We've known for some time that AMD's mainstream-segment B550 chipset wouldn't bring all the bangs and whistles of its bigger, enthusiast-class cousin X570. For one, it wouldn't make sense to increase development and implementation costs of both the chipset and motherboards built for mainstream enthusiasts by adding PCIe 4.0 support and the more stringent signaling and power requirements the new standard entails. As such, B550 reportedly cuts down fully on PCIe 4.0 support, as well as on the latest USB standards, to offer a product that's sufficiently rounded up on I/O while offering overclocking support for users that demand it.

Reportedly, AMD's B550 will only support up to 2x USB 3.2 Gen2 devices, 6x USB 2.0, 4 + 4 SATA3 connections, and the interlink between the chipset and the CPU occurs via a 4x PCIe 3.0 interface, which means there's less bandwidth for communication between the CPU and the chipset than on X570 - not that that was a real problem on AMD's previous-gen Ryzen products, though, so that's more of a technicality at this point. Ryzen 3000 CPUs still offer 4x PCIe 4.0 ports, though, so these could be used for speeding up a PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD, for instance. The launch of B550-bound products is expected towards October.

Greenliant is now sampling its SATA 6Gb/s NANDrive EX Series ball grid array (BGA) solid state drives (SSDs) to customers that require superior data retention and high program-erase (P/E) cycles. Designed with Greenliant's EnduroSLC Technology, SATA 6 Gb/s NANDrive EX Series SSDs are capable of performing 50K, 100K and industry-leading 250K+ P/E cycles. EnduroSLC Technology substantially enhances data retention and extends write endurance of 1-bit-per-cell (SLC) SSDs with advanced hardware ECC capabilities and NAND flash management algorithms.

Developed with Greenliant's DRAM-less controller, SATA 6 Gb/s NANDrive has enhanced power loss data protection and offers four times the performance over the previous generation of SATA NANDrive products. SATA 6 Gb/s SSDs support Native Command Queuing (NCQ) up to 32 commands and use advanced NAND management techniques to optimize the device's performance during its lifetime. With faster read/write speeds and available in a wide range of capacities (2 GB - 128 GB), SATA 6 Gb/s NANDrive EX Series is ideal for high-performance computing, industrial, transportation, video and networking applications.

After many trials and a lengthy design process, the Fire Shield SSD has passed its baptism of fire. After having been bathed in direct flames at 800°C for more than 30 minutes, comparisons show 100% data accuracy before and after tests. The U.S. patent has already been granted USPTO.

The Fire Shield SSD design borrows from the concept of black boxes. It is placed inside vehicles and public transportation for the purpose of facilitating accident investigation. Modern vehicles are designed with safety in mind. But no matter the safety measures, fire is always a risk. In the US alone, there are more than 400 fire-related vehicle accidents every year, and what is often forgotten is the importance of data after such an accident, as it might be the only clue to the underlying causes. This is why Innodisk has created the Fire Shield SSD.

ADATA Technology (Taiwan Stock Exchange: 3260.TWO), a leading manufacturer of high-performance DRAM modules, NAND Flash products, and mobile accessories today announces the launch of the ADATA Ultimate SU650 M.2 2280 SATA Solid State Drive (SSD). Equipped with 3D TLC Flash memory, the SSD offers up to 480 GB of capacity and sports read/write speeds of up to 550/510MB/s. What's more, it also supports intelligent SLC caching and features Low-density parity-check (LDPC) error correcting code technology for enhanced performance and data integrity. Sporting an M.2 2280 form factor the SU650 is ideal for both laptop and desktop PCs and does away with the connection of cumbersome cables during installation.

Implementing 3D NAND Flash, the SU650 features higher storage capacities (120 GB, 240 GB, and 480 GB), improved efficiency, and better reliability. Whether used as storage or a boot drive, it's a great upgrade choice for users, especially those making a change from hard disk drives (HDD) to SDD. In addition, 3D NAND Flash consumes less power, up to 80% less than HDDs, which is ideal for users that often work on laptops for extended periods.

AMD succeeded in delivering on its backwards-compatibility promise for the 3rd generation Ryzen processors on motherboards based on AMD 300-series and 400-series chipsets. This promise was very close to being derailed suggests a community thread on MSI forums. According to MSI representatives active on the forum, the capacity of the SPI flash EEPROM chip that stores the motherboard UEFI firmware is woefully limited to cram in the AGESA ComboAM4 1.0.0.3a microcode on many of its motherboards.

The company had to make several changes to its UEFI BIOS package that's currently being circulated as a "beta," to accommodate support for 3rd generation Ryzen processors along with AGESA ComboAM4 1.0.0.3a. First, it had to kick out support for A-series and Athlon processors based on the 28 nm "Bristol Ridge" silicon. Second, it had to [and this is a big one], kick the RAID module, breaking SATA RAID on many of its motherboards. Third, it had to replace its feature-rich Click BIOS 5 setup program with a barebones "GSE Lite" Click BIOS program, which lacks many of the features of the original program, and comes with a dull, low-resolution UI. This program still includes some essential MSI-exclusive features such as A-XMP (which translates Intel XMP profiles to AMD-compatible settings), Smart Fan, and M-Flash.

1stPlayer unveiled quite a few new products this Computex, beginning with the Steampunk line of power supplies and power accessories. The Steampunk series consists of fully-modular PSUs in upper-mid range capacities such as 750W. These PSUs come in two physical variants, all-black, and white with RGB-LED illuminated 140 mm fans. Like most other PSUs launched this year, the 750W Steampunk includes two 4+4 pin EPS connectors, besides four 6+2 pin PCIe power, six SATA power, and three Molex. A single +12V rail design and most common electrical protections make for the rest of it.

1stPlayer also unveiled a series of Steampunk-branded PSU extension cables purchasable separately from the PSUs. These include colorful fiber braided sleeved individual cables of various shapes and sizes (24-pin, 8-pin EPS, 6+2-pin PCIe, etc.,), or illuminated cables with addressable RGB LED lighting up each cable.

The DC-ATX Direct Plug from HDPlex is an interesting new accessory that lets you power mini-ITX motherboards with conventional ATX/EPS inputs inside SFF cases that come with 2-pin external power bricks. The accessory plugs directly into the 24-pin ATX input of your motherboard, and takes input from a 2-pin DC. It also puts out 8-pin EPS for the CPU (over a 4-pin connector), one 6+2 pin PCIe power connector, and two SATA power connectors.

The accessory uses DC-to-DC switching to convert 12V to the various other voltage domains, such as +5V, 3.3V, and 5vsb. The accessory supports a power output only up to 200 Watts, which is still impressive for something its size. Available now, the DC-ATX Direct Plug from HDPlex is priced at USD $62.50. You can also buy a bundle that includes a 200-Watt power brick that's nano-ATX capable.

A report from technology market analyst Trendforce places SSD's pricing in sharp decline, with price per GB being projected to hit as low as $0.1 by year's end. Citing oversupply in the NADN flash market and an impending price war to allow manufacturers to sell out accumulating inventory, this is one of those clear cases of a win for consumers - which, after the shenanigans in the DRAM market, is about time. Trendforce further states that the price reductions should render 128 GB SSDs obsolete, as they mostly are by now, with 512 GB capacities becoming the mainstream choice for system integrators and DIY.

Pricing evolution in the market also places premium NVMe solutions at an only 6% premium over SATA offerings, showcasing the increased cost savings that manufacturers have achieved with the reduction in price for NVMe controllers, and the lower amount of physical materials needed to put an NVMe SSD together compared to a SATA-based alternative. Furthermore, Trendforce says that value PCIe-based solutions have a 0% price difference compared to SATA-based ones, so the option for the older form factor should only fall upon how many NVMe/PCIe sockets users' motherboards have available to populate.

Western Digital is launching a behemoth, consumer-oriented 4 TB SSD based on its WD Blue product line. The WD Blue 4 TB uses the SATA interface (for which controllers are still slightly cheaper than for NVMe solutions) with a Marvell 88SS1074 4-channel controller with a 64-layer 3D TLC NAND from SanDisk. Read and write speeds are basically SATA III-bound (sequential 560MB/s read and 530MB/s write speeds, with random 4K read/write of 95K/82K IOPS.)

The WD Blue 4TB SATA SSD has its official availability date on May 13th, but it's already popping up here and there around retailers' shops in Europe. The 4 TB SSD is being priced at €545, which seems to be inline with expectations for such a capacity level. Quick napkin math saying that these should find a home at the sub-$500 level is very likely accurate, considering past pricing practices from manufacturers between the European and US markets.

QNAP Systems, Inc. today officially launched the TS-2888X, an AI-Ready NAS specifically optimized for AI model training. Built using powerful Intel Xeon W processors with up to 18 cores and employing a flash-optimized hybrid storage architecture for IOPS-intensive workloads, the TS-2888X also supports installing up to 4 high-end graphics cards and runs QNAP's AI developer package " QuAI". The TS-2888X packs everything required for machine learning AI, greatly reducing latency, accelerating data transfer, and eliminating performance bottlenecks caused by network connectivity to expedite AI implementation.

1-Terabyte SSDs could become a new mainstream-desktop must-have in 2019, as prices of the drives have fallen by 50 percent year-over-year, according to DigiTimes. A 1 TB SATA SSD in the 2.5-inch form-factor can now be had for as little as $99, while faster NVMe drives in the M.2 form-factor start around $130. At the beginning of 2018, 1 TB SATA SSDs used to start around the $160-mark, and NVMe drives north of $200. The 1 TB category includes 960 GB, 1000 GB, and 1024 GB marketed capacities with varying amounts of overprovisioning set by manufacturers.

Falling SSD prices are accelerated by the entry of cost-effective 96-layer 3D NAND flash, higher-density QLC NAND flash, undigested inventories of drives based on older technologies such as 64-layer or TLC NAND flash; and a 15 percent sequential quarterly drop in NAND flash prices in the industry. Growth in speeds of client-segment SSDs have remained largely flat over the year, and not much is to be expected in performance growth other than perhaps the advent of PCIe gen 4.0 based enterprise SSDs towards the end of the year.

SMART Modular Technologies, a leader in specialty memory, storage and hybrid solutions including memory modules, Flash memory cards and other solid state storage products, today announced the introduction of its N200 line of SATA products. With burst speed and low power consumption, the N200 family is an ideal economic option for NAS/SAN storage systems, x86 server-storage appliances, distributed scale-out servers, telecom and networking routers and switches, industrial control, printers and more.

Built with Triple Level Cell (TLC) 3D NAND technology, the new N200 line of SATA products, consisting of the mSATA (MO-300), the M.2 2242 and 2280, the Slim SATA (MO-297), and the removable 2.5" solid state drive form factors, delivers the advantages of economical, industrial-grade non-volatile memory to embedded computing applications. The N200 SATA products are offered in capacities ranging from 32GB to 1TB, depending on form factor, and all are available in industrial and commercial temperatures.

Samsung Electronics, the world leader in advanced memory technology, today announced that it has begun mass producing the industry's first one-terabyte (TB) embedded Universal Flash Storage (eUFS) 2.1, for use in next-generation mobile applications. Just four years after introducing the first UFS solution, the 128-gigabyte (GB) eUFS, Samsung has passed the much-anticipated terabyte threshold in smartphone storage. Smartphone enthusiasts will soon be able to enjoy storage capacity comparable to a premium notebook PC, without having to pair their phones with additional memory cards.

"The 1 TB eUFS is expected to play a critical role in bringing a more notebook-like user experience to the next generation of mobile devices," said Cheol Choi, executive vice president of Memory Sales & Marketing at Samsung Electronics. "What's more, Samsung is committed to assuring the most reliable supply chain and adequate production quantities to support the timely launches of upcoming flagship smartphones in accelerating growth of the global mobile market."

CORSAIR, a world leader in PC gaming peripherals and enthusiast components, today announced the availability of a wide range of new PC enthusiast accessories to help complete the look of a custom PC: CORSAIR Premium Individually Sleeved PSU Cables, Premium Sleeved Front Panel Extension Kit, Premium Sleeved SATA Cable, Premium PCIe 3.0 x16 Extension Cable, and TM30 Performance Thermal Paste. From custom paracord cables available in a range of colors, to flexible PCIe mounting and dependable thermal paste, the new range of accessories are the perfect way to build and complete a stunning professional-looking custom PC.

PLEXTOR, a leading developer of award-winning solid-state drives (SSDs) and other high-performance digital storage devices, today announced the introduction of its latest line of PCIe and SATA SSDs at this year's CES.

The new M10Pe PCIe SSD Series offers a new level of speed and performance targeted for all PC gamers and applications intensive users. The new series combines advanced 96-layer 3D NAND flash and industry leading controller to deliver awesome sequential read/write speeds up to 3,200/2,500 MB/s and random read/write speeds up to 410,000/320,000 IOPS.

BIOSTAR, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, and storage devices announced the S100 Plus series SSD, an affordable solid state drive (SSD) with outstanding performance for laptop and desktop computer upgrades. Built in a beautifully designed 2.5-inch unibody with ultra-slim 7.0mm casing, featuring an ultra-stable shock-proof design. The S100 Plus Series SSDs are available in 240GB and 480GB, making upgrading or replacing previous generation storage more accessible than ever.

With the SATA3 6GB/s interface, the S100 240GB Plus has sequential read/write speeds of 510MB/s and 370MB/s, and the S100 480GB Plus with read/write speeds of 540MB/s and 460MB/s to achieve ultra-fast game or software access. Compared with traditional hard drives, the read/write speed is an improvement of up to 200-300% in performance, which offers a whole new gaming and work experience.

CES may have officially ended but our coverage from the trade show continues. Bitspower had invited TechPowerUp to come visit their suite, mentioning there would be something new and unexpected, and that indeed was the case. Our tour began with the customary showcase of the new GPU water blocks compatible with reference, and board partner designs, for the new NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 and relatively new AIC RTX 2070/80(Ti) cards as well. These feature integrated RGB lighting compatible with all major motherboard lighting solutions for control, and adopt the split central-inlet flow design as well.

Seagate at CES 2019 unveiled its first NAS-grade solid state drives, under the Ironwolf 110 series. A "NAS-grade" HDD/SSD is typically that which has its durability or endurance rated halfway between client- and enterprise segments. The Ironwolf 110 series boasts of 1 DWPD endurance, and comes in capacities of up to 3.84 TB. Backing these endurance chops is a 5-year warranty. The drive is also designed keeping in mind the rigors of 24x7 operation and RAID environments. Although built in the 7 mm-thick 2.5-inch form-factor with SATA 6 Gbps interface, Seagate understands that a lot of home/SOHO NAS devices only feature 3.5-inch caddies. It's likely that these drives will include a simple accessory that lets you use them with 3.5-inch trays.

Available in capacities of 3.84 TB, 1.92 TB, 960 GB, 480 GB, and 240 GB, the Ironwolf 110 incorporates 3D TLC NAND flash memory. All variants are capable of up to 560 MB/s sequential reads, and barring the 240 GB variant that writes at up to 345 MB/s, all variants offer up to 535 MB/s sequential writes. The 4K random access read performance ranges between 85,000 to 90,000 IOPS for the 960 GB thru 3.84 TB variants, and between 55,000 to 75,000 IOPS for the 240 thru 480 GB ones.

Toshiba announces MG08 Series, the industry's largest capacity 16 TB Conventional Magnetic Recording (CMR) HDD. With 33% more capacity than today's widely adopted 12 TB drives, and 14% more capacity than prior 14 TB models, MG08 16 TB drives are compatible with the widest range of applications and operating systems, and adapted to mixed random and sequential read and write workloads in both cloud and traditional datacenter environments.

The MG08 Series is Toshiba's second-generation helium-sealed HDD family, and eighth-generation Enterprise Capacity HDD family. Toshiba has delivered its industry-leading 16 TB capacity and improved power efficiency by utilizing the 9-disk helium design, introduced last year in 14 TB models, and its own advanced precision laser welding process to ensure the helium remains sealed inside the drive case. The MG08 features 7,200 rpm performance, a 550 TB per year workload rating, a 2.5 million-hour MTTF, a 512 MB cache buffer, and a choice of SATA and SAS interfaces-all in an industry-standard, 3.5-inch form factor.

Seagate Technology plc., a world leader in data solutions, today announced an exciting extension of its portfolio with several new models, including new solid state drive offerings at CES 2019. From gung-ho gamers to Instagram gurus, photo-collecting parents, or visionary creatives, Seagate offers the data storage solutions that empower users to live their best digital lives in today's fast-changing data-heavy landscape.

Today, consumers have more ways than ever to consume content, driving the need to create, distribute and manage data efficiently. According to a recent IDC whitepaper sponsored by Seagate, five billion consumers are currently interacting with data every single day. By 2025, that number will jump to six billion, or 75 percent of the world's population. Each of those six billion people will have at least one data interaction every 18 seconds, bumping the amount of data created worldwide to 175 zettabytes by 2025. Consumers increasingly need reliable ways to collect, protect, manage and access a good portion of that data, and Seagate's latest products - including the cutting-edge LaCie Mobile Drive, LaCie Mobile SSD, Seagate Backup Plus HDDs, FireCuda 510 and BarraCuda 510 internal SSDs, and IronWolf 110 NAS SSD - are designed to fit a variety of data storage needs and digital lifestyles.

Synology Inc. today launched DiskStation DS1819+, an 8-bay desktop NAS providing outstanding performance with great expandability, ready to grow as your business thrives. "This is a compact NAS with an expandable design that can be an ideal investment for small to medium-sized businesses, especially when capable of hosting versatile applications." Said Kevin Meng, product manager of Synology Inc. "As an updated 8-bay desktop NAS in the Plus family, DS1819+ provides a performance increase of over 57% in sequential reading compared to its predecessor, making it more than capable of being just a file server or backup target to satisfy various business requirements with its all-inclusive built-in applications."

Greenliant is growing its portfolio of ArmourDrive solid state drive (SSD) modules with the introduction of 87 PX Series SATA M.2 products. Designed for embedded systems requiring removable data storage that can operate in extreme environments, industrial temperature (-40°C to +85°C), SATA M.2 ArmourDrive SSDs are built in the widely used 2280 form factor.

With high reliability and low power consumption, SATA M.2 ArmourDrive SSDs can be used in a multitude of applications, including Internet of Things (IoT) devices, industrial automation, servers, networking equipment, digital signage, surveillance and video conferencing systems. SATA M.2 ArmourDrive supports the SATA 6Gb/s interface and can reach up to 550/500 MB/s sequential read/write performance. Using 3-bits-per-cell (TLC) 3D NAND flash memory, 87 PX Series SATA M.2 ArmourDrive is rigorously tested to give customers cost-effective and reliable removable solid state storage for space-constrained systems.

Showcasing its continued strength and leadership in enterprise-capacity storage solutions, Western Digital today announced the industry's highest capacity HDD, the 15 TB Ultrastar DC HC620 host-managed SMR HDD. The Ultrastar DC HC620 delivers an unprecedented capacity point with a time-to-market advantage for customers who have invested in, and continue to take advantage of the benefits of SMR.

"With data continuing to grow at unprecedented rates, many hyperscale and cloud storage customers know that their workloads trend toward data that is written sequentially. In these instances, customers are optimizing their infrastructures with the lowest TCO and the maximum capacity," said Eyal Bek, vice president of product marketing, Western Digital. "By capitalizing on our highest-capacity SMR storage solutions, our customers' investment can not only be fully leveraged today, but for subsequent generations of SMR areal density improvements for continued infrastructure optimization."

Samsung Electronics America, Inc. today unveiled the Samsung Data Center solid-state drive (SSD) lineup to address current and future trends in high performance computing storage in the big data era for small and medium businesses (SMBs). Samsung's new family of Data Center SSD solutions, which consists of the 860 DCT, 883 DCT, 983 DCT and the 983 ZET, are engineered to meet the evolving needs of SMBs, including faster, sustained performance, higher capacities and enterprise-class reliability and security.

Samsung's Data Center SSD portfolio will raise the bar for efficiency compared to legacy storage systems, requiring fewer servers and reduced power and cooling for a lower total cost of ownership (TCO). The new lineup delivers better Quality of Service (QoS) for SMBs by reducing latency and lowering data delays. The entire line provides enhanced reliability and endurance for 24/7 operation backed by a 5-year limited warranty and impressive Drive Writes Per Day (DWPD) ratings.

Toshiba today announced that Super Micro Computer, Inc. has successfully qualified the MG07ACA Series 14TB and 12TB HDD SATA models on select Supermicro storage server platforms. Using a 9-disk, helium-sealed design, the new MG07ACA Series provides power-efficient capacity and storage density, which is now available on Supermicro's popular SuperStorage (SSG) line-up of server platforms. The MG07 Series industry-leading 14TB capacity allows data center customers a choice of storage server platform solutions available through Supermicro's extensive network of distributors as well as systems and solutions integrators.

"As we continue to develop solutions to meet the growing capacity needs of enterprise and cloud data center customers, Toshiba is pleased to be working with Supermicro on solutions utilizing our new MG07ACA Series helium-sealed HDD," said Shuji Takaoka, General Manager of Storage Products Sales & Marketing Division at Toshiba Electronic Devices & Storage Corporation. "Toshiba's innovative, power-efficient 9-disk design delivers the highest capacity available in the market today using conventional magnetic recording, and matches up well with Supermicro's highly-regarded lineup of server and storage solutions."