SMART Modular Technologies, Inc., a leader in specialty memory, storage and hybrid solutions including memory modules, Flash memory cards and other solid state storage products, today announced sample availability of its 32GB DDR4 NVDIMM-N, making it the highest density DDR4 NVDIMM-N module available in the industry. SMART will begin sampling at the end of August 2016. The new 32GB density significantly improves application performance making it ideal in server and storage environments.

NVDIMMs transform main DRAM memory into persistent memory, resulting in higher performing servers by allowing big data, transaction logs, and other latency and performance-sensitive data to be accessed at DRAM speeds without the risk of data loss. Rather than reading and writing data or transaction logs to traditional storage media such as SATA SSDs, PCIe NVMe SSDs, or HDDs, data can be written to and read from main memory without the risk of data loss due to any catastrophic power loss event. Server performance as measured by lower latency, higher IOPS, and greater endurance, all dramatically increase with the integration of NVDIMMs.

Seagate Technology plc, today unveiled a first-of-its kind, high-capacity drive that can help data centers more easily accommodate exponential data growth, while still maintaining high levels of computing power and performance. The two terabyte (TB) version of its Nytro XM1440 M.2 non-volatile memory express (NVMe) Solid State Drive (SSD) is the highest-capacity, enterprise-class M.2 NVMe SSD available today, making it well suited for demanding enterprise applications that require fast data access, capacity and processing.

As the latest addition to the Seagate Nytro SSD product line, the 2TB Nytro XM1440 M.2 NVMe SSD is designed to accelerate enterprise data access, with twice the density of prior M.2 NVMe environments. Optimized for read-intensive and mixed workloads, its high capacity and small form factor are ideal for today's cloud and enterprise data center environments, where speed and processing power in a small footprint are increasingly important. The drive can help meet the needs of demanding enterprise applications including online transaction processing, high-performance computing and big data analytics. It also helps manage storage growth with deduplication and compression, allowing data centers to easily create more virtual machines instantly without having to add additional servers - enabling today's data centers to more easily manage their ever-expanding storage growth.

MSI, world leading in gaming hardware design, is thrilled to announce two new M-ATX GAMING motherboards, the B150M BAZOOKA PLUS & B150M MORTAR ARCTIC. With Turbo M.2 (32 Gb/s, Gen3 x4) and USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-C offering more connectivity options and a plethora of features improving your gameexperience, these new Micro-ATX motherboards are designed for gamers looking for a small gaming PC while getting the best performance & gaming experience. DDR4 Boost technology is available, providing maximum performance and stability while also offering improved memory compatibility. Audio Boost and GAMING LAN ensure you have upper hand on your enemies on the battlefield, ready to finish on top.

The B150M MORTAR ARCTIC is not only a better version of the regular MORTAR model, this special edition comes in a full white PCB design and features a stunning Arctic camouflage styled heatsink and IO cover design. With great attention to detail, the B150M MORTAR ARCTIC not only delivers in terms of specs & features, but manages to bring something truly unique to the B150 motherboard segment. Featuring a new design with a stronger heatsink, more black & white colors, and upgraded specs such as Steel Armor, Turbo M.2 and USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-C, the new BAZOOKA PLUS motherboard is ready to set a new standard in the B150 Micro-ATX gaming motherboard segment. With Audio Boost & GAMING LAN offering dedicated gaming features tailored to the most demanding gamers, the BAZOOKA PLUS is sure to satisfy any gamer.

Intel's first client SSDs based on the company's revolutionary 3D XPoint memory technology, under the company's new Optane brand, could debut alongside the company's 7th generation Core "Kaby Lake" processors (late-2016), according to a leaked company slide. According to the slide, the company could launch at least three Optane branded SSD lines in either late Q4-2016 or Q1-2017, addressing three distinct market segments.

Leading the pack is the Optane "Mansion Beach" SSD, positioned in the upper-end of the "Enthusiast Workstation" segment, with PCIe gen 3.0 x4 interface, and NVMe support. A notch underneath this is the Optane "Brighton Beach" series, featuring PCIe gen 3.0 x2 interface. Interestingly, Intel doesn't have a mainstream SSD based on the 3D XPoint tech around this time, yet has an entry-level "System Accelerator" segment drive codenamed "Stony Beach," which also takes advantage of PCIe gen 3.0 x2. This drive comes in M.2 form-factor. Some time later (2018?), the company plans to launch a single-chip successor to "Stony Beach," codenamed "Carson Beach."

NVM Express, Inc., the organization that developed the NVM Express specification for accessing solid-state storage technologies on a PCI Express (PCIe) bus, today announced the release of its NVM Express over Fabrics specification for accessing storage devices and systems over Ethernet, Fibre Channel, InfiniBand, and other network fabrics. NVM Express, Inc. has also recently published Version 1.0 of the NVM Express Management Interface specification.

The NVM Express over Fabrics specification extends the benefits of NVM Express beyond rack-scale architectures to datacenter-wide Fabric architectures supporting thousands of solid state devices, where using a fabric as an attach point to the host is more appropriate than using PCI Express.

Storage technologies are quickly innovating to reduce latency, providing a significant performance improvement for today's cutting-edge applications. NVM Express (NVMe) is a significant step forward in high-performance, low-latency storage I/O and reduction of I/O stack overheads. NVMe over Fabrics is an essential technology to extend NVMe storage connectivity such that NVMe-enabled hosts can access NVMe-enabled storage anywhere in the datacenter, ensuring that the performance of today's and tomorrow's solid state storage technologies is fully unlocked, and that the network itself is not a bottleneck.

Patriot Memory unveiled its flagship Hellfire line of SSDs, which take advantage of 32 Gb/s PCIe host interface, and the NVMe protocol, to belt out transfer rates that are 5-6 times those of SATA 6 Gb/s drives. The drives come in M.2-2280 and PCIe add-on card form-factors. Both drives combine Phison 5007 PCIe SSD processors with MLC NAND flash memory. The drives take advantage of the latest NVMe 1.2 protocol.

The add-on card variant comes in capacities of 480 GB and 960 GB, while the M.2-2280 variant comes in 240 GB, 480 GB, and 960 GB. Both drives feature 512 MB DDR3 DRAM caches. The add-on card variant offers sequential speeds of up to 3,000 MB/s reads with up to 2,200 MB/s writes, with up to 150,000 IOPS 4K random-reads, with up to 230,000 IOPS 4K random writes. The M.2-2280 variant offers the same sequential speeds, but with up to 116,000 IOPS 4K random reads, and up to 210,000 IOPS 4K random writes.

Crucial is ready with a high-performance SSD in the M.2 form-factor, which leverages 32 Gb/s PCI-Express, and the NVMe protocol to belt out four to five times the read/write performance of SATA 6 Gb/s SSDs. The new Crucial Ballistix TX3 line of M.2 SSDs features the Silicon Motion SMI2260H processor, mated to Crucial-made 3D (stacked) MLC NAND flash, cushioned by a large DRAM cache. A similar setup is found on the ADATA SX8000NP, and the sequential speeds of that drive are rated at up to 2,000 MB/s reads, with up to 800 MB/s writes.

ECS Elitegroup showed off its latest flagship socket LGA1151 board, the Z170-Lightsaber, likely designed for its RGB LED product styling. The board features a 14-phase VRM powering the CPU, and expansion slots that include two PCI-Express 3.0 x16 (x8/x8 when both are populated), a third x16 (electrical x4) slot wired to the PCH, and four other x1 slots. Storage connectivity includes a 32 Gb/s M.2 with NVMe boot support, 16 Gb/s SATA-Express, and six SATA 6 Gb/s ports.

The modern connectivity on offer include two USB 3.1 ports (apparently both of them are type-A), six other USB 3.0 ports, DisplayPort 1.2 and HDMI 1.4, a gigabit Ethernet interface driven by Killer E2400 controller, and an audio solution with a 115 dBA SNR CODEC, ground-layer isolation, electrolytic capacitors, and a user-replaceable OPAMP. Overclocker friendly features include dual-BIOS with an on-demand BIOS backup/restore button, three performance preset buttons, power/reboot buttons, and a 3-digit POST error readout.

ADATA showed off its flagship M.2 PCIe SSD lineup, the SX8000NP. These drives will target a price-performance sweetspot between the fastest SATA drives, and the enthusiast M.2 ones. They're driven by a Silicon Motion SMI2260H processor, wired to 3D (stacked) MLC NAND flash memory. This drive takes advantage of PCI-Express 3.0 x4, and the new NVMe protocol, to serve up sequential transfer rates of up to 2,000 MB/s reads, with up to 800 MB/s writes. ADATA put up its own CDM performance numbers for a 480 GB variant of this drive.

Here's the first picture of MSI's next premium socket LGA2011v3 motherboard targeted at overclockers, the X99A XPower Gaming Titanium. Likely positioned a notch below the X99A GODLIKE Gaming Carbon, and a successor to the X99A XPower AC, this board features MSI's signature metallic silver PCB, mated with silvery heatsinks denoting "Titanium." This scheme caught up with the company's recent Z170A XPower and Z170A MPower Gaming Titanium boards. The board is packed to the brim with the company's latest motherboard innovations, such as reinforcement braces along the eight DDR4 DIMM slots, five PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots (which are ready for 4-way multi-GPU solutions), and a host of modern connectivity options, such as 32 Gb/s U.2, USB 3.1 (including type-A and type-C ports), and a 32 Gb/s M.2-22110 slot with NVMe boot support. The board comes with out-of-the-box support for Core i7 "Broadwell-E" processors.

MSI's drive to "carbonate" its Gaming Pro motherboard lineup is extending to the AMD platform, with the 970A Gaming Pro Carbon. Designed with the latest features available to this platform, this board resembles the 970A Gaming Pro, with the notable exception of faux carbon fiber patterns on the metal stickers heading the chipset and VRM heatsinks. You get quite a few modern features on this AMD 970+SB950 chipset based motherboard, such as dual-channel DDR3-2133 support out of the box, 20 Gb/s M.2 with NVMe support, two USB 3.1 ports (one each of type-A and type-C), and Intel gigabit Ethernet.

GALAX is preparing an onslaught for the enthusiast consumer SSD space, with the new Hall of Fame (HOF) NVMe Series. Spanning three key enthusiast form-factors, namely 2.5-inch with 32 Gb/s U.2 interface; 32 Gb/s M.2, and PCI-Express 3.0 x4 add-on card; the lineup sees the company use a very powerful custom controller to churn up sequential transfer rates of 2.5 TB/s. To begin with, the 2.5-inch with U.2 form-factor drive comes in 512 GB and 1 TB sizes, offering speeds of up to 2500 MB/s reads, with 1200 MB/s writes, 300,000 IOPS 4K random reads, and 250,000 IOPS 4K random writes.

The M.2 lineup comes in two module lengths - the more common M.2-2280, and the longer M.2-22110. The M.2-2280 drive comes in capacities of up to 512 GB, and offers slightly higher write-performance of up to 1350 MB/s, while the M.2-22110 drive comes in capacities of up to 1 TB, offering the same transfer rates as the U.2 drives. Then there's the PCIe add-on card form-factor drive for those without either M.2 or U.2, which comes in sizes of up to 1 TB, and has the same performance as the U.2 drives. There's also a 2.5-inch SATA 6 Gb/s drive in this series, but its specs don't hold our attention for too long.

In addition to the Z170-Designare and the X99-Designare, GIGABYTE unveiled the more value-oriented H170-Designare, establishing a common feature-set that constitutes the "Designare" branding. To begin with, the H170-Designare covers all the basics, with a 6-phase CPU VRM, reinforced DDR4 DIMM slots, reinforced PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots (one runs at full-time x16, and one runs at x4), with four additional PCIe 3.0 x1 slots.

Things get interesting with the connectivity that's on offer. The board features two 10 Gb/s USB 3.1 ports driven by an Intel-made controller (one each of type-A and type-C), with 100W power delivery. The board also features an Intel I219-V gigabit Ethernet controller with cFosSpeed support. The most striking features are with its storage connectivity. You get a 32 Gb/s U.2 port, a 32 Gb/s M.2 port, and a PCI-Express 3.0 x4 slot, all of which feature NVMe booting support; with BIOS-level support for 3-drive RAID 0 arrays using three Intel SSD 750 drives.

GIGABYTE showed off the Z170X-Designare motherboard. The company's second Designare series motherboard after the X99-Designare, this board brings some of GIGABYTE's latest board design and component elements to the LGA1151 platform, such as reinforced memory and PCIe slots; and the latest storage connectivity options. Its notable features include USB 3.1 with 100W power delivery over type-A and type-C ports; a 32 Gb/s U.2 port, an extra-long M.2 22110 slot with 32 Gb/s bandwidth and NVMe support; and the company's latest UltraDurable tech, including anti-sulphur resistors, anti-rust rear I/O.

Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc., a committed technology leader, today announces the Toshiba OCZ RD400 Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) solid state drive (SSD) series. Designed for cutting-edge notebooks and PCs, the Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe) RD400 series provides improved storage bandwidth and enhanced latency resulting in a fast and responsive computing experience.

Unlike Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) based SSDs utilizing the legacy Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI) protocol, NVMe is the first storage protocol designed with SSDs in mind making the RD400 series one of Toshiba's fastest consumer SSDs to date. Additionally, the RD400's PCIe Gen3 x4 lane interface shatters the traditional SATA bottleneck by delivering over four times the performance of SATA SSDs. The RD400 series features sequential read/write speeds of up to 2,600 MB/s and 1,600 MB/s and random read/write performance of up to 210,000 and 140,000 4KiB input/output operations per second (IOPS).

At its PAX East booth, GIGABYTE showed off three of its upcoming socket LGA2011v3 motherboards, which it plans to launch alongside Intel's Core i7 "Broadwell-E" processors. The three include the X99-Designare EX, the X99 Phoenix SLI G1, and the X99 Ultra Gaming (pictured in that order). The running theme on these boards, apart from their design-language that's similar to GIGABYTE's Z170-series motherboards, is 32 Gb/s M.2 slots, even U.2 slots in some cases, reinforced PCIe - and in some cases even memory - slots, and USB 3.1, besides out of the box support for the latest CPUs.

The X99-Designare EX features five PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots, from which three can function at x16 speed and two U.2 ports. GIGABYTE is probably betting on NVMe SSDs with U.2 connectors heavily. The X99 Phoenix SLI G1 appears to be a slightly more toned down board in terms of features. It features just four PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots, wireless networking, and just one U.2 connector. Unlike the Designare, which is slotted in the company's mainline Ultra Durable lineup, this board is the company's new G1 Gaming offering for this platform. Then there's the X99 Ultra Gaming. This board is based on the same PCB as the X99 Phoenix SLI G1, lacks wireless networking, but features reinforced memory slots. The three boards could launch alongside Intel's new CPUs.

At Acer's next@acer Global Press Conference in New York today, the company announced new notebooks, desktops and monitors in its powerful and award-winning Predator gaming line. The new Predator 17 X notebook and compact Predator G1 desktop include top-of-the line computing technology and are NVIDIA GeForce VR-Ready, as well as ready for virtual reality (VR) devices from Oculus, HTC Vive, OSVR and StarVR.

"The new Acer Predator gaming systems are designed to deliver the ultimate gaming and virtual reality experiences for our customers," said James Lin, general manager, Consumer Notebooks, IT Products Business, Acer Inc. "Virtual reality offers unlimited new possibilities, not just in gaming, but across a wide variety of industries and applications in professional environments. As we showed today in our VR partner demos, Acer intends to give our customers the tools they need for both playing and working in this new digital world."

MAINGEAR, an award-winning PC system integrator of custom solutions, introduces the newest mobile powerhouse with the Pulse 15 Pro, its newest workstation laptop packed with an arsenal of cutting-edge components, including Intel's 6th Generation Core i7 or Xeon processors, NVIDIA Quadro M2000 graphics card and blazingly fast Samsung 950 Pro NVMe M.2 SSDs.

"The Pulse 15 Pro will offer even the most demanding creative professional, with incredible processing power, blazing speed and impeccable graphics performance," said Wallace Santos, CEO and Founder of MAINGEAR. "With 4K video so easily accessible, even some of the most powerful machines can 'hiccup' when rendering it, however we've built this new workstation to effortlessly power through it."

ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) today announced GT51CA, a powerful gaming desktop powered by a 6th-generation Intel Core i7 processor, with Turbo Gear for one-click full-core CPU overclocking to 4.6 GHz without having to reboot. In addition, ROG GT51CA supports up to NVIDIA GeForce GTX Titan X graphics with 2-Way SLI for smooth, stutter-free 4K UHD gaming at over 60 frames per second. It also features up to two 512 GB NVMe PCIe RAID 0 SSDs for data access speeds of up to 3.2 Gbps - up to six times (6X) faster than SATA SSDs. ROG GT51CA's DDR4 2133 MHz memory has been even overclocked to 2800 MHz for faster boot-up and game load times.

Effective cooling for stable marathon gaming sessions
ROG GT51CA delivers efficient heat management for stable high-performance gaming sessions. It boasts a multi-zone thermal solution that lowers the system's internal temperatures by up to 31%, even during heavy-load marathon gaming sessions.

It features the liquid-cooled Hydro Overclocking System for the CPU and dedicated air channels to draw cool air into the chassis for the graphics card. In addition, its power supply unit - situated in the bottom corner of the chassis - also has its own isolated airflow design for cooling.

AKITIO today unveiled the Thunder3 PCIe SSD, the industry's fastest external storage solution designed to unleash the groundbreaking speed and simplicity of Thunderbolt 3. Developed for high-speed transfer of large files, the Thunder3 PCIe SSD is the only product on the market today that combines the full PCIe Gen3 x4 bandwidth of Intel's 750 NVMe SSD with Thunderbolt 3's 40 Gbps port, giving an unprecedented performance of 2500 MB/s (2.5 Gigabytes per second) with a storage capacity of 1.2 TB, the highest capacity PCIe SSD drive available today.

"The Thunder3 PCIe SSD is designed for creative professionals that truly value their time and need to transfer files as quickly as possible," said Richard Wright, VP of Sales & Marketing for Akitio. "The revolutionary 40 Gb/s bandwidth is essential for anyone looking to increase workflow productivity by significantly reducing the time it takes to transfer media content, whether it is for audio, photography, video or large data files."

Micron Technology, Inc. today announced a new portfolio of PCIe solid state drives (SSDs) that leverage the high-performance NVMe protocol. The new Micron 9100 and 7100 PCIe SSDs provide data center customers with purpose-built storage products for implementing an agile, scale-out IT infrastructure. These new drives extend Micron's rich portfolio of SATA and SAS SSDs that enable customers to extend and improve their legacy data center infrastructure with proven flash products.

Customers are disaggregating storage from Storage Area Networks (SANs) and frame-based arrays, moving toward server-based storage as a solution because of today's changing computing landscape, which is largely driven by the influx of data being created, accessed and stored from the proliferation of mobile devices and cloud computing. Many of today's leading hyperscale companies, who have taken advantage of server-based storage, have deployed Micron memory and storage in their data centers, giving them consistent, accelerated access to the world's data wherever they are, whenever they want and from any device.

Intel Corporation today announced a range of new technologies, investments and industry collaborations aimed at making it easier to deploy agile and scalable clouds so businesses can deliver new services faster and drive revenue growth. Businesses want flexibility and choice in cloud deployment models to support innovation while maintaining control of their most strategic assets. Despite a willingness to invest in modern software-defined infrastructure (SDI), businesses find the prospect of doing so themselves to be complex and time-consuming.

Intel is easing the path with new processors, solid state drives and a range of industry collaborations to help businesses deliver new services at the scale and speed previously found only in the most advanced public clouds. "Enterprises want to benefit from the efficiency and agility of cloud architecture and on their own terms - using the public cloud offerings, deploying their own private cloud, or both," said Diane Bryant, senior vice president and general manager of Intel's Data Center Group. "The result is pent-up demand for software-defined infrastructure. Intel is investing to mature SDI solutions and provide a faster path for businesses of all sizes to reap the benefits of the cloud."

MSI is proud to announce the world's ultimate GAMING motherboard, the X99A GODLIKE GAMING CARBON, is now available in stores. Besides being the pinnacle of GAMING in terms of performance and features, the new X99A GODLIKE GAMING CARBON also raises the bar higher in motherboard aesthetics. The CARBON motherboards full black color scheme featuring the improved Mystic Light RGB LEDs controlled through your smartphone, it combines flashiness with sophistication that is sure to make your pc stand out. Besides its strength and futuristic looks, carbon-fiber is also very light to represent the ultimate performance the new GODLIKE CARBON motherboard delivers. Last but not least, the new X99A GODLIKE GAMING motherboard is ready for next-generation Intel 'Broadwell-E(P)' processors.

The most powerful gaming solution in the world just got better. The X99A GODLIKE GAMING CARBON Edition motherboard features the improved Mystic Light RGB LED feature, supporting up to 2048 colors and 8 LED effects to style your rig in any way possible. With Audio Boost 3 Pro, Killer DoubleShot-X3 Pro, Turbo M.2 connectivity, 2X Faster USB 3.1 Type-A & Type-C, the X99A GODLIKE GAMING CARBON Edition is the most powerful motherboard to serve you in battle. Besides gaming, the X99A GODLIKE GAMING motherboard already proved itself in the world's top overclocking ranks and carries a rich history of breaking world records inherited from MSI's legendary Overclocking motherboards.

QNAP Systems, Inc. today announced the release of the powerful Double Server TDS-16489U that integrates an application server and storage server into one chassis. Distinguishably powered by dual Intel Xeon E5 processors with up to 1TB RAM, the server-grade TDS-16489U supports Qtier Technology, 12Gb/s SAS and 10GbE/40GbE networks to provide unrivaled performance for Big Data computing and to assist enterprises in mission-critical tasks as a one-device solution for applications, storage and virtualization.

"The TDS-16489U resolves the difficulty of building virtualization environment infrastructures for businesses," said David Tsao, Product Manager of QNAP. "Its unrivaled power from its dual processors also facilitates Big Data computing to process the data deluge created by Internet of Things applications." With its server-grade hardware design, the TDS-16489U features two Intel Xeon E5-2600 v3 processors (with 4-core, 6-core and 8-core configurations), up to 1TB DDR4 2133MHz RDIMM/LRDIMM RAM (16 DIMM) and three independent SAS 12Gb/s controllers that deliver outstanding performance for data transmission and applications.

Addonics Technologies today announced a family of adapters for NVMe 2.5" U.2 SSDs, which ensure full READ/WRITE speed by directly connecting the SSD to a 4-lane PCIe 3.0 slot. The family includes NVMe 2.5" U.2 SSD PCIe adapter; SFF-8643 PCIe 4X adapter, and M2 SFF-8643 converter. The NVMe 2.5" U.2 SSD PCIe adapter is a PCIe 4X add-on-card with a 68-pin SFF-8639 female connector on board to directly connect a NVMe 2.5" U.2 SSD to a PCIe 4-lane slot. No cables are needed. It is a simple solution for installing the U.2 SSD into desktop or server equipment.

The SFF-8643 PCIe 4X adapter is designed for connecting the high performance 2.5" NVMe U.2 (SFF-8639) SSD to a PCIe 4-lane slot in a system via a SFF-8643 cable, which allows installation of U.2 SSDs into various types of drive bays. The adapter is a flexible solution for installing NVMe U.2 SSDs into standard height or low profile systems. The M2 SFF-8643 converter is a small adapter that is designed to install into a M2 PCIe SSD socket and turn it into a SFF-8643 connector. This converter enables the NVMe 2.5" U.2 SSD to be attached to the system PCI BUS via a M2 PCIe SSD socket using the SFF-8639 to SFF-8643 cable.