Beijing Memblaze Technology Co., Ltd. today announced the launch of PBlaze5 920 Series enterprise-class NVMe SSD, which can greatly enhance user experience. PBlaze5 920 Series NVMe SSD adopts 96-layer 3D eTLC NAND with a capacity up to 7.68 TB, and comes in form factors of 2.5-inch U.2 and HHHL add-in card. PBlaze5 920 Series consists of 4 groups of SKU -PBlaze5 D920, PBlaze5 C920, PBlaze5 D926 and PBlaze5 C926.

Memblaze PBlaze5 920 Series NVMe SSD offers up to 5.9 GB/s read bandwidth and 970,000 read IOPS, with read and write latency lowering to 90 μs and 12 μs respectively. With superior performance, perfect data protection, good compatibility, and user experience, as well as abundant enterprise-class features, PBlaze5 920 Series NVMe SSD enables customers to build high-speed, high-reliability, and flexible storage solutions for their mission-critical applications.

KINGMAX Semiconductor Inc., a global leading provider of memory products, is proud to announce today the launch of its M.2 2280 PCIe 4.0x4 (Gen 4 x4) SSD PX3480 solid-state drive. As SSD plays a leading role in the current era, an ultra-slim, ultra-fast M.2 specification SSD has attracted customers' attention. KINGMAX's latest Gen 4 x4 SSD PX4480 is suitable for the AMD Ryzen 3000 series processor with X570 chipset. The new SSD not only offers wide-ranging capacity choices of up to 500 GB /1 TB / 2 TB but also has read speeds up to 5000 MB/s, surpassing other SSD products available on the market. It is recommended to the video editors, graphic designers, gaming enthusiasts and anyone who are trying to process data or media contents faster.

The M.2 2280 SSD is ultra-slim. Moreover, the M.2 interface has become a must-have for new motherboards or laptops that offers users an even faster SSD experience. KINGMAX's latest M.2 PCIe Gen 4 x4 SSD PX4480 adopts a PCIe Gen 4.0 high-speed interface and meets NVMe 1.3 specifications. It can deliver stunning read/write speeds. It features incredibly high R/W speeds of up to 5,000 MB/s (read) and 4,400 MB/s (write), 8 to 9 times faster than the transmission connector of the SATA III interface, and has an increase of 50% in data R/W speeds compared with the PCIe 3.0 series SSD. Users can fully experience the higher speeds of PCIe SSDs when turning on devices, loading games, and transferring or saving data.

OWC a leading zero emissions Mac and PC technology company and one of the world's most respected providers of hard drives, SSDs, Mac & PC docking solutions and performance upgrade kits, today announced the latest edition of its legendary Mercury Elite Pro external storage system for Mac, PC, Linux machines, Smart TVs, and PS4 and Xbox consoles. The 3.5-inch USB 3.2 5 Gb/s hard drive system is a modern day workhorse, delivering real-world performance up to 283 MB/s and capacities up to 16 TB to keep pace with the demands of everything from video editing projects, critical business data, and irreplaceable personal content to expanding PS4/Xbox One game storage and enjoying music/video content via a Smart TV.

The Essential External Storage Solution for Everyone
The Mercury Elite Pro kicked off OWC's rich, storied history of storage solution innovations nearly 20 years ago, and it has successfully stood the test of time by continuing to offer an incomparable blend of performance, quality, and value in a single HDD storage solution.

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."

It's been a while since we've had a post on a Goodram product at TechPowerUp, with the company's releases mainly falling off the radar. However, the company's new PX500 series of NVMe SSDs are being positioned as value options in the segment, whilst being quoted with some respectable transfer speeds - provided you don't acquire the lowest capacity version. Available in 256 GB, 512 GB and 1 TB capacities, the Goodram PX500 are DRAM-less SSDs driven by Silicon Motion's SMI 2263XT controller.

Quoted numbers for the 256 GB version stand at 1,850 MB/s sequential read, 950 MB/s sequential write, 102,000 IOPS 4K random read and 230,000 IOPS 4K random write. The 512 GB version posts 2,000 MB/s, 1,600 MB/s, 173,000 IOPS and 140,000 IOPS in the same performance metrics, while the 1 TB version maxes out at 2,050 MB/s, 1650 MB/s, 240,000 IOPS and 280,000 IOPS, respectively. The Goodram PX500 series of NVMe SSDs are backed by a three-year warranty, and prices have not yet been announced.

Sony in a YouTube stream keynote by PlayStation 5 lead system architect Mark Cerny, detailed the upcoming entertainment system's hardware. There are three key areas where the company has invested heavily in driving forward the platform by "balancing revolutionary and evolutionary" technologies. A key design focus with PlayStation 5 is storage. Cerny elaborated on how past generations of the PlayStation guided game developers' art direction as the low bandwidths and latencies of optical discs and HDDs posed crippling latencies arising out of mechanical seeks, resulting in infinitesimally lower data transfer rates than what the media is capable of in best case scenario (seeking a block of data from its outermost sectors). SSD was the #1 most requested hardware feature by game developers during the development of PS5, and Sony responded with something special.

Each PlayStation 5 ships with a PCI-Express 4.0 x4 SSD with a flash controller that has been designed in-house by Sony. The controller features 12 flash channels, and is capable of at least 5.5 GB/s transfer speeds. When you factor in the exponential gains in access time, Sony expects the SSD to provide a 100x boost in effective storage sub-system performance, resulting in practically no load times.

Seagate Technology plc, a world leader in data solutions, today announced the latest in high-performance solutions for multi-user NAS environments, adding to their award-winning IronWolf SSD product line. Seagate's IronWolf 510 is an M.2 NVMe SSD with caching speeds of up to 3 GB/s for NVMe-compatible systems and is ideal for creative pros and business NAS needing 24x7 multi-user storage that is cache enabled.

The IronWolf 510 SSD meets leading top NAS manufacturer requirements of one drive write per day (DWPD), allowing multi-user NAS environments to do more with their data with lasting performance. The IronWolf 510 SSD is reliable with 1.8 million hours mean time between failures (MTBF) in a PCIe form factor, two years of Rescue Data Recovery Services, and a five-year limited warranty. IronWolf Health Management helps analyze drive health and will soon be available on compatible NAS systems.

Kingston Digital, Inc., the Flash memory affiliate of Kingston Technology Company, Inc., a world leader in memory products and technology solutions, today announced the availability of DC1000M, a new U.2 data center NVMe PCIe SSD. DC1000M is designed to support a wide range of data-intensive enterprise workloads, including Cloud computing, web hosting, high-performance computing (HPC), virtual infrastructures, artificial intelligence and deep learning applications. 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.

"Mission critical services and Cloud-based applications depend not only on lightning-fast IOPS and bandwidth, but also on the consistency and predictability of the data being serviced," said Keith Schimmenti, enterprise SSD business manager, Kingston. "DC1000M provides the stability and low latency for the evolving data center, while powering the workloads that require one drive write per day (1 DWPD) endurance."

SilentiumPC, the European manufacturer of CPU coolers and PC cases, presents the Astrum AT6V series, a new member of its case family aimed at gamers with high ambitions. The Astrum AR6V series stands out thanks to its eye-catching design, but also for its inner strengths. One of the series' particular strengths is the sophisticated Natissis two-chamber internal structure, which offers maximum compatibility and supports an exceptionally wide range of component choices.

The large mesh front combined with the four pre-installed 120 mm fans ensure excellent air circulation inside the case. The series consists of the basic model Astrum AT6V TG and the top-of-the-line model Astrum AT6V TG ARGB. In the latter, the tempered glass side panel comes with the novel edge lit addressable RGB lighting feature, and premium 120 mm fans with built-in ARGB LEDs. Thanks to the cutting-edge features and refinements, Astrum AR6V series is able to meet the high expectations and demands of ambitious gamers.

According to the DRAMeXchange research division of TrendForce, 4Q19 NAND flash bit shipment increased by nearly 10% QoQ thanks to demand growth from data center clients. On the supply side, contract prices made a successful rebound due to shortages caused by the power outage at Kioxia's Yokkaichi production base in June. In sum, 4Q19 NAND flash revenue reached $12.5 billion, an 8.5% increase QoQ.

The stronger-than-expected 4Q19 performance from the demand side helped improve supplier inventory back to normal levels. In response, NAND suppliers were able to reduce their allocations to the wafer market and instead focus on shipping products with comparatively higher margins.

VIPER GAMING by PATRIOT has announced that their team will be featured at PAX EAST 2020, which is part of a national series of festivals centered around the gaming culture. The brand-new Patriot PXD m.2 PCIe Type-C External SSD, the next generation of portable storage solutions, will be showcased and tested on the PlayStation 4 with Marvel's Spider-Man video game. This PCIe m.2 based SSD over USB 3.2 Type-C connectivity brings superb speed and stability utilizing the Phison E13 PCIe controller, capacities from 512 GB to 2 TB.

"We can't think of a better way to be immersed with the gaming community than to be a part of PAX EAST, and debuting PXD with its first public showcase is a great way to let gamers know that they have an exciting alternative coming in April 2020," said Roger Shinmoto, Vice President at VIPER GAMING by PATRIOT. At PAX EAST, gamers will be able to experience the PXD m.2 PCIe Type-C External SSD on the PlayStation 4 with Marvel's Spider-Man video game as well as the award-winning V765 gaming keyboard, V570 BLACKOUT RGB gaming mouse, V380 gaming headset and more gaming peripherals at the booth.

Lexar, a leading global brand of flash memory solutions, is pleased to announce the Lexar Professional SL100 Pro Portable SSD is currently available at major US retailers. There is no doubt that users need larger storage devices for transferring and storing all types of data from audio, photos, and videos to office files and programs. The Lexar SL100 Pro Portable Solid-State Drive (SSD) is crafted for on the go (laptop and tablet) users who need high transfer speed and excellent reliability. The pocket-size drive comes wrapped in a brushed aluminum housing and features a shock and vibration resistant design for ultra protection. The SL100 Pro provides users the blazing-fast data transfer speed of up to 950 MB/s read and 900 MB/s write.

TEAMGROUP releases two storage products, the T193 Stationery Flash Drive and the PD1000 Portable Solid State Drive. The T193 Stationery Flash Drive combines multifunctional stationery design and applications. Functions such as a 180-degree protractor, magnifying glass and magnet are all on this flash drive and offering 128 GB of large capacity available to choose from. PD1000 Portable Solid State Drive uses USB 3.2 Gen2 ultra high-speed interface. The read/write speed is up to 1000/900 MB/s. It complies with the IP68 certification, which is dustproof, waterproof and 1600 kg pressure proof. These two unique and creative devices will change the data storage industry of 2020.

After the T183 Tool Flash Drive was highly praised by major design awards and global consumers, TEAMGROUP has once again released the all new multifunctional T193 Stationery Flash Drive. T193 is the first flash drive that combines stationery and complete protection design. It has functions like a 180-degree protractor, magnifying glass and magnet. In addition, it is made with top aluminium alloy material and it has dust-proof, waterproof and shockproof protection. T193 uses USB 3.2 Gen1 interface and offers large storage capacity from 32 GB to 128 GB. Its multiple functions and special look make it different than other ordinary USB flash drives.

The PCI Express 4.0 specification was designed to double the performance of server and storage systems, pushing speeds up to 16.0 gigatransfers per second (GT/s) or 2 gigabits per second (Gb/s) throughput per lane, and driving new performance levels for cloud and enterprise applications. Today, KIOXIA America, Inc. (formerly Toshiba Memory America, Inc.) announced that its lineup of CM6 and CD6 Series PCIe 4.0 NVM Express (NVMe ) enterprise and data center solid state drives (SSDs) are now shipping to customers.

An established leader in developing PCIe and NVMe SSDs, KIOXIA delivers never-before-seen performance. KIOXIA was the first company to publicly demonstrate PCIe 4.0 SSDs and is now the first to ship these next-generation drives. The CM6 and CD6 Series SSDs are compliant to the latest NVMe specification, and include key features such as in-band NVMe-MI, persistent event log, namespace granularity, and shared stream writes. Additionally, both drives are SFF-TA-1001 conformant (also known as U.3), which allows them to be used in tri-mode enabled backplanes, which can accept SAS, SATA or NVMe SSDs.

ADATA Technology, a leading manufacturer of high-performance DRAM modules, NAND Flash products, and mobile accessories today announces the launch of the ADATA SE760 external solid state drive (SSD). The SSD features a stylish and compact form factor for easy portability and implements the USB 3.2 Gen 2 interface for excellent read and write performance.

The ADATA SE760 sports a compact, streamlined design that's great for on the go. Its sleek metal exterior with a textured hairline-brushed surface looks and feels great. The SSD implements the USB 3.2 Gen 2 interface, allowing it to reach read/write speeds of up to 1,000 MB/s, which is over 12 times faster than an external hard drive. This blazing-fast performance will allow users to transfer a 10 GB 4K movie in approximately twenty seconds.

PATRIOT, a global leader in performance memory, SSDs, gaming peripherals, and flash storage solutions, is pleased to announce the official launch of P300 Gen3 x4 NVMe m.2 SSD with capacities available from 256 GB up to 1 TB. The P300 is designed to deliver the most significant all-around performance for desktop and laptop users. Built with next-generation PCIe Gen3 x4 NVMe controller and best-in-class components, the P300 is posed to bring out rapid data transfer speeds and best in class reliability for the user. P300 represents a milestone for the next generation of PCIe Gen3 x4 NVMe SSD, which can offer 25% higher transfer speeds better IOPs over standard PCIe 3 x2 solutions and attribute to its low power consumption is the best solution for laptop battery endurance.

Last week, Intel's memory and storage group produced Intel QLC 3D NAND solid-state drive (SSD) number 10 million based upon the QLC NAND die built in Dalian, China. Production began in late 2018, and this milestone establishes QLC (quadruple-level cell memory) as a mainstream technology for high-capacity drives.

"Many have talked about QLC technology, but Intel has shipped it, and at scale," said Dave Lundell, director of Client SSD Strategic Planning and Product Marketing at Intel. "We have seen strong demand for the cost-effective capacity of our standalone QLC SSD (Intel SSD 660p) and the performance of our Intel Optane Technology + QLC solution (Intel Optane Memory H10)."

Introducing the ToughArmor MB720M2K-B, the world's first quad drive ruggedized M.2 NVMe SSD removable enclosure. M.2 NVMe SSDs no longer requires to be installed on to a motherboard or a riser card with a tiny screw and can now be installed and accessed from the front of your computer without any tools. The ToughArmor MB720M2K-B comes with patent-pending tool-less M.2 drive installation design which will alleviate the pain that many user experiences when installing M.2 drives and offer easy drive maintenance and system upgrading.

SK hynix Inc. today announced financial results for its fiscal year 2019 and fourth quarter ended on December 31, 2019. The consolidated revenue of fiscal year 2019 was KRW 26.99 trillion won while the operating profit amounted to 2.71 trillion won, and the net income 2.02 trillion won. Operating margin for the year was 10% and net margin was 7%.

In order to respond to changing market conditions, SK hynix proactively adjusted both investment and output level last year to maximize business management efficiency. However, amid increasing global economic uncertainty, the increase of inventory burden and conservative purchasing policies on the side of the customers led to a slowdown in demand as well as price falls. As a result, the Company's earnings decreased year-over-year (YoY).

Intel's upcoming 400-series desktop chipset will lack support for PCI-Express gen 4.0. The motherboards will stick to gen 3.0 for both the main x16 PEG slots wired to the LGA1200 socket, and general purpose PCIe lanes from the PCH, according to a Tom's Hardware report. It was earlier expected that 400-series chipset motherboards will come with preparation for PCIe gen 4.0, so even if the upcoming 10th gen "Comet Lake" desktop processors lacked gen 4.0 root-complexes, the boards would be fully ready for the new bus standard in 11th gen "Rocket Lake" desktop processors.

10th gen "Comet Lake" desktop processors are built on 14 nm process, and implement Intel's current-gen CPU core design Intel has been implementing since 6th gen "Skylake." It's only with 11th gen "Rocket Lake" that the mainstream desktop platform could see a new CPU core design, with the company reportedly back-porting "Willow Cove" CPU cores to the 14 nm process. "Rocket Lake" is also expected to feature a small Gen12 iGPU with 32 execution units, and a new-gen uncore component that implements PCIe gen 4.0. PCIe gen 4.0 doubles bandwidth over gen 3.0, and while only a handful GPUs support it, the standard is made popular by a new generation of M.2 NVMe SSDs that are able to utilize the added bandwidth to push sequential transfer rates beyond M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4 limitations.

Seagate had plenty of things to show off at their CES booth, however, some things specially stuck out, like the Lyve Drive Mobile system. Developed to address the need for data movement between different endpoints, the Lyve Drive system comes in a few flavors. First in the line is a Lyve Drive Cards and Card Reader solution, which offers 1 TB CFexpress cards on the go, and a portable reader for them to read the data on the spot. Next up is the Lyve Drive Shutte which resembles an autonomous data storage and data transport solution that offers capacities of up to 16 TB of HDD or SSD storage.

Another Part of the Lyve Drive ecosystem is a Lyve Drive Mobile Array, which offers a sealed and ruggedized solution for carrying up to 6 of Seagate's 18 TB Exos HAMR (heat-assisted magnetic recording) hard drives for a total capacity of 108 TB. Next in the lineup is the Lyve Drive Modular Array - a 4-bay flexible solution that offers various configurations for business, so their deployment strategy of these devices varies. It uses Seagate's MACH.2 multi-actuator technology that transfers the data concurrently. Last but not least is a Lyve Drive Rackmount Reciver which is a 4U rackmount hub that allows for direct connection of Lyve Drive arrays into the data center, without a need to reconnect any of the data center networking specially for storage transfer.

Razer had an interesting outing at CES 2020. There were no new PC gaming peripherals, other than Star Wars "storm trooper" co-branded Kraken, Goliathus, and Atheris; but three interesting exhibits. To begin with, Razer Kishi is an adjustable, split game controller for smartphones. The controller's two ends (meant for your left and right hands, wrap around the two ends of your smartphone. You get two analog thumbsticks, a D-pad, four action buttons, and four triggers. The Razer Gamepad app lets you map the controller to your smartphone over Bluetooth, and provides custom button mapping. The company also showed off Arctech line of smartphone sleeves that are designed to dissipate heat.

Having made its mark as a leading gaming notebook vendor, Razer is turning its attention to pre-built gaming desktops, and we saw one of its first creations, the Tomahawk SFF. Much like Apple, Razer has a serious focus on form as much as function, and that's evident with the aluminium CNC precision-milled chassis with tempered glass side-panels, and a size that's fit both for desks and the living room.

Plextor showed off its very recently announced M9P line of premium PCI-Express NVMe SSDs at CES 2020. The M9P Plus comes in both half-height add-in card (AIC) form-factor, and a more conventional M.2-2280 form-factor. In both, it leverages PCI-Express 3.0 x4 along with the NVMe 1.3 protocol. At the heart of these drives is the Marvell 88SS1092 "Eldora Plus" controller that has 8 flash channels. This controller is paired with Kioxia 96-layer 3D TLC NAND flash (BiCS 4), and a DDR4 DRAM cache.

With capacities of 256 GB, 512 GB, and 1 TB, the M9P offers sequential reads of up to 3,400 MB/s, with up to 2,200 MB/s writes (up to 1,700 MB/s writes for the 256 GB variant). Endurance (TBW) for the three models are proportionately rated at 160 TB, 320 TB, and 640 TB. The 256 GB variant of the M.2-2280 model is priced at $51, the 512 GB variant at $81, and the 1 TB variant at $135. The AIC equivalents are priced at roughly $15 premiums over these prices, and in addition to the convenience of AIC (easier to swap in a test bench), they feature some RGB LED embellishments.

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.

ASRock is looking to launch a PCIe expansion card for all of your M.2 needs. Should you find your current motherboard is already full to the gills with M.2 SSDs, ASRock's Hyper Quad M.2 PCIe expansion card will allow you to increase M.2 vacancy by up to four additional slots (there's an on-off toggle for you to move in the PCB to select the active M.2 SSDs). The card uses the PCIe 4.0 x16 interface to sufficiently feed the four M.2 SSDs (which typically use the PCIe 4x NVMe protocol) with data.

This is a top notch expansion card design, featuring an aluminium cover and a 50 mm fan to cool down all those SSDs' controllers. The cover features 4x 110 mm thermal pads which align with the M.2 mounts on the PCB, thus allowing the aluminium cover to serve as a veritable heatsink and improve operating temperatures. The expansion card is fed by a single 6-pin power connector, and there is an activity LED for quality of life improvements. No word on pricing just yet.