB variant offers sequential transfer rates of up to 4500 MB/s reads, with up to 1750 MB/s writes. The 2 TB variant does up to 4700 MB/s reads, with up to 3300 MB/s writes. The 4 TB variant tops the charts with up to 4800 MB/s reads, and up to 3450 MB/s writes, at least on paper. Endurance of the three variants is rated at up to 200 TBW for the 1 TB variant, up to 400 TBW for the 2 TB variant, and up to 800 TBW for the 4 TB variant. The drive is likely using QLC NAND flash, given these endurance numbers, although the company didn't mention the controller or NAND flash type.

Seagate has recently released a limited edition version of their FireCuda 520 PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD inspired by Cyberpunk 2077. Seagate has designed a custom Cyberpunk 2077 heatsink and box for the drive and will only produce 2077 units. The custom neon yellow heatsink includes the Cyberpunk logo and addressable 5 V RGB lighting. Seagate claims that the large aluminium heatsink can reduce SSD temperatures by up to 22°C (71°F) however due to its size you may encounter mounting issues on some motherboards.

The drive is available in a single 1 TB capacity and features the same Phison PS5016-E16 SSD controller paired with Toshiba 96L TLC NAND as the normal FireCuda 520. The SSD also features impressive performance numbers with advertised read and write speeds up to 5,000 MBps and 4,400 MBps respectively while endurance is rated at 1,800 TBW. The drive includes a 5-year warranty from Seagate and is now available to purchase from select retailers worldwide with prices ranging from 280 USD - 310 USD which is significantly more than the FireCuda 520 1 TB RRP of 190 USD.

Championing the Zoned Storage initiative, Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ: WDC) today announced at its Flash Perspective Event that it has teamed with Percona, a leader in open source database software and services, to unlock the performance benefits of Western Digital's Ultrastar DC ZN540 NVMe ZNS SSDs for MySQL Server, one of the most popular open-source transactional databases in the world.

"Many of our customers are using MySQL as a database for their online data services and this new partnership with Percona will allow customers to unlock the full capabilities of our innovative ZNS flash solutions. With our contributions to the Linux and MySQL open-source communities, MySQL users will be able to install the Percona Server for MySQL and get out-of-the-box support for Western Digital Zoned Namespaces SSDs," said Wim De Wispelaere, vice president, Strategic Initiatives at Western Digital. "This demonstrates our continued commitment to deliver innovative data center infrastructure products and to build our partnership ecosystem to make those easy to implement by our customers."

(Update May 6: Added PNY's official word on the endurance changes)

PNY has quietly reduced the endurance rating (TBW - TeraBytes Written) for its XLR8 CS3030 M.2 NVMe SSD by almost 80%. The "quietly" comes from the fact that the company only deemed it necessary to update the product specifications on their website, and didn't announce any such changes via press release or any other means. Hence, prospective buyers who might look to launch reviews of this NVMe SSD so as to make a decision regarding its purchase may be led astray by the (then) quoted TBW ratings, which are actually no longer relevant for samples of this SSD - at the very least for any model manufactured post-specifications change on their website.

There are no other changes to specifications - neither in capacity, nor in Read/Write speeds. However, endurance has taken an almost 80% dive in the worst case scenarios - those of the 2 TB and 500 GB capacities, which saw reductions from their respective 3,115 TBW and 800 TBW down to 660 TBW and 170 TBW - or 78.8%. The 1 TB capacity takes a 78.4% dive in endurance (1665 TBW down to 360 TBW) and the 250 GB model is the least affected one, whilst still losing out 55.3% of its rated endurance (380 TBW down to 170 TBW).

The EUROCOM Sky Z7 R2 has unmatched levels of upgradeability through the Mobile Supercomputer's modular slots, allowing the safe removal and replacement of important hardware components such as the laptop's CPU, GPU, Memory, Storage, LCD, and more. Having slots or sockets allows the Sky Z7 R2 to customized, upgraded and modified with compatible parts- giving this Eurocom Mobile Supercomputer the ability to run the most demanding applications and perform high level tasks for a very long time. As newer and improved technologies emerge within the same chipset, the EUROCOM Sky Z7 R2's hardware components such as the CPU, GPU, RAM, storage, LCD, to name a few, can all be upgraded and replaced relatively easy in order to acquire more power as desired. Having modular components greatly increases the laptop's lifespan for many years and prevents the cycle of having to buy new laptops every few years, which can be the case with most laptops that have non-upgradeable components.

Eurocom's Sky Z7 R2 is one of the few laptops that utilizes modular GPU technology based on the MXM 3.1 version 2.0 socket technology. This means the Mobile Supercomputer's high performance GPU can be replaced at any time as long as it is compatible in the chipset, allowing the EUROCOM Sky Z7 R2 to perform at an extremely high level throughout the duration of its long lifespan. This Mobile Supercomputer can be configured up to the GeForce RTX 3080 which delivers twice the performance as its previous generation counterpart (GeForce RTX 2080). The EUROCOM Sky Z7 R2 offers seamless and stutter-free 4K gaming at 60 FPS, as well as 8K video editing, rendering and gaming.

MAINGEAR—an award-winning PC system integrator of custom gaming desktops, notebooks, and workstations—today announced that the new NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti is now available to configure within MAINGEAR's product line of award-winning custom gaming desktop PCs and workstations.

Powered by Ampere—NVIDIA's 2nd gen RTX architecture, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti features enhanced performance for a more immersive, jaw-dropping gaming experience. NVIDIA's 2nd gen RTX architecture delivers real-time raytracing effects—including shadows, reflections, and Ambient Occlusion (AO)—allowing the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti to take gaming graphics to new heights with ultra-realistic 3D visuals. The groundbreaking NVIDIA DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) 2.0 AI technology utilizes Tensor Core AI processors to boost frame rates while producing sharp, uncompromised visual fidelity comparable to high native resolutions.

NVM Express, Inc. today announced the release of the NVM Express (NVMe ) 2.0 family of specifications. The restructured NVMe 2.0 specifications allow for faster and simpler development of NVMe solutions to support the increasingly diverse NVMe device environment, now including Hard Disk Drives (HDDs). The extensibility of the specifications encourages the development of independent command sets like Zoned Namespaces (ZNS) and Key Value (KV) while enabling support for the various underlying transport protocols common to NVMe and NVMe over Fabrics (NVMe-oF ) technologies.

"NVMe technology is the leading interface for SSDs, with overall worldwide enterprise SSD capacity expected to grow at a 43% compound annual growth rate into 2024," said Jeff Janukowicz, research vice president, IDC. "NVMe architecture is designed for future SSD development and form factors, as we enter a new era in hyperscale and enterprise computing that drives digital transformation."

QNAP, today launched the high-performance 6-bay TVS-672X and 8-bay TVS-872X 10 GbE NAS with Intel Core i3 processors. With expandable storage capacity and feature-rich apps, both models support M.2 NVMe SSD cache acceleration, PCIe expansion, multi-cloud backup, 4K@60Hz HDMI output, real-time transcoding, support for Azure Active Directory Domain Services (Azure AD DS), and many more features to enhance the workflows and productivity of small and medium businesses.

The TVS-x72X series features an Intel Core i3-8100T quad-core 3.1 GHz processor with dual-channel DDR4 memory (upgradable to 64 GB). It provides two Gigabit and one 10GBASE-T RJ45 (10G/5G/2.5G/1G/100M) port to increase virtual machine performance, intensive file access, high-speed backup/restore, and media file transfer. Four USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) ports also allow compatibility with newer, faster USB drives/expansion enclosures for transferring large media files. The TVS-x72X series is perfectly suited for use with QNAP's budget-friendly managed and unmanaged 10 GbE switches for high-speed, secure, and scalable network environments.

Micron, the US-based manufacturer of various kinds of memory technologies, has today announced some quite interesting products at its Computex 2021 keynote. For starters, the company has announced a new portfolio of products based on 176-layer NAND. There are currently two products listed that use this new technology and those are the Micron 3400 and 2450 M.2 NVMe SSDs. Based on the PCIe 4.0 interface, the 2450 SSD lineup is designed as a value-oriented solution that comes in M.2-2280, M.2-2242, and M.2-2230 sizes. It ranges from 256 GB to 1 TB in capacities, which are supposed to be priced as a value purchase.

In a contrast, the 3400 SSD is M.2-2280 design, meant for only the highest performance. The sequential read speeds go up to 6600 MB/s, while the sequential writes go up to 5000 MB/s (in the case of the 2 TB model). Capacities range from 512 GB to 2 TB and only the 1 TB and 2 TB variants have the 5000 MB/s write speeds, while the 512 GB version is capped at 3600 MB/s speed. Both SSD models are featuring a heat spreader on top of NAND chips and spot an in-house and Micron-developed NVMe 1.4 SSD controller. However, Micron does note that the company is free to use any 3rd party SSD controller as we are deep in component shortages with high demand for SSDs. You can get an in-depth look at the 2450 and 3400 M.2 SSDs from Micron's website.

Sabrent, which has become one of the go-tos in the world of Chia plotting and farming due to the price/performance/endurance ratio of its Rocket NVMe SSDs, has announced a new series of products specifically developed and marketed towards the Chia plotting crowds. Their new Plotripper SSDs (which drink from a quite obvious reference to AMD's Threadripper) have been designed to endure the harsh writing cycles for Chia plotting. Plotting is the process wherein you calculate the cryptographically-generated plots, and which can incur SSDs on a 1.6 TB write workload per 101 GB plot. The finished plot is then usually offloaded to a slow, capacious storage device (such as an external HDD) where it lays, awaiting for network challenges ad-infinitum. At time of writing, the total storage committed to Chia farming is estimated at 14 Exabytes.

The new Plotripper products are available in a mainstream and a "pro" variant. The mainstream Sabrent Plotripper offers a 10,000 TBW for its 2 TB capacity, which is already one of the highest available in consumer drives (until now). The Pro versions, however, promise 27,000 TBW of endurance for its 1 Tb capacity, and a staggering 54,000 TBW endurance rating for the 2 TB one. No word on pricing as of now, but these are sure to become some of the most sought-after SSDs for anyone planning to enter the Chia "farming" scene - and will definitely be priced accordingly.

Today at its Flash Perspective event, Western Digital Corp. unveiled three new SSDs for its WD_BLACK portfolio of products, providing gamers around the world with fast, high-performance storage solutions to upgrade their PC and next-gen console gaming experience.

"Our WD_BLACK brand delivers a clear and simple promise to gamers - fast and reliable storage that enhances their gameplay," said Rob Soderbery, executive vice president and GM, Flash Business, Western Digital. "With today's new products, the WD_BLACK portfolio has diverse flash-powered solutions so that every gamer - whether they're just starting out or more advanced - can explore the rich worlds of today's most inventive games."