Samsung Electronics today introduced its second-generation quad-level cell (QLC) flash drive, the 870 QVO SATA SSD, that is setting a new standard for high-capacity consumer storage. Featuring an industry-leading capacity of up to eight terabytes (TB), the new SSD delivers an uncompromising mix of speed, storage capacity and reliability for mainstream and professional PC users.

In the past, consumers have had to choose between SSDs - which provide superior performance - and HDDs, which traditionally offer greater capacity. Samsung's 870 QVO SSD, however, is able to reliably offer the best of both worlds, making it an optimal choice for mainstream PC users who prioritize performance and value, as well as for professional users who require high levels of capacity.

Micron Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: MU) today announced results for its third quarter of fiscal 2020, which ended May 28, 2020. "Micron's exceptional execution in the fiscal third quarter drove strong sequential revenue and EPS growth, despite challenges in the macro environment," said Micron Technology President and CEO Sanjay Mehrotra. "We are ramping the industry's most advanced DRAM technology into production and have delivered more than 75% of our NAND volume as high-value solutions, supported by record SSD revenue in the quarter. Our portfolio momentum positions us exceedingly well to leverage the long-term growth across our end markets."

Kioxia Holdings Corporation, the world leader in memory solutions, announced today that it expects to complete its acquisition of LITE-ON Technology Corporation's Solid State Drive (SSD) business, Solid State Storage Technology Corporation and its affiliated companies on July 1, 2020. The company entered into a share purchase agreement on August 30, 2019 in connection with the acquisition. Both parties are now following the necessary procedures in order to close the transaction on July 1, 2020.

As the demand for SSDs continues to increase with rapid expansion expected in the coming years with the rise of digital transformation, this acquisition will allow Kioxia to strengthen its SSD business significantly and help meet the projected growth in demand.

Samsung's upcoming flagship client-segment M.2 NVMe SSD, the 980 PRO, has cleared Korean regulators. The drive comes in three capacity variants, led by a 1 TB model (model: MZ-V8P1T0), a 500 GB model (MZ-V8P500), and a 250 GB model (MZ-V8P250). The maximum capacity being rather low at 1 TB suggests that Samsung could stick with MLC (2 bits per cell) NAND flash for the 980 PRO, coupled with an in-house controller that takes advantage of PCI-Express 4.0 x4 host interface to offer sequential transfer rates of up to 6,500 MB/s reads, with up to 5,000 MB/s writes and high random access throughput on account of the MLC NAND flash setup. For higher capacities from Samsung, one should look out for successors of the 970 EVO Plus, which could use 3D TLC NAND flash combined with a similar controller to the 980 PRO, although there's no word on when that drive would launch. The 980 PRO is expected to launch before October.

T-FORCE, the gaming brand of TEAMGROUP, today announces the new CARDEA Ceramic C440 Solid State Drive with latest and ultra-fast M.2 PCIe Gen4x4 interface. It is the first of its kind in the industry to be made with ceramic composite cooling materials, and obtained Taiwan Utility Model Patent (No. M595313). The snow-white ceramic has a unique texture, and the special aerospace ceramic can achieve excellent heat dissipation effect. Not only bringing a new color into the gaming world, it also unleashes an ultimate performance with read/write speed of 5,000/4,400 MB/s.

With NVMe 1.3 specification, T-FORCE CARDEA Ceramic C440 Solid State Drive creates a higher standard for M.2 solid state drive by using the latest, ultra-fast M.2 PCIe Gen4 x4 interface to achieve a sequential read/write speed of 5,000/4,400 MB/s. The use of aerospace ceramic composite cooling materials not only provides excellent heat dissipation, but also reduces heat by 18% when the case is equipped with a fan. At the same time, it is also lightweight and thin, anti-electromagnetic interference, high temperature resistant, extreme temperature shock resistant. Besides, it is made with environmentally friendly materials, which is RoHS compliant. The combination of CARDEA Ceramic C440's snow-white heat spreader and the golden T-FORCE displays a trendy style. It will be even more eye-catching if it is matched with a white motherboard and case. The thickness is only about 1 mm which perfectly showcase the aesthetics of thinness of T-FORCE CARDEA Ceramic.

Kioxia Corporation has developed and started shipment of engineering samples of next generation Enterprise & Datacenter SSD Form Factor (EDSFF) E3.S which is being standardized by the SNIA SFF TA Technical Work Group. E3.S is a new form factor standard for NVMe SSDs in Cloud and enterprise data centers, especially targeting PCIe 5.0 and beyond. The E3.S will contribute to the design and development of next generation systems, such as cloud, hyper-converged and general-purpose servers and All Flash Array (AFA) systems in cloud and enterprise data centers.

The E3.S specification allows for size, power and capacity options, all with a common connector. Designed for future PCIe generations that offer higher power budgets, EDSFF E3.S delivers improved performance, cooling and flexibility over other form factors. Kioxia's E3.S engineering samples, based on Kioxia's CM6 Series PCIe 4.0 NVMe 1.4 SSD in a 2.5-inch form factor, demonstrated approximately 35% greater performance with the same controller and BiCS FLASH 3D TLC flash memory in the EDSFF E3.S form factor with x4 lanes and 28 W (+40%) of power.

Sabrent was first to market with their 8 TB M.2 NVMe SSD just last month, and now they have released the world's first 8 TB external PCIe SSD. The Rocket XTRM-Q 8 TB features the aforementioned Rocket Q 8 TB NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD housed inside a Thunderbolt 3/USB 3.2 enclosure, this allows the drive to reach read speeds of 2.7 GB/s via Thunderbolt 3 or 900 MB/s via USB. This makes it not only the largest external SSD but also one of the fastest currently on the market.

The SSD features a sleek modern design with an aluminium casing with anti-slip bottom pads for stability. The Sabrent Rocket XTRM-Q is available in capacities of 500 GB, 1 TB, 2 TB, 4 TB, and 8 TB. The drives are currently available for purchase via Amazon for $170, $220, $360, $830, and $1600 respectively.

Lexar, a leading global brand of flash memory solutions, today announced the new Lexar SL200 Portable SSD. The family line of SSD products continues to expand and grow stronger with this latest addition to the SSD portfolio. This portable drive lets you take your data on-the-go, so you're covered in the field or the office. To keep your data secure, it's drop-, shock-, vibration-resistant, and features an advanced security solution with 256-bit AES encryption. The sleek SL200 has a premium finish available in 512 GB and 1 TB of storage space. It also displays more than adequate transfer speeds of up to 550 MB/s and a write speed of up to 400 MB/s. It's easy to connect to your system using the included USB Type-C to USB Type-C or USB Type-C to Type-A cable, and it's ready to use.

OWC; a leading zero emissions Mac and PC technology company and one of the world's most respected providers of Memory, External Drives, SSDs, Mac & PC docking solutions and performance upgrade kits announces the new OWC Envoy Express, the world's first Thunderbolt 3 certified bus-powered portable storage enclosure that makes for effortless DIY projects. Shorter than a ballpoint pen and weighing only 3.3 ounces, the rugged anodized aluminium pocket-sized enclosure and unique laptop mounting system are ready for go-anywhere use.

While small in form, the OWC Envoy Express is big news. For the first time ever in the history of Thunderbolt, users can buy a bus-powered Thunderbolt certified enclosure and install their own drive in it. Finally, a DIY kit that allows users to break free of pre-configured choice limits in order to build a pocket-sized storage solution that meets their specific needs. And rebuild it anytime those needs change. Equally revolutionary is the included slide mount. This surface-safe removable drive holder allows the user to slide the Envoy Express onto the back of a laptop screen for out-of-the-way mobile use convenience. More options. More usability. More functionality….first and only from OWC.

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.

This week at the HPE Discover Virtual Experience, KIOXIA America, Inc. (formerly Toshiba Memory America, Inc.), will showcase the critical role its flash-based solid state drives (SSDs) are playing in addressing the challenges of today - while accelerating the digital transformation of tomorrow. KIOXIA offers the industry's broadest SSD product portfolio and has been collaborating with HPE to create best-in-class storage solutions for years. KIOXIA SSDs can be found in HPE's server and storage solutions, including HPE ProLiant Servers.

At the virtual event, KIOXIA America will highlight its broad range of products that are optimizing HPE solutions. These products include a new series of PCIe 4.0 SSDs, the first-ever 24G enterprise SAS SSDs built on SAS-4 technology, and a new class of SSDs that are faster and cost-effective replacements for SATA SSDs. In addition, KIOXIA America will conduct a speaking session focused on SSD trends and technology for high-performance storage solutions built for HPE ProLiant servers.

Chenbro launches the RB133G13-U10, a 1U dual Intel Xeon Scalable NVMe SSD server barebone system designed for all-flash array (AFA), tiered and virtualized storage applications in Enterprise. Offering Intel VROC, Apache Pass, and Redfish compliance, the RB133G13-U10 is ideal for high-performance applications such as software-defined storage, virtualization, HPC, Cloud computing, and SaaS, with end-to-end security and effortless management. The scale-up storage design helps Enterprise remain agile to meet future business needs.

The RB133G13-U10 is a custom 1U chassis pre-fitted with dual Intel Xeon motherboard. Ready to install two Intel Xeon Scalable processors with up to 28-cores, 165 W TDP, with a maximum of 2 TB of DDR4 memory, 2X 10 GbE connectivity, 1X PCI-E Gen 3 x16 HH/HL expansion slot and with support for up to 10X hot-swappable NVMe U.2 drives, it is an ideal barebone storage solution that scales as a company's needs grow.

Today, LaCie, the premium brand from Seagate Technology, announced two new storage solutions for creative professionals and prosumers. The new LaCie 1big Dock SSD Pro and LaCie 1big Dock enable professionals to streamline and optimize their studio workflow with a complete desktop storage solution. Designed by Neil Poulton, the LaCie 1big Dock SSD Pro (2 TB and 4 TB SSD capacities) and 1big Dock (4 TB, 8 TB, and 16 TB HDD capacities) add to LaCie's line of versatile data storage systems built for creative professionals.

LaCie's 1big Dock SSD Pro is ideal for editing data-intense 6K, 8K, super slow motion, uncompressed video, and VFX content. Building on LaCie's pedigree of unmatched performance and style, the 1big Dock SSD Pro leans on Seagate's cutting-edge FireCuda NVMe SSD and Thunderbolt 3 to deliver staggering read speeds of up to 2800 MB/s. It streamlines workflow with two Thunderbolt 3 ports that are USB-C compatible, and a docking station including one built-in USB 3.0 port, cinema-grade memory card slots (CFast 2.0, CFexpress, and SD), and a DisplayPort 1.4 output connection. It is the ideal peripheral for most professional cinema cameras including leading brands like ARRI, Blackmagic, RED, and Canon.

Kingston Digital Europe Co LLP, the Flash memory affiliate of Kingston Technology Company, Inc., a world leader in memory products and technology solutions, today began shipping the 7.68 TB model of the Data Center 1000M (DC1000M) NVMe PCIe SSD. The drive provides additional storage and implements strict QoS ensuring predictable IO and low latency for data centers powered by NVMe SSDs. DC1000M joins the recently released DC1000B NVMe boot drive, the VMware Ready DC500 series SATA SSDs and DC450R to form the most complete range of superior enterprise-class data center storage solutions in the market.

DC1000M utilizes a hot-pluggable U.2 (2.5") form factor, allowing seamless integration with latest generation servers and storage arrays currently using PCIe and U.2 backplanes. The lightning-fast drive provides enterprise-grade features such as end-to-end data path protection, power-loss protection (PLP) and telemetry monitoring for increased data reliability.

XPG, a provider of high-performance products for gamers, e-sports pros, and tech enthusiasts, is pleased to announce that it has become the Official Gaming Notebook sponsor of the official Valve RMR CS:GO Online tournament series CS_SUMMIT 6.Organized by Beyond the Summit (BTS), the tournament will take place from June 22 to July 5. As a part of the sponsorship, the XPG XENIA will be the Official Gaming Notebook of the tournament.

CS_SUMMIT 6 will be broadcast internationally and is organized regionally with qualifying games in Europe and North America. XPG will be the major sponsor of the event in the Gaming Notebook category.This is the second time XPG has participated in a BTS-organized tournament as a sponsor. During CS_SUMMIT 5, XPG was the Official Keyboard sponsor.

The next generation of SAS has arrived, bringing improved performance, reliability and data protection along with it. Today, KIOXIA America, Inc. (formerly Toshiba Memory America, Inc.) became the first 1 company to bring 24G SAS to server and storage applications with the introduction of its 6 th generation enterprise SAS SSD family. First demonstrated at Flash Memory Summit 2019, KIOXIA's new PM6 Series of enterprise SAS SSDs is built on 24G SAS technology.

Designed for modern IT infrastructures, 24G SAS doubles the data throughput of its predecessor, while implementing new features and enhancements to reach new application performance levels. An established leader in developing SAS SSDs, KIOXIA delivers never before seen SAS SSD performance and is the only SSD supplier to offer protection and recovery from two simultaneous die failure s in an SSD. The PM6 Series builds upon this history of best in cl ass performance and reliability over six generations of SAS drives.

Spring into the future with our new PCIe 4.0. Offering a standard data transfer rate that's double that of the previous 3.0 version, the US70 PCIe Gen 4x4 with 3D NAND flash memory and NVMe 1.3 support is exactly what combative gamers, competitive overclockers, professional designers/editors, and high-end business users crave. With incredible read and write speeds up to 5,000MB/s and 4,400MB/s, respectively, the US70 is nearly 10 times faster than traditional SATA III SSDs. It provides next-level specs that will be competitively relevant for the future, while also being backwards-compatible with PCIe 3.0 too.

The Samsung 980 Pro SSD was first revealed at CES 2020, making it Samsungs first consumer PCIe 4.0 SSD. Hardware leaker Ice Universe is claiming that Samsung will release the SSD within the next two months, which puts the latest date for a release in late August if the leak is to be believed. The Samsung 980 Pro should destroy the competition if Samsung's claims are true with advertised maximum sequential reads of 6.5GB/s, and sequential writes of 5GB/s. This is a large jump over Samsung's 970 Pro PCIe 3.0 SSD with advertised speeds of 3.5GB/s and 2.7GB/s, these numbers also offer a significant bump over its fellow PCIe 4.0 competitors such as the Corsair MP600 with advertised speeds 5GB/s and 4.3GB/s.

OWC, a leading zero emissions Mac and PC technology company and one of the world's most respected providers of Memory, External Drives, SSDs, Mac & PC docking solutions and performance upgrade kits, announced the availability of the new Mercury Extreme Pro 6G SSD, in capacities from 240 GB up to 4 TB. OWC's newest 2.5-inch SATA SSD is among the most versatile and reliable on the planet, featuring state-of-the-art components and engineering that bring older Macs and PCs up to current model performance levels.

The Mercury Extreme Pro 6G SSD is ideal for audio, video, photography editing, and production, for users who require sustained performance. They are the standard for use in video capture with Black Magic cameras, AJA and more, in situations where sustained write performance is critical, and when a drop in performance can lead to lost frames and production time. Some drives drop to 50-60 MB/s after their cache is exhausted, but the Mercury Extreme Pro is up to 10x faster performance than what many drives deliver today after their peak speed is exhausted with as little as 2-3 percent of the drive written. When sustained performance is non-negotiable, the Mercury Extreme Pro 6G SSD has users covered end to end.

Kingston Digital, Inc., the Flash memory affiliate of Kingston Technology Company, Inc., a world leader in memory products and technology solutions, today began shipping the 2 TB KC2500 M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD for desktop, workstations and high-performance computing (HPC) systems. The new, higher capacity gives customers the flexibility to keep up with increasing storage needs and improves workflow.

KC2500 combines outstanding performance with endurance using the latest Gen 3.0 x 4 controller and 96-layer 3D TLC NAND, with speeds up to 3,500 MB/s read and up to 2,900 MB/s write. The self-encrypting SSD supports a full-security suite for end-to-end data protection using AES-XTS 256-bit hardware-based encryption and allows the usage of independent software vendors with TCG Opal 2.0 security management solutions such as Symantec, McAfee, WinMagic and others. KC2500 also has built-in Microsoft eDrive support, a security storage specification for use with BitLocker.

ZADAK, a leading provider of PC enthusiast components, unveils the SPARK PCIe Gen3x4 M.2 RGB SSD. As the company's first PCIe M.2 SSD, the SPARK PCIe M.2 captivates high-end PC users through its excellent compatibility with the latest Intel and AMD platforms and top-rate sequential read and write speeds of 3,200 / 3,000 MB/s, respectively. In addition, the SPARK PCIe M.2 SSD was engineered with a stunning aluminium heatsink and features eye-catching customizable RGB lighting.

The M.2 slot of the SPARK SSD is highly compatible, a perfect fit for those looking to upgrade their PC. It also delivers an impressively fast read speeds of up to 3,200 MB/s and write speeds of up to 3,000 MB/s. ZADAK's SPARK PCIe M.2 is available in 512 GB, 1 TB, and 2 TB capacities. The SPARK PCIe M.2 RGB SSD is backed by a 5-year warranty.

For users that want to fully migrate their HDD storage towards a speedier SSD-option, Samsung's QVO series has usually been one of the more interesting prospects. Built solely with the intention of offering some of the best performance/$ metrics in the SSD storage space, the QVO series keeps Samsung's quality track record when it comes to NAND production but aims to reduce pricing as much as possible.

Amazon has now listed an 8 TB, consumer-available Samsung 870 QVO SSD. This SSD won't win any speed contests: it's built on the 2.5" form-factor and features a SATA III interface, but then again, this isn't meant to be used as users' fastest storage solution - it's meant to replace high-capacity HDDs while offering a notable performance improvement. It's very likely the QVO 870 is using Samsung's QLC (quad level cell) 3D V-NAND tech - which is still fine for most use-cases where you'll be mostly reading from the disc (and honestly, it's likely that most users would never even see performance degradation over the lifetime of the SSD, should they have a typical usage scenario). The 8 TB Samsung 870 QVO is currently listed on Amazon for a relatively steep $899.99 - which still amounts to some 11 cents per GB, so not a bad deal at all. Remember that pricing is currently slightly on the high side following the COVID-19 pandemic, though.

YMTC (Yangtze Memory Technologies Corp) could launch its own SSD brand soon, according to a DigiTimes report. The Mainland Chinese NAND flash maker, which is taking giant strides with the development of NAND flash memory, could join Micron, SK Hynix, Kioxia, and Samsung, in being NAND flash vendors with their own finished SSD product lines on the side.

The SSD brand could be announced in Q3-2020, and could implement the company's 64-layer 3D TLC NAND flash memory in some of its first drives, moving on to 128-layer NAND flash chips next, as the company has pole-vaulted 96-layer. With Phison coming out with support for YMTC chips, it's likely that the company could get a break with these drives. YMTC is one of the rising stars of China's domestic high-technology industry, and a beneficiary of state investment as part of the Chinese Government's plan to eliminate dependency on foreign computer hardware as part of its "3-5-2 plan."

HP today unveiled the Portable SSD P500. These drives come in capacities of 1 TB, and feature a USB 3.2 gen 1 interface, with a single connection handling both power and host connectivity. A USB type-C to type-A male-to-male capable, and a type-C to type-A adapter are included. The drive measures 79.1 mm x 53.9 mm x 10 mm (WxDxH), weighing 45.4 g, and features a solid aluminium body that comes in four color options - aquamarine, cherry red, gray, and silver; all with diamond-cut edges. As for performance, its OEM Biwin claims sequential read speeds of up to 420 MB/s sequential reads, and up to 255 MB/s sequential writes. The company didn't mention pricing.Update 08:32 UTC: The HP P500 is currently retailing for 699 RMB - 899 RMB in China, which converts to $98 - $126, so 10-12 cents per GB.

Corsair unveiled a new high-capacity 4 TB variant of its MP510 M.2 SSDs that take advantage of the PCI-Express 3.0 x4 host interface, and NVMe protocol (model: CSSD-F4000GBMP510). The drive retains its Phison PS5012-E12 controller, but paired with 96-layer 3D TLC NAND flash. The drive retains the manufacturer-rated performance numbers for the 2 TB variant: up to 3,480 MB/s sequential reads, up to 3,000 MB/s sequential writes, up to 580,000 IOPS 4K random reads, and up to 680,000 IOPS 4K random writes. Thanks to its high capacity, the drive enjoys a stellar endurance rating of 6,820 TBW. When it goes on sale, on June 4, the drive is expected to be priced close to the USD $800-mark.