Gigabyte Technology, one of the top global manufacturers of motherboards, graphics cards, and hardware solutions, announces today its foray into the portable external drive by introducing its first external SSD - VISION DRIVE SSD 1 TB - with the USB 3.2 Gen2 x2 Type C interface to the VISION family. This enables the company to further expand the VISION product line as well as to showcase its market-leading, innovative, and high-performance SSD products.

The VISION DRIVE SSD 1 TB is integrated with a 1 TB PCIe Gen3 x4 solid-state-drive (SSD) which provides users with an ultra-high read/write speed of 2000 MB/s. Based on GIGABYTE's expertise and dedication to product development and design, the newly released VISION DRIVE SSD 1 TB performs with excellence in terms of performance and cooling in addition to its near-perfect drop resistance. For content creators who always bring their portable drive with them on the go and those in need of off-site data backup capabilities, the VISION DRIVE SSD 1 TB is definitely the ideal choice.

The percentage distribution of 2021 NAND Flash bit demand by application currently shows that client SSD accounts for 31%, enterprise SSD 20%, eMMC/UFS 41%, and NAND wafer 8%, according to TrendForce's latest investigations. TrendForce expects NAND Flash ASP to undergo QoQ declines throughout 2021, since the number of NAND suppliers far exceeds DRAM suppliers, and the bit supply remains high. As Samsung, YMTC, SK Hynix, and Intel actively expand their NAND Flash bit output in 1Q21, the oversupply situation in the industry will become more severe, with a forecasted 6% QoQ increase in NAND Flash bit output and a 10-15% QoQ decline in NAND Flash ASP in 1Q21.

Today, at Intel's Memory and Storage 2020 event, the company highlighted six new memory and storage products to help customers meet the challenges of digital transformation. Key to advancing innovation across memory and storage, Intel announced two new additions to its Intel Optane Solid State Drive (SSD) Series: the Intel Optane SSD P5800X, the world's fastest data center SSD, and the Intel Optane Memory H20 for client, which features performance and mainstream productivity for gaming and content creation. Optane helps meet the needs of modern computing by bringing the memory closer to the CPU. The company also revealed its intent to deliver its 3rd generation of Intel Optane persistent memory (code-named "Crow Pass") for cloud and enterprise customers.

"Today is a key moment for our memory and storage journey. With the release of these new Optane products, we continue our innovation, strengthen our memory and storage portfolio, and enable our customers to better navigate the complexity of digital transformation. Optane products and technologies are becoming a mainstream element of business compute. And as a part of Intel, these leadership products are advancing our long-term growth priorities, including AI, 5G networking and the intelligent, autonomous edge." -Alper Ilkbahar, Intel vice president in the Data Platforms Group and general manager of the Intel Optane Group.

addlink today announced the launch of the next-generation Gen4x4 NVMe 1.4 SSD. Delivering an essential gaming experience. The addlink S95 SSD comes with the latest Phison premium controller, PS5018-E18 and the reliable TLC NAND flash memory, attach external DDR4@2666 cache, and including SLC caching technology. The maximum sequential read/write speed can reach up to 7000/6800 MB/s, which is nearly 14 times faster than SATAIII SSD, 2 times faster than the PCIe 3.0 SSD. Also, it is completely backward compatible with the PCIe 3.0 platform, comprehensively delivers an extreme boost in performance for PC enthusiasts and heavy gamer player looking for the edge.

addlink S95 SSD brings to the customer better performance and reliable endurance. It supports the latest ECC technology, advanced Wear Leveling, Bad Block Management, Over-Provision, and TRIM features to guarantee the S95 SSD Reliability. The S95 SSD Combines with free addlink toolbox software, offer user an easy way to analyze and monitor the S95 SSD drive health.

To meet the burgeoning demand for higher performance parts in the booming PC gaming market, TEAMGROUP's gaming brand T-FORCE launches the DARK Z FPS Gaming Memory and Cardea IOPS Gaming PCIe SSD at the end of 2020. Players who upgrade with these powerful new components will experience superior performance and be able to dominate the digital arena.

The T-FORCE DARK Z FPS, as its name implies, was created to improve frames-per-second. It is tastefully designed with a plated T-FORCE logo in the center, matching lines extending to the edges, and armor-like metal that surrounds the board to give the product a striking, futuristic look. The DARK Z FPS features RAM speeds of up to 4000 MHz and a low CAS latency of CL16. After undergoing rigorous testing with one of the world's most popular shooters, PUBG, T-FORCE developed this gaming RAM that provides up to 20%1 more FPS than normal memory. A significant FPS advantage can be felt when it processes high-speed movements and changes to in-game scenery. This faster performance allows players to enjoy more satisfying gunplay and gives them an edge in the battlefield where every second counts.

Mushkin Enhanced MFG - An industry-leading designer and manufacturer of high-performance and high-reliability computer products, today unveiled its new ALPHA series of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) featuring an industry-leading capacity of up to eight terabytes (8 TB) the new SSD delivers an uncompromising mix of speed, storage capacity and reliability for mainstream and professional PC users.

The ALPHA Series, powered by Phison's 12 series controller, balances performance, capacity, cost, and energy efficiency, making it the ideal solution for cloud computing, big data, external storage systems, digital imaging and media, technical applications and cold storage. At 4 TB and 8 TB capacities, the ALPHA Series SSD line are the highest capacity in Mushkin's solid state drives line up shipping today.

Lexar, a leading global brand of flash memory solutions, today announced the new NQ100 2.5" SATA III (6 Gb/ss) SSD. The NQ100 solid-state drive is an easy upgrade for users looking to improve the performance of their laptop or desktop computers. Improve your system's performance and enjoy faster startups, data transfers, and load times for applications. Boasting read speeds of up to 550 MB/s, the Lexar NQ100 SSD will refresh your laptop or PC for a faster experience. The NQ100 SSD is also shock and vibration resistant, making it more reliable and durable than a typical hard drive. It is also cooler, quieter, and more energy efficient than traditional HDD.

"Lexar is dedicated to expanding our SSD portfolio and continue to offer high-quality solid-state drives for various computing needs. The new Lexar NQ100 SSD provides customers with an easy yet cost-effective way to boost PC performance, and with capacity options ranging from 240 GB - 960 GB, users can easily expand storage for their content-driven lifestyles," said Joel Boquiren, General Manager of Lexar. NQ100 SSD is available this month for purchase online at an MSRP of 36.99 USD (240 GB), 65.99 USD (480 GB) with 960 GB to be announced at a future date.

Greenliant has secured major design wins with its EnduroSLC solid state drives (SSDs) in a wide range of demanding, extreme environment applications for customers that need best-in-class reliability and product longevity. Greenliant's proprietary EnduroSLC Technology substantially enhances data retention and extends the write endurance of 1-bit-per-cell SSDs with advanced hardware ECC capabilities and NAND flash management algorithms. EnduroSLC SSDs not only offer superior data retention capabilities under complex temperature conditions, but also support 50K, 100K and industry-leading, ultra high 250K+ program-erase (P/E) cycles, which are at least a 5x improvement over pseudo-SLC (pSLC) SSDs and a 50x improvement over MLC NAND-based products.

For systems that are in remote locations and costly to maintain-from satellite to subsea communications-customers recognize the value of EnduroSLC SSDs; they can reliably operate and retain data for long periods of time in harsh conditions. Long-life, write-intensive products, such as transportation black box recorders and industrial data loggers, have also benefitted from the enhanced features of EnduroSLC SSDs. EnduroSLC storage products are designed with Greenliant's advanced SATA, NVMe PCIe and eMMC controllers, operate at industrial temperatures (-40 to +85 degrees Celsius) and are backed by the company's Long-Term Availability program (http://bit.ly/SSD-LTA-program), providing an extra level of support.

Minisforum, the leading innovator of mini PC products, has just released their another new product: the EliteMini UM700 which comes with the AMD Ryzen 7 3750H CPU up to 4.0 GHz, 4 cores 8 threads, total cache 4 MB, equipped with Radeon RX Vega 10 10 cores Graphics with frequency up to 1400 MHz. A few months ago, MINISFORUM had launched DeskMini DMAF5 with an AMD Ryzen 5 3550H processor on INDIEGOGO, now DMAF has completed the shipment. UM700 is an upgraded version of DMAF5, with higher performance and more powerful.

With a one-click design you can easily make upgrades, EliteMini UM700 supports different types of storage expansions—2.5 inch SATA HDD Slot (SATA 3.0 6.0 Gb/s) and M.2 2280 NVMe SSD Slot (support up to 2 TB), you can mix and match between HDD and SSD to better meet your needs. With windows 10 pro pre-installed, intel Wi-Fi6, BT5.1 and triple output. which allows you to freely enjoy quick response speed.

Total NAND Flash revenue reached US$14.5 billion in 3Q20, a 0.3% increase QoQ, while total NAND Flash bit shipment rose by 9% QoQ, but the ASP fell by 9% QoQ, according to TrendForce's latest investigations. The market situation in 3Q20 can be attributed to the rising demand from the consumer electronics end as well as the recovering smartphone demand before the year-end peak sales season. Notably, in the PC market, the rise of distance education contributed to the growing number and scale of Chromebook tenders, but the increase in the demand for Chromebook devices has not led to a significant increase in NAND Flash consumption because storage capacity is rather limited for this kind of notebook computer. Moreover, clients in the server and data center segments had aggressively stocked up on components and server barebones during 2Q20 due to worries about the impact of the pandemic on the supply chain. Hence, their inventories reached a fairly high level by 3Q20. Clients are now under pressure to control and reduce their inventories during this second half of the year. With them scaling back procurement, the overall NAND Flash demand has also weakened, leading to a downward turn in the contract prices of most NAND Flash products.

The leading global motherboard, graphics card, and small form factor PC manufacturer, ASRock, today announced the brand new compact Mini PC - Mars 4000U Series, embedded the AMD Ryzen 4000 U-series processors to deliver exceptional performance. The Mars 4000U Series Mini PC support dual-channel DDR4-3200 MHz memory up to 64 GB as well as equip with Intel Wi-Fi 6 for high-speed connectivity. For Storage, the Mars 4000U Series Mini PC provide a PCIe NVMe M.2 SSD slot and a 2.5-inch SATA hard drive bay; all imply into 0.7-liter chassis with 26 mm height.

ASRock Mars 4000U Series Mini PC offers abundant USB devices connectivity, features a total of 7 USB ports, including one Type-C port; In addition, the native SD card reader and dual display outputs provide more convenience and productivity. All of these features make Mars 4000U Series Mini PC well suited for a wide range of uses, including business, gaming and home entertainment.

ASRock Rack, a branch of ASRock focused on making server products, has today launched a new motherboard that can accommodate up to 64 core AMD EPYC CPU. Built on the new, proprietary form factor called "Deep Mini-ITX", the ROMED4ID-2T motherboard is just a bit bigger than the standard ITX board. The standard ITX boards are 170 x 170 mm, while this Deep Mini-ITX form extends the board by a bit. It measures 170 x 208.28 mm, or 6.7" x 8.2" for all of the American readers. ASRock specifies that the board supports AMD's second-generation EPYC "Rome" 7002 series processors. Of course, the socket for these CPUs is socket SP3 (LGA4094) with 4094 pins.

The motherboard comes with 4 DDR4 DIMM slots, of any type. Supported DIMM types are R-DIMM, LR-DIMM, and NV-DIMM. If you want the best capacity, LR-DIMM use enables you to use up to 256 GB of memory. When it comes to expansion, you can hook-up any PCIe 4.0 device to the PCIe 4.0 x16 slot. There is also an M.2 2280 key present, so you can fit in one of those high-speed PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 SSDs. For connection to the outside world, the board uses an Intel X550-AT2 controller that controls two RJ45 10 GbE connectors. There are also two Slimline (PCIe 4.0 x8 or 8 SATA 6 Gb/s), and four Slimline (PCIe 4.0 x8) storage U.2 ports.

The SCHENKER VISION 15 is about to set new standards in the premium laptop segment. Featuring the recently introduced Core i7-1165G7 processor, the 15.6-inch laptop offers top-notch specifications and the highest quality workmanship, as its 15 mm slim unibody aluminium chassis is bursting with modern technology. This includes a touch display with maximum brightness of 450 nits, Thunderbolt 4, an M.2 SSD connected via PCI Express 4.0, charging options on both sides via USB-C and many additional, smart features. The reference character of this laptop does not come by chance: The development is based on a cooperation with Intel, which is responsible for the design of an optimal motherboard layout and cooling system. For this reason, the laptop also meets all standards of the Intel Evo platform.

Silicon Motion Technology Corporation, a global leader in designing and marketing NAND flash controllers for solid-state storage devices, today announced the SM8266, a complete enterprise-grade 16-channel PCIe 4.0 NVMe hardware plus firmware turnkey SSD controller solution. Customers can rapidly develop and bring to market enterprise SSDs for data centers by using our complete development platform that includes a turnkey NVMe firmware stack and hardware reference design kit.

"Our solution is the only complete PCIe Gen4 turnkey solution available today from an established merchant controller supplier," said Nelson Duann, Silicon Motion's Senior Vice President of Marketing and R&D. "Since the introduction of our PCIe Gen3 turnkey solution, we have established a longer track record of supplying turnkey solutions in terms of customer adoption and sale volume than any other company. Our Shannon Systems team is already custom designing enterprise-grade NVMe, Open-Channel and Key-Value SSDs using SM8266 for hyperscale customers' data centers with production expected in 2021."

Sharkoon Technologies is an international supplier of quality, high-performance PC components and peripherals. Sharkoon Technologies now presents the RGB Slider, a new midi ATX case with a compact format. The case has a minimalist and simple design, and despite its low price range, it still has special features such as a side panel made of tempered glass and a front panel with an integrated RGB LED strip.

Thanks to its black finish and simple form, the RGB Slider makes a straightforward and unobtrusive impression. For subtle visual variation, the matt black front panel contains an RGB LED strip that can be illuminated in 14 preset color modes via the built-in addressable RGB controller. The lighting of the RGB LED strip can be freely adjusted through compatible mainboards with a 5 V-D-coded-G or 5 V-D-G pin header and using software such as ASUS Aura Sync, MSI Mystic Light Sync, Gigabyte Fusion and ASRock Polychrome SYNC. The integrated RGB controller also allows the connection of further RGB components.

BIOSTAR, a leading brand of motherboards, graphics cards, and storage devices, today announces the all new P500 Portable series SSD. Designed with the latest cutting-edge technology, the all new P500 Portable series SSD from BIOSTAR is fast, efficient and durable, with an aluminium casing engineered to dissipate heat fast, protect from electrostatic discharge, provide structural rigidity and look stylish while doing it.

The sleek refined design language of the P500 Portable series SSD is further defined by its inbuilt RGB indicator light system with a unique smart switch that works by tilting the device in an angle of 45 degrees or above which in turn will automatically turn off the RGB lights of the SSD unit and turn the lights back on again when the device is laid flat on a surface. This smart switchless design further enhances the device's protection against electrostatic discharge and data loss.

NEO Semiconductor was honored with a Flash Memory Summit 2020 Best of Show Award for Hardware Architecture at today's Flash Memory Summit 2020 Best of Show Awards ceremony. The Flash Memory Summit, the World's largest and most prestigious storage industry conference and exposition, recognizes NEO Semiconductor's X-NAND product solution.

"5G, robotics, virtual reality and AI applications demand the highest level of performance in order to meet the service level objectives of business-critical data center workloads," said Jay Kramer, Chairman of the Awards Program and President of Network Storage Advisors Inc. "We are proud to recognize NEO Semiconductor X-NAND product solution for providing an excellent high-performance solution that can uniquely lower the cost across all tiers of SSD technologies."

HighPoint Launches the Industry's first 8-Port PCIe 4.0 x16 M.2 NVMe RAID Controller -the SSD7540. Powered by a cutting-edge Gen4 switch chipset and the latest iteration of HighPoint's blazing fast NVMe RAID engine, the SSD7540 is capable of delivering unbeatable Gen4 transfer performance while supporting up to 64 TB of storage.

The SSD7540 boasts the highest port-count and performance capability of any single-controller M.2 NVMe RAID solution in today's marketplace. Each of the eight independent M.2 ports can support any off-the-shelf Gen4 or Gen3 NVMe SSD, up to 8 TB in size. The SSD7540's NVMe RAID engine and has been fine-tuned for native PCIe Gen4 hardware platforms, and can take full advantage of the dedicated PCIe Gen 4 x16 host connectivity to deliver 28,000 MB/s of transfer performance.

Building on a unique and diverse product portfolio across HDD and flash, Western Digital today announced a suite of new NVMe SSDs for enabling next-generation, data-centric architectures for data centers, industrial IoT, automotive and client applications. The new family includes the Ultrastar DC ZN540 ZNS NVMe SSD for designing a more efficient data center storage tier with competitive TCO; the Western Digital IX SN530 Industrial SSD for the extreme environments of industrial and automotive applications; and the 2 TB WD Blue SN550 NVMe SSD for speeding up PC performance. Leveraging Western Digital's unique vertical integration capabilities - from designing and manufacturing its NAND flash to developing its own in-house SSD controllers and firmware - the new products underscore the company's continued strength and commitment in driving storage innovation for new system architectures, applications and use cases for global customers across cloud, OEM, enterprise, channel and retail end-user markets.

The amount of data created over the next three years will be more than the data created over the past 30 years, according to IDC. Billions of connected systems will generate a myriad of contextualized data sets from smart video to consumer and sensor data, which must be captured, transformed and analyzed to bring value to industries, businesses and people. Legacy architectures cannot keep up with today's data-intensive environments. The challenge is how to efficiently and cost-effectively build the data infrastructure that will keep up with data demands of the zettabyte-scale era. Storage is critical and fundamental to creating these new architectures and extracting value from data.

Phison Electronics, the industry leader in flash controller technology, is delivering the storage industry's fastest PCIe Gen 4x4 NVMe SSD solution, its second generation PS5018-E18 (E18) PCIe 4.0 controller. The E18 succeeds the PS5016-E16 released in late 2019.

Phison designed the new E18 from the ground up on the efficient TSMC 12 nm process node. This provides SSD manufacturers with a state-of-the-art controller solution in an increasingly competitive field. The controller utilizes Phison's proprietary CoXProcessor 2.0 technology, an innovative SSD architecture that enables E18 to deliver exceptional performance and power efficiency. Phison architecture is also primed for AI-assisted storage, where its distributed architecture uses many small cores to perform the workload in parallel. The E18 is ideal for gamers, content creators, and computing enthusiasts, which demand the best experience. This ultra-low latency is possible only with NVMe SSDs.

TEAMGROUP today announces the release of T-FORCE TREASURE Touch External RGB SSD, which has specially designed touch surface to switch the magical RGB lighting effects that is bright and soft, but not too dazzling for your eyes. It supports multiple platforms and provides up to 1 TB of capacity. The EVA cushioning packaging inside the box is designed into a simple stand. It is not only the perfect partner for gaming console, but also an expansion partner for gamer's external RGB SSD.

The T-FORCE TREASURE Touch External RGB SSD has a simple and stylish design with a metallic brushed finish and an upgraded texture that effectively reduces fingerprint residue. With soft RGB lighting effects and the black body design, you can freely turn on, off and adjust the color of the light to what you prefer by touching the surface. You can enjoy the different atmosphere of the game by creating your own ones.

iStorage, the award-winning and trusted global leader of hardware encrypted data storage and cloud encryption devices, is proud to announce the launch of the diskAshur M2. The diskAshur M2 is iStorage's smallest, lightest, fastest and most rugged FIPS compliant encrypted portable SSD and includes connectivity for both USB type A and C ports. The new diskAshur M2 SSD encrypts data using FIPS PUB 197 validated, AES-XTS 256-bit hardware encryption and uniquely incorporates a Common Criteria EAL4+ ready secure microprocessor, which employs built-in physical protection mechanisms designed to defend against external tamper, bypass physical attacks and more.

The drive features ultra-fast backwards compatible USB 3.2 data transfer speeds and is available in capacities ranging from 120 GB to 2 TB. The diskAshur M2 is lightweight, dust and waterproof (IP68 certified), shock proof (survives a drop of 4 m on to a concrete surface) and crush-proof (withstands the weight of a 2.7 ton vehicle), making it extremely rugged and ultra-portable.

KIOXIA America, Inc. (formerly Toshiba Memory America, Inc.) announced another significant technological contribution to cloud data center infrastructures. Today, the company expanded its broad portfolio of client, enterprise and data center SSDs with the addition of the XD6 Series. KIOXIA's E1.S form factor XD6 SSDs are the first Enterprise and Datacenter SSD Form Factor (EDSFF) E1.S SSDs to address the specific requirements of hyperscale applications, including the performance, power and thermal requirements of the Open Compute Platform (OCP) NVMe Cloud SSD Specification.

Designed to maximize system density, efficiency and simplicity, KIOXIA's EDSFF E1.x SSDs represent the future of flash storage for servers in cloud and hyperscale data centers. As defined by the EDSFF consortium and leveraging the OCP NVMe Cloud SSD Specification, the flexible, efficient, small form factor E1.S replaces the M.2 form factor and delivers greater density, performance, reliability, and thermal management. E1.S is also designed to be hot pluggable for increased serviceability, which is another benefit over M.2.

ADATA Technology, a leading manufacturer of high-performance DRAM modules and NAND Flash products, today announces the launch of the ADATA SE770G RGB external solid state drive (SSD). Performance-driven and bold, SE770G features USB3.2 Gen 2 and Type-C connectivity, read/write speeds of up 1000/800 MB/s, and a spacious panel of RGB lighting.

The SE770G isn't the typical run-of-the-mill external SSD. With a spacious panel of RGB, it will light up workspaces at home and on the go with a glorious cube-patterned effect. In the past, external SSDs were relegated to the shadows while other RGB-adorned peripherals and devices took the spotlight on peoples' desktops. With the SE700G, it is now the time for external SSDs to shine.

SK hynix Inc. today announced financial results for its third quarter 2020 ended on September 30, 2020. The consolidated revenue of third quarter 2020 was 8.129 trillion won while the operating profit amounted to 1.3 trillion won, and the net income 1.078 trillion won. Operating margin for the quarter was 16% and net margin was 13%.

Despite the Company saw the recovery of mobile DRAM demand in the quarter, both the revenue and operating profit decreased by 6% and 33% quarter-over-quarter (QoQ) respectively, as the server DRAM and SSD demands weakened, and the overall semiconductor memory price flow turned downwards in the quarter. For DRAM, SK hynix proactively responded to rising demands of mobile and graphics DRAM, and the expansion of consumer electronics DRAM demand as well. As a result, in spite of decreased server DRAM demand, the Company's DRAM bit shipment in the quarter still increased by 4% QoQ. However, due to the unfavorable price of server DRAM and other certain DRAM products, the average selling price decreased by 7% QoQ.