Samsung unveiled an M.2 variant of its flagship high-performance Z-SSD. Targeted at workstations, HPCs, and AI servers, the Z-SSD lineup is built around Samsung's proprietary Z-NAND flash memory, that offer "up to 10 times" higher cell read performance than conventional 3D V-NAND (found on drives such as the 960 Pro). This performance is then traded off for the lowest possible latencies and response-times, which can help certain AI applications. The Z-SSD M.2 is built in the M.2-22110 (110 mm-long) form-factor, and features PCI-Express gen 3.0 x4 interface, and takes advantage of the NVMe protocol.

The drive appears to feature an 8-channel controller that's similar to the one that drives the company's PM983 SSD, and not quite the 16-channel controller found on the larger AIC variant of this drive. Available in capacities of 240 GB and 480 GB, the drive offers sequential transfer rates of up to 3200 MB/s reads, with up to 2800 MB/s writes; with an endurance of 30 DWPD. Like its larger siblings, the Z-SSD M.2 comes with a bank of capacitors to offer power-loss protection. The company didn't reveal availability or pricing information.

Mushkin Enhanced MFG, an industry-leading designer and manufacturer of high-performance computer products, is announcing the Mushkin Source Series, a new line of solid state drives (SSDs) for the retail, e-tail, system integrator, and channel markets. The Source Series features a powerful, yet cost-effective design suitable for a wide-range of applications.

"The market has never been more ready for SSDs," says Brian Flood, Director of Product Development for Mushkin Enhanced MFG. "With the ultimate balance of value, capacity, and performance, the Source Series leverages all of the great benefits expected from an SSD without breaking the bank."

ADATA Technology, a leading manufacturer of high performance DRAM modules and NAND Flash products, today launched the XPG SX8200, its fastest consumer SSD to date. It arrives in a compact M.2 2280 form factor and uses the ultra-fast PCIe3x4 interface to deliver up to 3200MB/s read and 1700MB/s write - which is perfect for gamers, overclockers, and PC DIY enthusiasts in pursuit of unsurpassed performance! SX8200 employs the latest 2nd generation 64-layer 3D NAND Flash for improved reliability and ships in capacities of 240GB, 480GB, and 960GB.

Marvell, a leader in storage, networking and connectivity semiconductor solutions, today announced that it is launching innovative NVM Express (NVMe)-based chipset solutions that will accelerate the time to market for application-optimized data center SSD implementations. These new, highly-versatile building blocks can optimally address current and emerging workload storage requirements, spanning capacity, latency, performance, power and cost, to enable tailored SSD solutions for specific cloud and enterprise workloads.

The proliferation of cloud services and new technologies, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, is driving various workloads in the data center. These evolving and expanding workloads can have differing storage requirements that emerging SSD form factors are targeted to address. Marvell has developed innovative NVMe chipsets capable of powering the larger Enterprise Data Storage Form Factors (EDSFF), Next Generation Small Form Factors (NGSFF) and various customized form factors, providing the ability to increase storage capacity, performance and overall workload efficiencies.

LITE-ON Storage, an established leader in the rapidly expanding solid-state drive (SSD) industry, said today it will demonstrate its latest enterprise drives, the NVRAM Hybrid SSD, during the OCP U.S. Summit 2018, kicking off here today.

The new LITE-ON NVRAM Hybrid drive, slated for release this spring, is a compact high-density drive with multi-namespaces. One of the namespaces can be dedicated to NVRAM drive and the other namespace to boot drive, fully utilizing the NAND portion of the drive. This drive has a dual-use feature such that it can serve as boot drive for server with the SSD namespace and as cache with the NVRAM part of the drive, resulting in reduced overall Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) with a better utilization rate.

"Customers tell us they need the most technologically advanced SSDs in their enterprises, but those storage solutions must also make financial sense," said Darlo Perez, Managing Director, LITE-ON Storage Group. "Our new NVRAM Hybrid SSD is capable of meeting today's demanding and time-sensitive data center requirements while maximizing TCO."

Nimbus Data, a pioneer in flash memory solutions, today announced the ExaDrive DC100, the largest capacity (100 terabytes) solid state drive (SSD) ever produced. Featuring more than 3x the capacity of the closest competitor, the ExaDrive DC100 also draws 85% less power per terabyte (TB). These innovations reduce total cost of ownership per terabyte by 42% compared to competing enterprise SSDs, helping accelerate flash memory adoption in both cloud infrastructure and edge computing.

"As flash memory prices decline, capacity, energy efficiency, and density will become the critical drivers of cost reduction and competitive advantage," stated Thomas Isakovich, CEO and founder of Nimbus Data. "The ExaDrive DC100 meets these challenges for both data center and edge applications, offering unmatched capacity in an ultra-low power design."

Toshiba Memory America, Inc. (TMA), the U.S.-based subsidiary of Toshiba Memory Corporation, has enhanced its portfolio of solid-state drives (SSDs) for the data center with a new, 3D flash memory-based lineup of PCI Express NVMe and SATA SSDs in multiple form factors. The new CD5, XD5 and HK6-DC SSDs enable infrastructure managers to address performance and workload demands by offering robust performance and reliability with lower operating power for read-intensive applications such as NoSQL databases, big data analytics and streaming media.

"Demand for flash storage in data centers continues to grow rapidly - with capacity shipped into the enterprise expected to increase at a 58 percent CAGR through 2021," said Jeff Janukowicz, IDC Research Vice President for Solid State Drives and Enabling Technologies. "In order for hyperscale, virtualization, automation/orchestration and software-defined storage applications to thrive, cloud data centers must meet specific workload requirements. Toshiba's latest data center SSDs are designed to help customers address these demanding environments and realize the most value from their flash storage."

COLORFUL Technology Company Limited, professional manufacturer of graphics cards, motherboards and high-performance storage solutions is proud to announce the availability of its limited edition COLORFUL SL300 160G Spring L.E. solid state drive. Featuring an all-new pink frosted aluminum alloy shell, the COLORFUL Season series SSD is set to make a statement for builders who are looking to express themselves and create a stunning build featuring a pink color scheme or just want a snazzy pink SSD for their PC, the COLORFUL SL300 160G Spring L.E. is the only choice.

The COLORFUL SL300 Spring L.E. is based off the highly-commended SL300 series solid-state drives from COLORFUL. These SSDs feature a non-standard capacity due to newer 3D NAND flash specification which is the result of new developments in 3D NAND technology. This allows a large volume single BGA NAND flash chip to be created. For example, the COLORFUL SL300 Plus 160G uses a 4 die wafer array.

GIGABYTE today rolled out the CMT2014, an add-on card that converts a PCI-Express gen 3.0 x16 slot into four 32 Gbps M.2 PCIe slots, using PCIe lane-segmentation on the motherboard's end (it doesn't have any bridge chip on its end). This is similar in function, concept, and design to the ASRock Ultra Quad M.2, and the ASUS Hyper M.2, but lacks any mechanism to cool the drives. You get four M.2-22110 slots with PCI-Express gen 3.0 x4 wiring, two of these slots face forwards, and the others backwards.

If you have M.2-2280 (or smaller) drives installed on the slots that face backwards, you can physically (and irreversibly) break off a piece of the card to reduce its length from 21 cm to around 18.5 cm. Other features include power/activity LEDs for each of the four slots, and temperature sensors positioned where most SSDs have their controllers located. The company didn't reveal pricing, but to prevent RMAs from people who can't get it to work on their motherboards lacking lane segmentation, it mentioned that the card is only intended for Xeon "Purley" platform, for now.

ADATA Technology, a leading manufacturer of high performance DRAM modules, NAND Flash products, and mobile accessories, today launched the XPG SX950U 2.5" SATA 6 Gb/s Gaming SSD which utilizes the latest 3D NAND Flash memory and is driven by a high-speed SMI controller to reach large capacities of up to 960 GB with significantly higher read/write speeds up to 560/520 MB/s.

Furthermore, the SX950U is equipped with Intelligent SLC Caching and a DRAM Cache Buffer to provide an optimized and consistent performance. To ensure data integrity and the safety of data transmission, the SX950U features LDPC ECC and RAID Engine technologies, enhancing the stability of the system and extending the SSD's lifespan. For PC enthusiasts and gamers in pursuit of the optimal gaming experience, the SX950U is the ideal choice for improving system performance at an affordable price.

PNY Technologies, leading manufacturer and supplier of storage solutions, launches its new high-performance SSD, the CS900 960GB. The SSD with 960GB storage capacity is the latest addition to the PNY CS900 family and provides a low-cost entry into the world of fast flash drives. It provides fast data transfers of up to 535 MB/s read and up to 515 MB/s write speed.

The CS900 is ideal for those looking for an affordable entry-level model that still has fast transfer rates and memory, and far exceeds the performance of standard hard disk drives (HDDs), which are often built into PCs and laptops. The SSD CS900 enables short boot times, faster program launches and basically increased system performance.

Intel today announced the Optane 800p series M.2 NVMe cache SSD. This series succeeds the original Optane Memory series, which came in 16 GB and 32 GB capacities. The new Optane 800p comes in 58 GB and 118 GB, and offers acceleration to a HDD or slower SSD-based machine, just like the original. It can also be used as a standalone SSD since it's big enough to hold an OS installation and some software. Intel also encourages buying two or more of these drives for NVMe RAID.

The drive is built in the M.2-2280 form-factor, and takes advantage of PCI-Express gen 3.0 x2 interface. Both the 58 GB and 118 GB variants have identical performance numbers from Intel: up to 1450 MB/s sequential reads, up to 640 MB/s sequential writes, up to 250,000 IOPS (8 GB span) random reads, and up to 145,000 IOPS (8 GB span) random writes. Endurance is where 3D XPoint memory begins to shine, both variants have their endurance rated at 365 TBW. Available now, the Optane 800p 58 GB is priced at USD $129.99, while the 118 GB variant goes for $199.99.

Chinese storage manufacturer Kingspec today rolled out the Z1 line of portable SSDs. These are essentially M.2 NVMe drives strapped onto a USB 3.1 to M.2 PCIe adapter. A star-attraction here is Kingspec's choice of pure SLC NAND flash. They don't directly plug into ports, but rather come with a USB 3.1 type-A to type-C cable, with a single cable being used for both power and host connectivity. The drive comes in 128 GB and 256 GB capacities. The 128 GB variant offers sequential speeds of 700-800 MB/s reads, with up to 550-600 MB/s writes; while the 256 GB variant is slightly faster, with 720-850 MB/s reads, and 620-750 MB/s writes. Their 4K random-access speeds at QD64 is rated at 33,000/42,000 IOPS (reads/writes) for both the variants. The company didn't reveal pricing.

Addressing the needs of a growing landscape of Internet of Things (IoT) and Fast Data applications at the edge, Western Digital Corporation today announced two new NVMe SSDs - Western Digital PC SN720 and Western Digital PC SN520 - powered by a new NVMe storage architecture, scalable for a range of emerging implementations, from IoT and edge computing to mobile computing systems.

The new Western Digital NVMe client architecture and product portfolio will enable manufacturers of IoT devices, computing devices such as thin and light, 2-in-1 and embedded PCs and monitoring systems to enable the capture and transformation of the massive quantities of data in real-time at the edge of smart city, smart home and personal data environments. Cisco GCI estimates that nearly 850 zettabytes (ZB) will be generated by all people, machines and things by 2021. With the advent of high-bandwidth technologies like 5G, augmented reality and facial recognition, new applications can benefit from the exceptional performance, power efficiency and capacity of NVMe and Western Digital 3D NAND to deliver an optimal user experience.

Sonnet Technologies today announced that the new 1TB version of its popular Fusion Thunderbolt 3 PCIe Flash Drive is now shipping. A rugged, pocket-size solid-state drive (SSD) storage device with a Thunderbolt 3 interface, the Mac- and Windows-compatible drive is equipped with 1TB of NVMe flash storage and leverages the 40Gb/s bandwidth of Thunderbolt 3 to deliver data transfer speeds up to 2600 MB/s.

The Fusion Thunderbolt 3 PCIe Flash Drive was designed for pro users requiring ultimate performance in a truly portable storage device, unencumbered by the need for an AC power adapter. The storage device connects to any compatible Mac or Windows computer, or at the end of a Thunderbolt 3 device daisy chain, with its 0.5-meter Thunderbolt 3 (40Gbps) cable. Based on the latest PCIe Gen 3 flash memory technology, the Fusion Thunderbolt 3 PCIe Flash Drive is more than five times faster than 6Gb/s SATA SSDs and USB 3 SSD drives.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, today announced that it has begun mass producing the industry's largest capacity Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) solid state drive (SSD) - the PM1643 - for use in next-generation enterprise storage systems. Leveraging Samsung's latest V-NAND technology with 64-layer, 3-bit 512-gigabit (Gb) chips, the 30.72 terabyte (TB) drive delivers twice the capacity and performance of the previous 15.36 TB high-capacity lineup introduced in March 2016.

This breakthrough was made possible by combining 32 of the new 1TB NAND flash packages, each comprised of 16 stacked layers of 512 Gb V-NAND chips. These super-dense 1 TB packages allow for approximately 5,700 5-gigabyte (GB), full HD movie files to be stored within a mere 2.5-inch storage device.

Micron has announced that they will be introducing QLC (Quad Level Cell) NAND-based, own brand drives for the server environment this year. The new QLC drives are expected to boost maximum storage density (and price per GB) closer to that of mechanical HDDs, which is why Micron is positioning drives based on this memory technology as data center-class SSDs for the nearline storage market. The company is positioning these drives as replacement options for 7,200 RPM HDDs for workloads that require heavy reads of stored information - thus offsetting QLC NAND's lower endurance when it comes to available maximum writes on the drives' cells.

It's a known trade-off when it comes to the NAND world: higher amounts of bits per cell to represent information means that there must be much increased accuracy when it comes to reading a given cell's voltage state. While SLC NAND only tracks two voltage states, MLC (2-bits per cell) tracks four voltage states, TLC doubles that to eight voltage states, and QLC doubles the ante again for a maximum 16 voltage states, where each voltage state represents data on the cell. Of course, with repeat writes and voltage changes, accuracy and capacity for the cell to maintain its given voltage tend to drop, which leads to incorrect information and thus corrupted data or those cells to be rendered inoperative. This is one of the reasons for manufacturers to include overprovisioning in their NAND-based solutions.

QNAP Systems, Inc. today unveiled the quad-core Intel-based 2-bay TS-253Be and 4-bay TS-453Be. With a PCIe expansion slot, the functionality of both NAS can be expanded to meet application needs, including M.2 SSD caching and 10GbE connectivity. The TS-x53Be also features HDMI output and 4K H.264/H.265 transcoding to provide a greater multimedia experience while its snapshots function helps protect data against potential ransomware threats.

"With the PCIe slot, the TS-x53Be series allows for extending NAS functionalities, including adding SSD caching and 10GbE connectivity, which provides great long-term potential for the NAS," said Jason Hsu, Product Manager of QNAP. "For users who require a professional storage that can help streamline workflows and provide a great multimedia experience, the TS-x53Be series is the ideal choice with a reasonable price," Hsu added.

Silicon Power (SP), a leader in performance memory solutions, today released the P32A80 and P32A85 PCIe Solid State Drives, a pair of leading high-performance and long-lasting devices in an already robust pool of SSDs.

For the New Creators Starting Out
The highly functional P32A80 and P32A85 are the ideal SSD solutions for high-end systems that are ready for a new level of performance and responsiveness. SP launches its first ever PCIe SSD, with designers in mind looking for large image rendering and intensive graphic editing capabilities, enterprises demanding high speed file transfer, fast boot-ups, and launches, and also musicians needing high volume recording and music library loading performance.

Patriot is aiming to join the high-end, M.2, NVMe SSD playing field with its upcoming Viper SSD family. The company has already shed most details (but not all) on the specs of these upcoming SSDs, which will carry Phison's latest E12 controller, the cream of the crop when it comes to Phison-manufactured solutions. The E12 is controller by Phison is NVMe 1.3 compliant, supports 8 NAND channels, and delivers a PCIe 3.0 x4 interface with strong ECC algorithms. These features are being paired with Toshiba's 64-layer BICS 3D NAND flash memory. The company wants these to succeed to the company's previous Hellfire flagships, with more appealing and modern design, performance, and features.

The Viper SSDs will be available from 240 GB to 2 TB capacities, and Patriot is quoting Phison's own performance estimates for the Phison E12 controller as the performance speeds of its Viper SSDs: 3200 MB/s sequential read, 3000 MB/s sequential write, and 600K random read and random write IOPS. Due to how the showcased Viper SSDs already carry product stickers and retail packaging design seems to be finished, these are expected to be out sooner, rather than later, and will be another options for users looking to bring their storage to some measure of Warp speeds.

ADATA Technology, a leading manufacturer of high-performance DRAM modules and NAND Flash application products, today launches the ISMS331, an industrial SATA 7-pin Disk-On-Module (DOM), which is suitable for desktops, compact computers, industrial computers and embedded applications by providing various specifications and wide temperature support. It also features several key technologies, including self-diagnostics, life time monitoring and ECC (Error Correcting Code) for product longevity and high reliability.

Various Upgrade Configurations for More Possibilities
The ADATA ISMS331 SATA 7-pin DOM utilizes high-quality SLC and MLC NAND flash and comes with a variety of capacities from 4GB to 32GB (SLC models) and 8GB to 128GB (MLC models). It is available in both horizontal and vertical pin orientations to accommodate a wide variety of system form factors. In addition, it provides excellent performance and reliability with sequential read/write speeds of up to 260MB/s for SLC models and 300/180MB/s for MLC models. Thanks to the industrial grade operable temperature range of -40°C to +90°C, the ISMS331 can operate in harsh environments for long periods of time.

SK Hynix Inc. today announced that the Company recently completed developing an enterprise SATA Solid State Drive (or 'eSSD'). With its 72-Layer 512Gb (Gigabits) 3D NAND Flash chips, the Company is paving the way for its full-fledged entrance to the high value-added eSSD market. SK Hynix combined the 72-Layer 512Gb 3D NAND Flash with its in-house firmware and controller to provide the maximum density of 4TB (Terabytes). SK Hynix makes the most of its 72-Layer 512Gb 3D NAND chips to double the biggest density of the SSD of the same size with 256Gb NAND chips.

A single 4TB SSD could contain 200 UHD (Ultra-HD) movies, each of which is generally as large as approximately 20GB (Gigabytes). The new eSSD supports sequential read and write speed of up to 560MB/s (Megabytes per second) and 515MB/s, respectively, and it can perform 98,000 random read IOPS (Input/Output operations per second) and 32,000 random write IOPS. SK Hynix also improved the read latency, which is of the utmost importance in eSSD performance. The Company is sampling the product to server and data center clients in the United States.

Plextor today introduced its latest line of value SATA SSDs, under the M8V series. Available in 2.5-inch and M.2-2280 form-factors, the drives leverage SATA 6 Gbps interface, combining Toshiba's latest-generation 64-layer BiCS TLC NAND flash memory, with Silicon Motion SM2258 controller. This controller offers LPDC and redundant array of NAND flash. Both variants come in capacities of 128 GB, 256 GB, and 512 GB.

Performance differs by capacity variants. All three capacity-variants read at speeds of up to 560 MB/s. The 128 GB, 256 GB, and 512 GB variants write (sequentially) at speeds of up to 400 MB/s, up to 510 MB/s, and up to 520 MB/s, respectively. Their 4K random-access speeds are rated at 60,000/70,000 IOPS (reads/writes), 81,000/80,000 IOPS, and 82,000/81,000 IOPS, respectively. Plextor rates their endurance at 70 TBW for the 128 GB variant, 140 TBW for the 256 GB variant, and 280 TBW for the 512 GB variant. Plextor is backing these drives with 3-year warranties.

BiTMICRO Networks, Inc. has been shipping their latest military and industrial grade E-Disk Altima II and Ace Drive II, NVMe and SATA 2.5" SSDs since November 2017. Heptagon Systems, an embedded server manufacturer has been working with BiTMICRO to qualify their new Industrial SSDs.

"We have tested the BiTMICRO 2TB ACE Drive II Industrial SSD in our HQ-BOX - Xeon-D based compact fan-less industrial server while it's operating in a temperature chamber" explains Stas Lapchev, VP of R&D of Heptagon Systems. "With ambient temperature ranges from -30°C to +72°C, the SSD continued to function properly with performance of 3GB/s read and 2.3GB/s write without degradation and has sustained temperatures even as high as 85°C (as measured on the SSD)".

Introducing the Icy Dock ToughArmor MB607SP-B full metal quad bay 2.5" SATA 6Gbps hard drive or SSD hot swap rugged mobile rack cage for use in a single external 5.25" bay. The MB607SP-B is predicated off the incredibly popular ruggedized mobile rack MB994SP-4SB-1, while taking its general concept, but built with cost effective structure without sacrificing anything in the way of strength. For better compatibility, the original 4 pin power connector has been replaced with a more, popularly used, 15 pin SATA power connector, and reducing cable clutter. The MB607SP-B takes 4 x 2.5" SAS/SATA HDD/SSD from 7mm to 15mm height, and supports hot swap for quick and easy drive replacements. The single 40mm cooling fans has an additional 3-Mode Fan Speed control, allowing the best flexibility - Turn off / low when using SSD's and high when using mechanical SATA hard drives. The MB607SP-B is constructed of rugged robust metal to survive the most demanding conditions making it a perfect storage upgrade kit for Medical & Military systems, embedded system, and industrial PC.

Ensuring drive protection and longevity are the foundation of a high-quality data storage system design/build. The MB607SP-B is capable of withstanding the harshest environments due to its rugged heavy duty full metal construction from the outer shell to the inner trays. The ToughArmor's full metal design is perfect for industrial and medical systems that may require a flammability rating as the full metal design is considered to already comply with most requirements.