Samsung Electronics, the world leader in advanced memory technology, today announced that it has launched an 800-gigabyte (GB) solid state storage drive-the SZ985 Z-SSD, for the most advanced enterprise applications including supercomputing for AI analysis. Developed in 2017, the new 800 GB Z-SSD provides the most efficient storage solution for high-speed cache data and log data processing, as well as other enterprise storage applications that are being designed to meet rapidly growing demand within the AI, big data and IoT markets.

"With our leading-edge 800 GB Z-SSD, we expect to contribute significantly to market introductions of next-generation supercomputing systems in the near future, enabling improved IT investment efficiency and exceptional performance," said Jinman Han, senior vice president, Memory Product Planning & Application Engineering at Samsung Electronics. "We will continue to develop next-generation Z-SSDs with higher density and greater product competitiveness, in order to lead the industry in accelerating growth of the premium SSD market."

As someone who does not mine crypto-currency, loves fast computers, and gaming on them, I find the current crypto-currency mining craze using graphics cards nothing short of a plague. It's like war broke out, and your government took away all the things you love from the market. All difficult times teach valuable lessons, and in this case, it is "Save up and build future-proof."

When NVIDIA launched its "Pascal" GPU architecture way back in Summer 2016, and AMD followed up, as a user of 2x GeForce GTX 970 SLI, I did not feel the need to upgrade anything, and planned to skip the Pascal/Polaris/Vega generation, and only upgrade when "Volta" or "Navi" offered something interesting. My pair of GTX 970 cards are backed by a Core i7-4770K processor, and 16 GB of dual-channel DDR3-1866 memory, both of which were considered high-end when I bought them, around 2014-15.

Throughout 2016, my GTX 970 pair ate AAA titles for breakfast. With NVIDIA investing on advancing SLI with the new SLI-HB, and DirectX 12 promising a mixed multi-GPU utopia, I had calculated a rather rosy future for my cards (at least to the point where NVIDIA would keep adding SLI profiles for newer games for my cards to chew through). What I didn't see coming was the inflection point between the decline of multi-GPU and crypto-plague eating away availability of high-end graphics cards at sane prices. That is where we are today.

ATP Electronics, a leading manufacturer of high-performance industrial memory and storage solutions, spearheads the implementation of industrial temperature (iTemp) support on its latest NVMe M.2 solid state drive modules. The new SSD modules support a wide operating temperature range of -40°C to 85°C to capably address the power and heat issues common in fanless embedded systems as well as extreme temperature variations in Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) applications, enabling them to perform reliably in harsh environments.

When operating at high speeds in high-throughput scenarios, onboard thermal sensors can detect abnormal temperature elevation and automatically enable a mechanism that adjusts performance to cool the system. According to Peter Huang, ATP Head of Embedded Solid State Drive Business Unit, "ATP Dynamic Thermal Throttling intelligently regulates speed and power to reduce heat without aggressive declines in performance, unlike other thermal solutions that cause abrupt drops and thus compromise stability." Additionally, the low typical power consumption of 3.3V makes ATP's NVMe M.2 SSDs energy efficient, translating to longer drive usage and cost savings.

Intel today released their mainstream answer to users' fast, NVMe-based storage needs, the SSD 760p. We've already covered this new consumer, mainstream SSD series in our news pieces; however, information and press decks have now come directly from Intel, allowing us a clearer picture of how Intel sees its products to fit into the consumer market - and hopefully, in consumer's choices.

Transcend Information, Inc., a leading manufacturer of industrial-grade products, is proud to announce the release of 2.5-inch and M.2 form factor industrial solid-state drives featuring 3D TLC NAND flash memory. 3D TLC NAND flash memory has performance that can rival Planar (2D) MLC NAND flash, but at a very competitive price point. The new line of industrial SSDs also boast SLC caching, a RAID engine, low-density parity check (LDPC), and other features that make for a stable, long-lasting product ready for write-intensive industrial and embedded applications.

Built with high-quality 3D TLC NAND flash memory
This all-new series of SSDs uses high-quality 3D TLC NAND flash memory. 3D NAND flash breaks through physical limitations on Planar NAND by stacking layers of memory cells to allow for greater capacities and performance. Compared to Planar NAND, 3D NAND is faster, more reliable, and delivers greater performance. Devices manufactured with 3D NAND are price competitive, making them an excellent choice for embedded systems.

Micron Technology, Inc. today launched the Micron 5200 series of SATA solid state drives (SSDs), maintaining industry-leading performance, consistency, capacity, reliability, and overall infrastructure value. Built on Micron's new industry-leading 64-layer 3D NAND technology, the Micron 5200 series of SSDs offers a cost-optimized SATA platform for business-critical virtualized workloads that cripple on a hard drive, such as OLTP, BI/DSS, VDI, block/object and media streaming.

Leveraging the proven architecture, performance and capacity of the well-regarded 5100 SATA SSDs, the Micron 5200 series is engineered to deliver a fast, easy and cost-effective enterprise storage solution to replace existing hard drives and legacy SSDs. Micron 5200 SSDs immediately deliver better total cost of ownership and improve data center efficiency through server and storage platform consolidation, reducing IT costs and simplifying infrastructure and maintenance. Now it is easier than ever before for enterprises to add more flash into the data center and get more out of server deployments.

Samsung Electronics America, Inc. today introduced the 860 PRO and 860 EVO solid state drives (SSDs), the most up-to-date additions to the company's SATA interface lineup. The products are aimed at consumers who require fast, reliable performance across various applications, from everyday computing to heavy workloads and graphic-intensive operations. Building on the successful launch of the 850 PRO and 850 EVO - the industry's first consumer SSDs with V-NAND technology - the 860 PRO and 860 EVO achieve industry-leading performance for SATA SSDs, offering enhancements in speed, reliability, compatibility and capacity.

"The new 860 PRO and 860 EVO SSDs combine the latest 512Gb and 256Gb 64-layer V-NAND, up to 4GB LPDDR4 mobile DRAM and a new MJX controller to elevate the user experience for both consumers and businesses," said Un-Soo Kim, senior vice president of Brand Product Marketing, Memory Business at Samsung Electronics. "Samsung will continue to fuel meaningful innovations in the consumer SSD space and drive growth of the overall memory industry for years to come."

ADATA Technology Co., Ltd., a world leading memory brand, is proud to present the ED600 external hard drive enclosure, which offers users the convenience of portable external storage coupled with the speed and performance of solid state drives (SSDs). The ED600 is compatible with HDDs as well as SSDs, and can reach transfer speeds of up to 5Gb/s through its USB3.1 interface. Not only is the ED600 strong and stylish, it is also extremely user-friendly; simply plug it in and wait three seconds for the installation to complete itself, without any need for extra procedures or tools.

The design of the ED600 is based on ease of use. Installing the device requires only three simple steps, which can be completed in three seconds by users, even if they are unfamiliar with computer hardware. The ED600 supports 7mm and 9.5mm thick 2.5-inch SATA HDDs and SSDs, and is compatible with both Windows and MacOS. It can be used with desktops, notebooks, and even game consoles. Furthermore, the safety lock on the ED600 prevents the drive from coming loose due to movement or impacts, which gives its users greater peace of mind.

Earlier this week, we broke the story of Intel giving finishing touches to its new SSD 7-series 760p and 660p NVMe drives. Newer screenshots scored by Tom's Hardware put out the company's performance numbers for each of the five 760p series models, 128 GB, 256 GB, 512 GB, 1 TB, and 2 TB. The 128 GB variant is the slowest, and its numbers are the territory of the slower 660p series - up to 1500 MB/s sequential reads, with up to 650 MB/s sequential writes; and 4K random access numbers of up to 100,000 IOPS (both reads and writes).

The 256 GB variant is where the 760p really begins to come to life. With up to 2900 MB/s sequential reads, and up to 1300 MB/s sequential writes, this model begins to make use of the 32 Gb/s PCIe interface. Its 4K random access performance is rated at up to 210,000 IOPS reads, with up to 250,000 IOPS writes. The 512 GB, 1 TB, and 2 TB models have near-identical performance numbers, which are the speeds Intel vaguely advertises for the entire series. The three have the same sequential read speeds of up to 3200 MB/s, and 4K random access performance of up to 350,000/280,000 IOPS (reads/writes). The company didn't put out sequential write numbers of the 1 TB and 2 TB models. Intel reportedly launches the 760p some time early-February.

Samsung has unwittingly released some specs and product images of the as of yet unannounced SSD product. The 860 Pro SSD carries the model number MZ-76P4T0E, and has a pretty impressive 4 TB capacity that's sure to deliver the highest performance possible on the SATA III interface. The stated performance levels stand at 560 MB/s read speeds, and 530 MB/s write, which should be more than enough for most usage tasks. Pricing is also more than enough, and then some; Samsung is quoting a $1,899 pricing for this particular drive.

Crucial started selling all four models of its premium SATA SSD, the MX500. The drive was launched earlier this month. It comes in 250 GB, 500 GB, 1 TB, and 2 TB variants; and in the 2.5-inch form-factor, with SATA 6 Gbps interface. M.2-2280 variants with SATA interface, which were shown off at the 2018 International CES, could launch a little later this year. The 250 GB variant is priced (MSRP) at USD $79.99 ($0.31 per GB), the 500 GB variant at $139.99 ($0.27 per GB), the 1 TB variant $259.99 ($0.25 per GB), and the range-topping 2 TB variant $499.99 ($0.24 per GB). All four models come with 5-year warranties.

Crucial MX500 combines Micron's 2nd generation 64-layer 3D TLC NAND flash memory with a Silicon Motion SM2258 controller, and a custom firmware by Crucial. The NAND flash chips by design offer the same levels of power-loss protection as drives that need capacitor banks to do so. Among its features are Dynamic Write Acceleration (SLC-cached writes), and Redundant Array of Independent NAND (RAIN). All four variants offer sequential transfer rates of up to 560 MB/s with up to 510 MB/s writes, and 4K random access performance ratings of up to 95,000/91,000 IOPS (reads/writes).

QLC is the next big step in flash memory, with another bump in density increases and, crucially for consumers, revised, lower pricing for flash-based products that employ the new technology. We've already had a sneak peek at what QLC-based products can deliver - Intel's leaked SSD 660P employs QLC memory and is expected to deliver 1,800 MB/s in sequential read and up to 1,200 MB/s in sequential write speeds with 150,000 IOPS. Expect base drive capacities to increase - QLC being higher density would mean fewer NAND chips, but manufacturers want to keep the added performance of chip parallelism.

However, flash needs controllers to deliver its true potential, and Marvell has one up its sleeve. The new controller will eventually replace the NVMe 1.1 Eldora (88SS1093) used in some popular SSDs that are already shipping, such as Plextor's M9Pe, and the folks at Tom's hardware took a peek at it - running the current TLC memory, that is. The controller delivered over 670,000 IOPS and 3,500 MB/s in the demo, though there's no information on the density of the drive. But for those performance levels, it must've had a good amount of silicon. While not representative of final QLC memory performance of the controller, it's good to know that at least this part of the ecosystem is good to go. Now if only QLC was quick and hot off the presses, we could see a $100 512 GB SSD.

Autobuy, a popular online shopping site in Taiwan, recently listed Intel's upcoming 760p and 660p M.2 NVMe SSDs on their store. The SSD 760p will be manufactured under Intel's 64-layer 3D NAND technology and feature TLC (triple-level-cell) NAND. It's obviously the faster of the two with a sequential read speed up to 3,200 MB/s and a write speed up to 1,600 MB/s. The drive offers random access reads up to 350,000 IOPS and writes up to 280,000 IOPS. Intel will offer this model in capacities of 128 GB, 256 GB, 512 GB, 1 TB, and 2 TB. TigerDirect listed the pricing for them at $96, $120, $240, $448, and $893, respectively.

The SSD 660p is Intel's budget-friendly this time around. Therefore, it will use QLC (quad-level-cell) NAND despite being manufactured with the same technology as its older brother. This SSD can reach up to 1,800 MB/s in sequential read and up to 1,200 MB/s in sequential write speeds with random access read and write performance in the range of 150,000 IOPS. Surprisingly, Intel won't be offering this model in the 128 GB and 256 GB capacities. Instead, the lowest capacity model will start from 512 GB and make its way up to 2 TB. Unfortunately, pricing wasn't available at the time of this article.

EDGE Memory, a leading U.S.-based supplier of memory and storage upgrades, is announcing the NextGen M.2 PCIe 2280 SSD, adding a powerful PCIe NVMe based solid state drive solution to its product portfolio.

With transfers speeds up to 3.2GB/s and an IOPS rating of up to 370,000, the NextGen SSD is set to be one of the fastest drives available on the market. Powered by a Silicon Motion based SM2262 controller and a PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe 1.3 interface, this drive delivers incredible performance. NextGen M.2 SSDs provide the advanced features and speeds to satisfy the needs of enthusiasts and power users everywhere.

EDGE Memory, a leading U.S.-based supplier of memory and storage upgrades, is announcing their CLX600 line of SSDs with M.2 2280, MO-300/mSATA, and 1.8" SATA 6Gb/s models.

Featuring a combination of performance, reliability, and low power consumption, CLX600 SSDs are the ideal choice for system integrators. The M.2 and mSATA models provide impressive throughput, with up to 500MB/s transfer rate and transactional performance that reaches up to 59,000 IOPS. The CLX600 1.8" SSD can achieve transfer speeds of up to 560MB/s and up to 76,000 IOPS. CLX600 SSDs provide ultra-efficient block management to protect data and enhance endurance. These drives deliver leading edge performance and reliability for the most demanding power users, while low power modes extend battery life for road warriors.

Mushkin updated its Triactor line of mainstream SATA SSDs with the new Triactor 3DX and 3DL. The "3D" symbolizes 3D NAND flash, in this case, 3D TLC NAND flash, mated to a Silicon Motion SM2258 controller. The drive comes in sizes of 120 GB, 250 GB, 500 GB, and 1 TB. It offers sequential transfer rates of up to 565 MB/s reads, with up to 530 MB/s writes, and 4K random access performance of up to 100,000/91,000 IOPS (read/write). The Triactor 3DX is built in the 7 mm-thick 2.5-inch form-factor, while the Triactor 3DL is built in the M.2-2280 form-factor, with SATA 6 Gbps interface.

Mushkin showed off its Helix-L cost-effective M.2 NVMe SSD. The company also showed off the slightly faster Pilot M.2 NVMe drive. Built in the M.2-2280 form-factor, the Helix-L combines a Silicon Motion SM2263XT controller with 3D TLC NAND flash memory, and comes in capacities ranging between 120 GB and 1 TB. The drive's rated performance matches the controller's maximum rated performance numbers, which stand at up to 2400 MB/s sequential reads, up to 1700 MB/s sequential writes, up to 280,000 IOPS 4K random reads, and up to 250,000 IOPS maximum writes.

The Pilot, on the other hand, combines the faster Silicon Motion SM2262 controller, with 3D TLC NAND flash over 8 channels, and is cushioned by a DRAM cache, which together push its performance to up to 3200 MB/s sequential reads, with up to 1900 MB/s sequential writes; and 4K random access performance figures of 370,000/300,000 IOPS (reads/writes). It comes in capacities ranging between 240 GB and 2 TB. Both drives support the latest NVMe 1.3 specification, and are backed by 3-year warranties.

ADATA showed off its latest M.2 NVMe SSDs that support the latest NVMe 1.3 specification, and are based on some of the newer generation controllers, beginning with the XPG SX8200. This drive combines Silicon Motion SM2262 controller with 3D TLC NAND flash memory, and comes in capacities of 240 GB, 480 GB, and 960 GB. The drive offers sequential transfer rates of up to 3200 MB/s reads, with up to 1700 MB/s writes; and features SLC caching, an LPDC ECC engine, and an internal RAID engine.

The ADATA XPG SX8200 is designed to succeed the XPG SX8000, which is second-fiddle to the company's fastest XPG SX9000-series, and competes with the likes of Samsung 960 EVO series. The ADATA IM2P33F8 implements Silicon Motion SM2263XT controller, which is DRAM-less and has just four flash channels. The drive offers sequential speeds of up to 2400 MB/s reads, with up to 1700 MB/s writes; and comes in capacities of 128 GB, 256 GB, and 512 GB.

Thermal throttling is a big problem for M.2 NVMe SSDs, with drives losing up to 30 percent in sequential transfer rates when overheated. ADATA, with an M.2 SSD product spanning nearly all price-points, is taking the issue of throttling heat-on with its XPG Storm RGB M.2 SSD heatsink. The cooler consists of a chunky aluminium heatsink with coverage area for M.2-2280 drives, a tiny lateral-blower fan, and a cooler shroud with RGB LED lighting. ADATA claims the heatsink reduces temperatures by up to 25 percent.

Its RGB LED lighting supports standard headers, and can be controlled using standardized software such as ASUS Aura Sync RGB, GIGABYTE RGB Fusion, MSI Mystic Light RGB, etc. Unfortunately, the heatsink appears to add Z-height that makes it unfit for M.2 slots located between PCI-Express add-on card slots. At best they're suited for boards with M.2 slots above the topmost heatsink, or just south of the PCH heatsink. The heatsink relies on adhesive thermal-pads and its installation is tool-free

Crucial, a leading global brand of memory and storage upgrades, today announced the availability of the Crucial MX500 SSD. The new drive features second generation Micron 3D NAND technology and is 45 times more energy efficient than a typical hard drive. Available in capacities up to 2TB in the 2.5-inch form factor and up to 1TB in the M.2 form factor, the MX500 has sequential reads/writes up to 560/510 MB/s and random reads/writes up to 95K/90K IOPS.

"This next generation MX500 SSD features a stackable 64-layer, 256-gigabit component. Micron's floating gate NAND is designed with CMOS Under the Array (CUA), which allows us to minimize the footprint of the die. At 59 square millimeters, it's among the world's smallest 256-gigabit die," said Jon Tanguy, Crucial Senior SSD Product Engineer. "Our engineering team has incorporated this leading-edge NAND technology in an SSD that includes all the advanced features Crucial customers have come to expect to keep their data safe."

Seagate Technology plc, a world leader in data storage solutions, today announced a range of new products at the CES 2018 conference designed to equip the world's increasingly mobile population with solutions that solve key challenges they face when creating, processing and accessing their data on-the-go.

"Our world is becoming more data-centric, connected and mobile. This means creating, transferring, storing and accessing data quickly and reliably is critical to unlocking the potential of everything - from data created in the field, to data powering self-driving cars, AI personal assistants or virtual and mixed reality experiences," said Tim Bucher, senior vice president of Seagate consumer solutions. "At Seagate, we're constantly pursuing innovative ways to address our customer needs so they can gain a competitive edge in whichever field they play."

At today's Consumer Electronics Show 2018 (CES 2018), Western Digital unveiled new and breakthrough consumer solutions that address today's personal content explosion, including voice-activated media streaming via popular Smart Home devices, the world's smallest 1TB USB flash drive and a portfolio of ultra-mobile, high-performance, wireless and high-capacity flash storage products. Sold under the SanDisk and WD brands, these offerings ensure that personal experiences and memories can thrive for years to come.

Smartphones, drones, action cameras and virtual reality (VR) goggles are capturing and creating rich content that users want to access and share with friends and followers alike. Innovations in multi-lens cameras, 8K video, 5G wireless, VR, augmented reality (AR) and video streaming are enabling more immersive experiences. As a result, consumers are looking for easier ways to capture, preserve, access and share their personal content as it becomes richer and more robust.

Following its early-CES launch, we have more details of Toshiba's "entry-level" M.2 NVMe SSD, the RC100. This drive is designed to offer significantly higher performance than SATA SSDs, at a tiny (10-15 percent) price premium over the fastest SATA SSDs. This market has been made inroads to by companies like ADATA, with their XPG SX6000-series. The RC100, offers not only NVMe performance, but also a more compact size. The drive is built in the M.2-2242 form-factor (42 mm long). It will fit on any motherboard that supports M.2-2280 drives, you just have to move the fastening nut to an inner hole marked "42."

Toshiba RC100 drives combine an in-house developed controller with Toshiba 64-layer BiCS Flash TLC memory. The drive features PCI-Express 3.0 x2 host interface, and takes advantage of the NVMe 1.2 protocol. It offers sequential transfer rates of up to 1,620 MB/s reads, with up to 1,130 MB/s writes; and 4K random access performance of up to 160,000 IOPS reads, and 120,000 IOPS writes. The drive comes in capacities of 120 GB, 240 GB, and 480 GB, and is backed by a 3-year warranty.

Kingston showed off its HyperX Savage EXO external SSD, targeted at notebook gamers, and game console users, so you could easily swap out game install folders of multiple games on the fly. Built in a compact, yet rugged polycarbonate chassis, the drive comes in capacities of 480 GB and 960 GB, implementing 3D TLC NAND flash memory. The drive takes advantage of USB 3.1 gen 2 (10 Gbps) interface, offering sequential transfer rates of up to 490 MB/s reads, and up to 480 MB/s writes (something not possible with USB 3.1 gen 1, due to interface overhead). Both type-A and type-C cables come included with the drive, a single cable handles both power and host-connectivity.

Kingston did what was inevitable - RGB LED lighting on SSDs, the least showy components of any PC build. The new HyperX Fury RGB series SSDs feature RGB LED lighting elements in the form of two diffusers and the HyperX logo. The drive is build in the 7 mm-thick 2.5-inch form-factor, with SATA 6 Gbps interface. In addition to the SATA interface, the drive has a micro-USB 2.0 port, and in included cable that connects it to a USB 2.0 header of your motherboard. This USB connection is needed to let you control its LED lighting. In addition to Kingston's own HyperX app, in addition to industry standards such as ASUS Aura Sync RGB, and GIGABYTE RGB Fusion. As a drive, the HyperX Fury RGB retains the feature-set of the HyperX Fury. It comes in capacities of 240 GB, 480 GB, and 960 GB; and implements 3D MLC NAND flash memory. It offers sequential transfer rates of up to 550 MB/s reads, with up to 520 MB/s writes.