It may be quite difficult to find bargains when it comes to DDR4 system memory or high-end graphics cards these days, but at least SSDs are more affordable now to help bandage that wound. This price drop of solid state storage has been happening throughout this year, and some units have reached a cost of 10 cents per gigabyte, a milestone difficult to have imagined a couple of years ago. The 2 TB variant of the Crucial MX500 SSD, for example, can be found now at $209, and those interested may want to check out our review of the 1 TB version before committing to a purchase.

This is great news already, but there is even better news coming as that cost will reportedly continue to drop. NAND flash could drop to $0.08 per gigabyte in 2019 according to some analysts, and some alternatives such as QLC drives from Samsung could push that trend even further. The traditional HDD market is also getting more inexpensive and better bang-for-your-buck, with a 2017 report from BackBlaze showed for example how cost per gigabyte was approaching $0.02 per gigabyte a year ago on some units. As always, price prediction reports tend to come out with the US market as a case study, but our own global TechPowerUp team is appreciating having more SSDs on deck for files and programs alike.

ZADAK is thrilled to announce the whole new custom water cooling system, SHIELD II Water Cooled PC. Starting in 2015 ZADAK first dipped our toes into custom computers that were built for modding competition displays. In late 2017 ZADAK decided to mass produce our first fully water-cooled PC known as MOAB I. MOAB I managed to push boundaries within the industry and get us excited to start work on the successor MOAB II Water Cooled PC. These two smallest custom water-cooled PCs gained attention from enthusiasts around the world along with ZADAK's other products.

In October Samsung took the stage on its Tech Day event and announced its SSD roadmap. One of the key elements of that roadmap was the project to launch QLC (quad-level cell) SSDs, and now we've got more information on these products. Several European online retailers -French and Italian- have already listed the new Samsung 860 QVO units, which means their official availability is near us.

The new SSD drives will feature the conventional 2.5-inch format with SATA interface, but the naming scheme changes from EVO or Pro to the new QVO, which stands for "Quality and Value Optimized SSD". Performance goes up to 550/520 MB per second for sequential read/write, and apparently these SSDs will feature 96,000 IOPS read and 89,000 IOPS write. There will be at least three variants: 1 TB (MZ-76Q1T0BW), 2 TB (MZ-76Q2T0BW) and 4 TB (MZ-76Q4T0BW), with prices of 117.50 euros, 225,96 euros and 451,93 euros (VAT excluded) according to those online retailers. Even with taxes included 19% would make 140, 270 and 540 euros), these are cheaper priced than the ones we can find on the Evo family (160, 380 and 850 euros at those storage capacities), for example. Some of these online shops mention December 2018 as the ETA.

KINGMAX Technology Inc., the world's leading provider of memory products, today is proud to announce the launch of Zeus M.2 2280 PCIe NVMe Gen3x4 SSD PX3480. Along with the growing demands for smaller yet faster storage, M.2 PCIe NVMe SSDs are getting more and more popular for its incredible performance and compact size. In order to fulfill different storage needs with more product offerings, KINGMAX releases M.2 2280 PCIe NVMe Gen3x4 SSD PX3480 which is compatible with most M.2 NVMe 1.3 standard supported devices including ultrabooks and gaming laptops. Optimized with the PCIe NVMe specifications and 3D NAND technology, the M.2 SSD PX3480 delivers breakthrough sequential R/W speeds and wide-ranging capacity choices of up to 1TB, which is especially ideal for gaming enthusiasts and multitaskers who are trying to get in the game faster or store more of their important media contents.

QNAP Systems, Inc. today launched the Mustang-200 dual-CPU computing accelerator card with 10GbE network connectivity (available with Intel Core i5 / Core i7 / Celeron processors). By installing the card in a compatible QNAP NAS' (or PC's) PCIe slot, users will essentially add two processors to their system for increased computing capabilities to provide a flexible performance boost to their IT infrastructure and applications.

"As QNAP NAS evolves to support a wider range of applications, users need more storage space as well as higher computing capabilities for their NAS system. With the Mustang-200 dual-CPU computing accelerator card, users can instantly boost their system's processing power, which is especially ideal solution for surveillance, virtualization, and AI applications," said David Tsao, Product Manager of QNAP.

ADATA Technology, a leading manufacturer of high-performance DRAM modules, and mobile accessories today launched the ADATA Ultimate SU630 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s SSD, which signals its expansion into 3D QLC NAND Flash storage. With next-generation QLC (Quad-Level Cell) 3D NAND Flash, the SU630 delivers terrific value, great performance, and superb reliability, offering users a viable alternative to HDDs for their next upgrade.

Delivering excellent performance without the less than great value typically associated with SSDs, the SU630 gives HDDs a run for their money. It comes in 240GB, 480GB, and 960GB capacities and sports 3D QLC NAND Flash to deliver improved reliability, longevity, and performance over its TLC counterparts. Reinforced by performance-boosting SLC Caching, the SU630 reaches speeds of 520 MB/s read, and 450 MB/s write for smooth and fast boot, file transfers, and downloads. What's more, the SSD also features characteristics that work to keep data safe, including a shock rating of 1500G/0.5ms and resilience to temperature changes (0°C ~ 70°C), while also being more energy-efficient and quieter than HDDs.

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

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

Advantech, a global leading provider of the industrial flash storage solution SQFlash, today releases a flagship NVMe SSD product-SQFlash 920 series. This new series product line brings high performance, density, and full function storage security support, which allows complete design-in service for industrial applications. Advantech's SQFlash 920 series NVMe SSD includes the very popular M.2 2280 form factor (SQF-CM8) as well as a 2.5" U.2 form factor (SQF-C25) using the latest Toshiba BiCS3 3D NAND Flash technology to achieve up to 8TB per drive capacity.

Heading towards AIoT applications such as auto-piloting and industrial machine vision, the SQFlash 920 series is an industry first wide-temperature 3D NAND SSD that comes with built-in smart thermal management and comprehensive security features. Using the latest controller technology that includes LDPC and a RAID-ECC error correction engine, SQFlash 920 series provides best-in-class reliability and the same endurance level as planer MLC NAND Flash. What's more, a cloud ready online predictive maintenance feature (PMQ) is also available to help users remotely monitor their SSD.

Western Digital Corporation, a data infrastructure leader, today announced it is extending the breadth and depth of its data center portfolio into the rapidly evolving in-memory computing market segment. The new Ultrastar DC ME200 Memory Extension Drive is the company's first product that enables customers to better optimize in-memory system capacity/performance for running demanding applications that drive today's real-time analytics and business insights.

"Today's requirement for faster analytics, data processing, cloud services and high-performance computing (HPC) is increasing demand for in-memory computing across a variety of industries, including healthcare, telecommunications and IT, and retail," said Ashish Nadkarni, group vice president, IDC. "By expanding in-memory capacity, the Ultrastar memory drive helps alleviate the high cost of adding extra DRAM, as well as addresses the physical limitations of available DIMM slots, where scaling is either cost-prohibitive or nearly impossible."

LaCie , the premium brand from Seagate Technology (NASDAQ: STX), unveiled the high-performance LaCie Portable SSD storage solution. The compact external solid state drive offers fast and reliable performance featuring USB 3.1 Gen 2 (10Gb/s) technology with USB-C connector for universal compatibility.

With maximum sequential read/write speeds of 540/500MB/s, the LaCie Portable SSD is ideal for on-the-go creative professionals looking for uncompromised performance. Available in 2TB, 1TB, or 500GB capacities, this light-weight solution can transfer one hour of 4K 30fps video footage in less than one minute and store up to 65 hours of 4K 30fps video or 20,000 RAW photos2 (2TB capacity). It is also a great alternative to serve as a scratch disc -- allowing users to edit content directly off the LaCie Portable SSD, freeing up valuable workstation resources or serving as the perfect shuttle drive to quickly transfer files from capture devices on-set back to the studio.

Micron Technology, Inc., today announced the next step towards market leadership for its quad-level cell (QLC) NAND technology with immediate broad market availability of the popular Micron 5210 ION enterprise SATA SSD, the world's first QLC SSD, which began shipping to select customers and partners in May of this year. Available through global distributors, the Micron 5210 ION enterprise SATA SSD further accelerates Micron's lead in the QLC market, enabling replacement of hard disk drives (HDDs) with SSDs and building on Micron's recent launch of the Crucial P1 NVMe QLC SSD for consumer markets.

Enterprise storage needs are increasing as data center applications deliver real-time user insights and intelligent and enhanced user experiences, leveraging artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, big data and real-time analytics. At the same time, there is a growing consumer need for higher storage capacity to support digital experiences. QLC SSDs are uniquely designed to address these requirements.

Compared to hard disk drives, the logic that makes solid-state drives (SSDs) tick is far more complex, involving a far more powerful SoC, complete with native storage, and sophisticated firmware that tells the controller where each bit of user data is physically stored across an array of NAND flash chips. Not surprisingly, the more sophisticated you make your SSD firmware, the more security vulnerabilities you leave, as cyber-security researchers at The Radboud University found out.

A research paper draft published by Carlo Meijer and Bernard van Gastel tells us that hardware data encryption technologies built into modern SSDs are easy to bypass and recover protected data, rendering technologies such as TCG Opal useless. Most modern SSDs offer native data encryption, which encrypts data using popular methods such as AES, without posing an overhead for the host machine. "We found that many hardware implementations [of native encryption] have critical security weaknesses, for many models allowing for complete recovery of the data without knowledge of any secret."

BIOSTAR today introduced the M500 line of solid-state drives in the M.2-2280 form-factor, with PCI-Express 3.0 x2 interface. These were first shown off at Computex 2018. The drives take advantage of the NVMe 1.2 protocol. Available in capacities of 128 GB, 256 GB, 512 GB, and 1 TB; the drives feature DDR3L DRAM caches of 256 MB, 256 MB, 512 MB, and 1 GB, respectively. Sequential performance numbers put out by the company are up to 1,700 MB/s reads, with up to 1,100 MB/s writes.

The drives pack a couple of handy innovations, beginning with the integrated metal heatspreader, which wraps around three sides of the drive. Near the end of the drive are two indicators - one is a green link/activity LED and the other is an RGB LED that indicates real-time temperature measured at the controller, with red being the hottest, green being the coolest, and yellow~amber indicating typical/normal temperature. The company didn't reveal pricing.

Samsung Electronics Wednesday slashed its capital expenditure (capex) by a quarter, which could significantly reduce its NAND flash chip output, and raise NAND flash prices back to profitability for the company, although not anytime soon. This could herald a rise in SSD prices around this time next year, although they partly contradict analyses that predict further slides in NAND flash prices through 2019, as the advent of 96-layer 3D QLC NAND flash by every major player would add to swelling inventories in the market. If you'll recall, Samsung reportedly desires DRAM prices to remain high and establish current high DRAM prices as a new normal. The company went as far as to further reduce its DRAM output, just so supplies of DRAM in the market remain low. The company remarked that acceleration in NAND flash price-drops signifies an end of the "boom" in NAND flash chip demand that fueled growth over the past two years, as justification to its capex cuts.

QNAP Systems, Inc. introduces the brand-new TS-2888X AI-Ready NAS, an all-in-one AI solution combining robust storage and a ready-to-use software environment that simplifies AI workflows with high cost-efficiency. Built using next-gen Intel Xeon W processors with up to 18 cores and employing a hybrid storage architecture with eight hard drives and twenty high-performance SSDs (including 4 U.2 SSDs), 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 to help organizations quickly and easily implement AI applications.

"Compared with typical AI workstations, the TS-2888X combines high-performance computing with huge-capacity storage to greatly reduce latency, accelerate data transfer, and to eliminate performance bottlenecks caused by network connectivity," said David Tsao, Product Manager of QNAP, adding "integrating AI-focused hardware and software reduces the time and complexity for implementing and managing AI tasks, making the TS-2888X the ideal AI solution for most organizations."

Apple today announced a slew of updates to there product lines including an all-new MacBook Air and Mac Mini. Starting with the MacBook Air, Apple has finally given the system a proper upgrade bringing it back to relevance after years of stagnation. These upgrades include a 13.3-inch Retina display, Intel's 8th generation Core i5 processor with UHD Graphics 617, up to 16 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3 and SSDs with capacities up to 1.5 TB. In terms of design, the shell is made of 100% recycled aluminum with the entire system weighing in at just 2.75 lbs compared to the outgoing models 2.96 lbs.

On top of the various hardware improvements, Apple has also included their Touch ID fingerprint sensor which is paired with their T2 chip for a secure login much the same as the current MacBook Pro. These two inclusions, along with the T2 chips ability to deliver on-the-fly data encryption makes the MacBook Air one of the most secure notebooks on the market according to Apple. However, one thing missing here is the Touch Bar, which will likely make more than a few users happy. The keyboard also gets upgraded to the same third generation with butterfly mechanism used on the MacBook Pro lineup.

HighPoint has announced the release of a bootable Quad M.2 NVMe RAID card. The SSD7102 features a PCIe x16 connector for plugging into a users' system, and is essentially an expansion card that can house up to four M.2 NVMe SSDs - four 4x PCIe NVMe SSDs comes up to 16 total PCIe lanes, so the math definitely does check out. HighPoint has gone around CPU-bound limitations in recognizing this type of multiple devices folded into a single one with the usage of a PLX8747 PCIe bridge chip. Custom firmware allows these four drives in RAID to serve as a bootable device.

CORSAIR , a world leader in PC gaming peripherals and enthusiast components, today announced the CORSAIR Force Series MP510 M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD, the latest and fastest in its range of M.2 solid state drives. The MP510 delivers blazing fast sequential read speeds up to 3,480MB/sec, and sequential write speeds up to 3,000 MB/s, making it CORSAIR's highest performing SSD yet.

Available in 240 GB, 480 GB, 960 GB, and 1920 GB capacities, the MP510 offers extreme storage performance in the ultra-compact and simple M.2 2280 form factor, fitting directly into a motherboard or notebook. Utilizing the ultra high-speed NVMe PCIe Gen3 x4 M.2 interface for maximum bandwidth, the MP510 leaves traditional SATA 6Gbps and even previous generation M.2 SSDs in the dust. Loading everything from large video and image files to games, applications or the operating system faster than ever before, the MP510 supercharges your system's performance, whatever you're doing.

Crucial, a leading consumer brand of Micron Technology for memory and storage upgrades, today announced the availability of the Crucial P1 SSD, a PC storage device that leverages the NVMe PCIe interface and Micron's leading-edge QLC technology to deliver fast capacity for less. This is an expansion of Crucial's award-winning portfolio of dependable, high-performing, and affordable SSDs.

The Crucial P1 SSD delivers category-leading, real-world performance. PCMark 8 benchmarks show that the drive is capable of mixed-mode throughputs of up to 565 MB/s, with a composite score of 5,084, which outperforms similar SSDs within the price category. With sequential read/write speeds up to 2,000/1,700 MB/s, the P1 provides unwavering performance via hybrid-dynamic write acceleration, a unique SLC cache implementation. The drive offers an MTTF of 1.8 million hours and an endurance of up to 200 TB total bytes written, with power usage at an active average of 100mW.

Mushkin introduced M.2-SATA variants of its cost-effective Source SSDs. Built in the M.2-2280 form-factor, the drives feature SATA 6 Gb/s interface. The drives combine a Silicon Motion SM2258XT DRAM-less controller with Micron 3D TLC NAND flash, and comes in capacities of 120 GB, 240 GB, 480 GB, and 960 GB. On tap are sequential read speeds of up to 560 MB/s, with up to 520 MB/s sequential writes; up to 78,000 IOPS 4K random reads, and up to 81,000 IOPS 4K random writes. Among its unique features are LPDC ECC, Data Shaping, Global Wear-leveling, Static Data-refresh, and MEDS (Muskin Enhanced Data-protection Suite), an imaging and data-backup software. The drives are backed by 3-year warranties, and could be priced mostly under the $100-mark, except for the 960 GB variant.

MSI drew more than a few eyeballs at Computex 2018 when it showcased the X399 MEG Creation motherboard for AMD Ryzen Threadripper processors. With the advent of "new" Skylake-X Refresh processors by Intel, the company has a new high-end motherboard with the X299 MEG Creation. MSI appears to have toned down on the design from its X399-based product, although you still see the metal waveform design along the chipset heatsink that's contiguous with M.2 SSD heatsinks, the VRM heatsink, and the rear I/O shroud. The board draws power from a combination of 24-pin ATX, and two 8-pin EPS power connectors, conditioning it for the LGA2066 processor with a 14-phase VRM.

Expansion slots on the MSI X299 MEG Creation include four PCI-Express 3.0 x16, from which three are wired to the CPU, and the fourth one to the PCH. Between them are three M.2-2280 slots with PCI-Express 3.0 x4 wiring, each. You can add up to four more M.2-2280 SSDs with the included M.2-Xpander Aero accessory, which is a 4-slot M.2 riser with air-cooling, which made its debut with the X399 MEG Creation. Another star attraction with this board is Realtek 2.5 Gbps Ethernet, alongside an Intel i219-V powered 1 GbE interface, and an 802.11 ac + BT 5.0 WLAN. Another interesting accessory is the ThunderboltM3, a Thunderbolt 3.0 card with two type-C ports, and two DisplayPort connectors, for daisy chaining your displays. Storage connectivity, besides the seven M.2 slots, includes eight SATA 6 Gbps ports, and a U.2 port. This board could be priced around the $500-mark.

Not all devices are created equal, and this can be seen with the ToughArmor MB998SK-B which skews the realm of possibilities. It boasts the ability to house an unprecedented 8 x 2.5" SATA drives with 5mm to 7mm height into a single external 5.25" bay, making it the ultimate solution for storage dense applications. Our unique hot-swappable 2.5" EZ Slide Nano trays let you painlessly and quickly swap out drives. Dual 40mm fans keep your drives nice and cool while ventilated openings located on the front and sides maximize airflow. The MB998SK-B features a rugged heavy duty full metal housing which is commercially designed for Medical & Military systems, IPC, enterprise, and industrial settings.

Intel today introduced 1.5 TB variants of the Optane 905p SSD that implements 3D XPoint memory. The drive comes in half-height PCI-Express 3.0 x4 add-on card, and 15 mm-thick 2.5-inch form-factor with U.2 interface. Both variants offer sequential transfer rates of up to 2,600 MB/s reads, with up to 2,200 MB/s writes. Random access speeds are rated at up to 575,000 IOPS reads, with up to 550,000 IOPS writes. A function of its sheer capacity and 3D XPoint, endurance for these drives is rated at 27.37 PB (bytes written). The drives retain the feature set of their less capacious siblings, including 256-bit AES native encryption. The company didn't release pricing.

Lexar, a leading global brand of flash memory solutions, today announced two new internal solid-state drive solutions to rejuvenate old laptops or PCs. The new Lexar NS100 2.5" SATA III (6Gb/s) solid-state drive (SSD) and Lexar NS200 2.5" SATA III (6Gb/s) solid-state drive (SSD). [Editor's note: Lexar is now owned by Longsys, a Chinese company, who acquired the brand from Crucial in Aug 2017].

The entry-level NS100 SSD is an affordable upgrade for casual users who want more performance than their hard-disk drives (HDD) can provide. It provides faster boot-ups, application load times, and data transfers - turning your old computer from dinosaur to dynamo with sequential read speeds of up to 550MB/s. The NS200 SSD is ready for gamers and professionals looking to refresh their system with a quicker internal drive solution, giving the speed needed to take multitasking on an old PC or laptop to the next level.

In addition to the Savage EXO, Kingston also announced the HyperX Fury RGB series internal SSDs. These drives are characterized by RGB LED diffusers lining the top panels of the drives. Besides SATA 6 Gbps and SATA Power, each drive features a micro USB port that lets you not only use it as a portable drive, but also lets you plug the drive either into a standardized ARGB header of your lighting controller, or a USB header on your motherboard, for software control. The drive is sold in two packages - the base package includes only the drive and a license to Acronis True Image. The Bundle package, on the other hand, also includes a 2.5-inch to 3.5-inch spacer, a portable SSD enclosure, USB cables, and a multi-function screwdriver.

Moving on to the drive itself, the HyperX Fury RGB combines a Marvell 88SS1074 controller with 3D TLC NAND flash memory. The drive comes in capacities of 240 GB, 480 GB, and 960 GB. Sequential transfer rates for all models is rated at up to 550 MB/s reads, with up to 480 MB/s writes, although you could expect reduced performance in the USB-powered external drive mode. Endurance numbers (total bytes written) are 120 TB, 240 TB, and 480 TB, for the 240 GB, 480 GB, and 960 GB variants, respectively. The company didn't reveal pricing.