Western Digital today announced new solutions that provide the foundation for next-generation data infrastructures designed around Ultrastar NVMe SSDs and supercharged by NVMe-oF. Building upon the company's innovative design and integration capabilities - from NAND Flash to storage platforms - the new dual-port, performance Ultrastar DC SN840 NVMe SSDs and in-house RapidFlex NVMe-oF controllers are standalone solutions that combine to create the new OpenFlex Data24 NVMe-oF Storage Platform, a new shared storage JBOF (Just a Bunch of Flash) enclosure that extends the value of NVMe to multiple hosts over a low-latency Ethernet fabric network. These new solutions further expand Western Digital's data center portfolio to help customers transition to higher efficiency NVMe SSDs and more advanced shared storage architectures to meet the evolving demands of performance-driven applications and workloads.

In today's global digital economy, microseconds count. As hyperscale cloud and enterprise data centers constantly work to remove bottlenecks to ensure uncompromised performance and availability of essential applications, while also keeping pace with unprecedented data growth, customer adoption of NVMe and NVMe-oF solutions continues to accelerate. Industry analyst firm IDC expects hyperscalers, OEMs and end-user IT organizations to continue to transition away from legacy SATA and SAS interfaces, with NVMe on track to reach more than 55 percent of total enterprise SSD units shipped in 2020 and grow at a 2018-2023 CAGR of 38 percent.

Seagate Technology plc., a world leader in data solutions, today announced the new FireCuda 120 SATA SSD designed for gamers who require speed, durability, and generous capacity to reach their peak performance and safeguard their vast digital libraries.

Underpinning the company's line of PC game storage, the FireCuda 120 takes gaming rigs to the next level with a SATA 6 Gb/s interface and roars to life with sequential read/write speeds of up to 560 MB/s reads and up to 540 MB/s writes, offering more responsive downloads, installs, and multitasking. The drive has capacities up to 4 TB, Seagate's highest capacity gaming SSD yet. Meeting the demands of sustained abuse, the FireCuda 120 was built for durability, delivering a 1.8M hour MTBF and up to 5600 TBW. For total peace of mind, Seagate backs the drive with a five-year limited warranty.

Addlink today refreshed its S20 line of SATA SSDs with the new S20M series. The refreshed lineup uses 96-layer 3D TLC NAND flash memory, and a Maxiotek MAS080X controller replacing the Phison S11-series controller on the original S20. The 2.5-inch, SATA 6 Gbps drive comes in 256 GB, 512 GB, and 1 TB capacities, which offer varying performance. There is no 120-128 GB variant in the series. The 1 TB variant offers sequential reads of up to 560 MB/s, and up to 500 MB/s sequential writes. The 512 GB variant offers up to 550 MB/s reads, with up to 500 MB/s writes. The 256 GB variant does up to 510 MB/s reads, and up to 400 MB/s writes. Addlink claims increased endurance and MTBF over the S20, although it didn't specify numbers. The company didn't mention pricing, although availability is expected by late-May.

GIGABYTE today announced the refreshed UD Pro line of high-endurance SATA SSDs. Built in the 2.5-inch form-factor with SATA 6 Gbps interface, the drives come in capacities of 256 GB (GP-UDPRO256G), 512 GB (GP-UDPRO512G), and 1 TB (GP-UDPRO1T). The new drives feature updated 96-layer KIOXIA 3D TLC NAND flash memory, with increased endurance rating across the board. The 1 TB variant offers a staggering 750 TBW endurance (for perspective, the NAS-optimized WD Red SA500 1 TB is rated with 600 TBW); while the 512 GB variant offers 370 TBW; and the 256 GB variant 175 TBW.

All three variants offer sequential transfer speeds of up to 550 MB/s reads, with up to 530 MB/s writes. The 1 TB variant offers up to 98,000 IOPS 4K random reads and up to 89,000 IOPS 4K random writes. The 512 GB model offers 97,000/89,000 IOPS. The 256 GB model offers 98,000/89,000 IOPS. All three drives appear to be using a Phison S10-series controller with fixed 256 MB DRAM cache across all three variants. GIGABYTE is backing these drives with 5-year warranties. The company didn't reveal pricing.

ADATA Technology, a leading manufacturer of high-performance DRAM modules and NAND Flash products, today announces the launch of the ADATA Ultimate SU720 SATA 6 Gb/s solid state drive (SSD). An ideal offering for those looking to make the switch to SSDs, the SU720 offers great performance and reliability at an amazing value. Equipped with 3D NAND memory and intelligent SLC caching, the SU720 reaches read/write speeds of up to 520/450 MB per second.

QNAP Systems, Inc. today launched new SATA 6 Gb/s JBOD enclosure models: the 4/8/16-bay desktop models (TL-D400S, TL-D800S and TL-D1600S), the 4-bay rackmount model (TL-R400S) and the 12-bay rackmount model with redundant power (TL-R1200S-RP). These storage enclosures are compatible with NAS, PCs and servers, and can be directly attached using SFF-8088 cables if a QXP PCIe card is installed in the NAS/PC/server. The TL SATA JBOD supports multi-lane SATA 6 Gb/s transfer, and each SATA lane directly connects to a single SATA drive to help improve performance. With the 1-1 high-speed channel, the TL SATA JBOD delivers excellent transfer performance.

QNAP NAS users can use the TL SATA JBOD with their NAS, including setting RAID parameters and creating a storage pool using the Storage and Snapshots app. Alternatively, the TL SATA JBOD can be used as a NAS external storage device. Windows, Mac, and Ubuntu users can use the QNAP JBOD Manager desktop utility to quickly obtain and view information about the JBOD status, health, fan speed, and check for firmware updates. A TL SATA JBOD can expand the storage space of your QNAP NAS, Windows and Ubuntu computers for versatile usage.

Greenliant has started volume production of its industrial temperature (-40°C to +85°C) 2 Terabyte NVMe and SATA M.2 ArmourDrive solid state drive (SSD) modules. Built in the 2280 form factor, and offered with hardware encryption and on-board DRAM, these high-performance SSDs save space, improve security and increase capacity for a wide variety of applications, including video conferencing, in-flight entertainment and data logging.

"Customers rely on our wide and deep selection of quality solid state storage products, and Greenliant is pleased to be one of the first companies to offer I-temp 2 Terabyte M.2 SSDs for industrial applications that require higher capacities," said Arthur Kroyan, vice president of business development and marketing, Greenliant. "With on-board DRAM and advanced security features, these products deliver consistent sustained performance and strong user data protection, which can be important advantages for certain embedded systems."

Phison Electronics, the industry's leader in flash controller and NAND storage solutions, is demonstrating mainstream performance using 4-bits per cell QLC NAND flash controllers and SSDs at the Consumer Electronics Show 2020 (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada. In its private suite, Phison is showcasing the addition of support for QLC NAND to its already shipping E16 PCIe Gen 4x4, E12 PCIe Gen 3x4, and S12 SATA controllers that use TLC NAND. Phison's industry leading approach leverages highly successful controllers that were qualified by tier-1 OEMs, are in mass production now, and extends new SSD designs to utilize either TLC or QLC NAND. Phison's proprietary QLC NAND controller technology enables higher SSD capacities in industry standard form factors while meeting the performance demands of mainstream applications.

Phison's flagship E16 series controller for PCIe Gen 4x4 NVMe SSDs can achieve up to 4 TB in capacity with QLC NAND and reaches speeds of 4.9 GB/s for sequential reads and 3.8 GB/s for sequential writes. The E12 series controller enables PCIe Gen 3x4 NVMe SSDs and has a capacity of up to 8 TB and speeds of 3.4 GB/s sequential reads, 3.0 GB/s sequential writes with QLC NAND. For the SATA interface, Phison is also demonstrating the S12 controller series SSDs with up to 16 TB using QLC NAND and performance at 550 MB/s sequential reads and 530 MB/s sequential writes. Phison's DRAM-less S13T controllers enable smaller form factors, have a capacity of up to 2 TB, and operate at 550 MB/s sequential reads and 500 MB/s sequential writes.

Kingston Digital Europe Co LLP, the flash memory affiliate of Kingston Technology Company, Inc., a world leader in memory products and technology solutions, today announced it is shipping the KC600 SATA SSD. Designed for use in desktop and notebook workloads, KC600 is a full-capacity SSD that provides remarkable performance. It comes in a 2.5" form factor using the SATA Rev 3.0 interface with backwards compatibility.

KC600 is optimized for functional system responsiveness with incredible boot, loading and transfer times. It supports a full-security suite that includes AES-XTS 256-bit hardware-based encryption, TCG Opal 2.0 and eDrive, allowing users to protect and secure their data. KC600 will be available in capacities up to 2 TB utilizing the latest 3D TLC NAND technology and has read/write speeds up to 550/520 MB/s, respectively. It is offered as both a stand-alone SSD or as a bundle kit which provides everything needed for an easy desktop or notebook upgrade installation.

Kingston Digital, Inc., the Flash memory affiliate of Kingston Technology Company, Inc., a world leader in memory products and technology solutions, today announced it shipped over 13.3 million SSDs in the first half of 2019, according to data compiled by market research firm TrendFocus. The astounding amount places Kingston as the third-largest supplier of SSDs in the world behind semiconductor manufacturers Samsung and Western Digital, showing its strength and position in the market place as the world's leading third-party SSD maker. Kingston's total accounted for a whopping 11.3 percent of the total number of SSDs shipped globally during the first half of the year among all manufacturers.

"TrendFocus' research shows continued growth in total SSD shipments for all categories this year," said Don Jeanette, Vice President, TrendFocus. "Our research finds that client SSDs make up the majority portion of units shipped while NVMe PCIe also saw gains due to demand in hyperscale environments. The storyline for the first half of 2019 is NAND shipments are increasing and pricing has bottomed out, thus driving SSD demand."

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.