Samsung drawing inspiration from Apple on product design is not new. Its latest is a cylindrical desktop PC that bears semblance to the Apple Mac Pro. To be fair to Samsung, the Mac Pro is technically a multi-GPU ready workstation powered by Intel Xeon processors. The new ArtPC Pulse Premium Desktops from Samsung, on the other hand, are just that - Windows desktops. Measuring 5.5 inch x 5.5 inch x 10.7 inch, this desktop packs in some premium PC hardware, flash memory, and an integrated 360° speaker system by Harman Kardon attached to its body.

The ArtPC Pulse comes in two main variants, the base $1,199 model featuring Core i5-6400 processor, 8 GB of dual-channel DDR4 memory, and 256 GB NVMe SSD storage; and a higher $1,599 variant featuring a Core i7-6700 processor, 16 GB of dual-channel DDR4 memory, and a 1 TB HDD in addition to the 256 GB NVMe SSD. Both variants feature AMD Radeon RX 460 graphics with 2 GB of video-memory. Other connectivity includes 802.11ac WLAN, gigabit Ethernet, SDXC card reader, five USB 3.1 ports (including a type-C port), and HDMI 2.0b display output.

ADATA Technology, a leading manufacturer of high performance DRAM modules and NAND Flash products, today launched theXPG SX8000 SSD, which uses an M.2 form factor loaded with 3D MLC NAND Flash and an SMI 2260controller. The SX8000 meets NVMe 1.2 specifications and connects directly to motherboards via PCI Express 3.0 x4 (PCIe 3x4) to deliver 2.4GB/s read and 1GB/s write, with 100K/140K IOPS. The SX8000 arrives in diverse capacities (128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB), ensuring a new generation of SSD performance is available to more users. A slightly faster version fitted with an attractive XPG heatsink will release by the end of October, promising an aesthetic bonus for case modding enthusiasts.

The XPG SX8000 connects to desktop and notebook PCs via low profile M.2 2280 and channels data through PCI Express 3.0 x4 (four lane). The low latency and big bandwidth of PCIe enable up to 2.4GB/s read and 1GB/s write - four times the read and twice the write performance of average SATA 6Gb/s SSDs. Random 4K IOPS figures are 100K read and 140K write, also significantly more than SATA-based drives.The SX8000 features full NVMe 1.2 compatibility, powering a large performance boost that means users notice gains in real world scenarios, especially loading times within games that require heavy asset streaming and in professional applications such as graphics and audio rendering.

Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. (TAEC), a committed technology leader, today announces the launch of the OCZ TL100 SATA solid state drive (SSD) series. Designed for entry-level users with traditional hard disk drive (HDD) storage seeking an affordable upgrade solution, the Toshiba OCZ TL100 series provides the performance of SSD technology at an attractive price point.

Offering an easy and affordable way for value-oriented users to enhance their mobile or desktop systems, Toshiba OCZ TL100 SSDs improve home/office computing experiences, enabling increased system responsiveness and productivity over hard drives. With Toshiba TLC NAND flash memory under the hood, the TL100 series prioritizes both quality and affordability delivering the reliable system storage end users can rely on.

Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Global PCle SSD Market 2016-2020" report to their offering. The report forecast the global peripheral component interconnect express (PCIe) SSD market to grow at a CAGR of 33.24% during the period 2016-2020. The report has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.

According to the report, need for managed service data centers will be a key driver for market growth. It is advantageous for an enterprise to operate a colocation facility rather than to build a data center. Data center colocation allows enterprises to rent computing storage, servers, and network. It enables minimal utilization of power and bandwidth and enhances the security of enterprise IT equipment.

Shuttle Computer Group, Inc., one of the world's leading designers of small form factor computers, today announced the upgrade to its XPC Nano line of barebone computers. The XPC NC02U Ultra Small Form Factor Series supports the latest Skylake-U platform technology. It has a new elegant, space saving design and can attach directly to a monitor with a standard VESA mount, for an uncluttered workspace or all-in-one commercial application.

"Like all of Shuttle's computers, the new NC02U can be custom configured, which sets us apart from many other computer manufacturers with competing products," said Marty Lash, director sales and marketing, Shuttle Computer Group. "And the ultra-small form factor design makes it perfect for integrators who work in digital signage, kiosks, POS, and the SOHO and SMB markets."

Samsung Electronics America, Inc., a worldwide leader in advanced memory solutions for more than two decades, today unveiled the Samsung 960 PRO and 960 EVO, its newest solid state drives (SSDs). The V-NAND based, M.2 form factor SSDs were built on the company's category-defining Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) SSD leadership. With powerful performance, endurance and capacity topped with all new and more robust Samsung Magician software package, Samsung continues to accelerate the NVMe era.

Packed with more technology and innovation than ever, the 960 PRO and 960 EVO are designed for users who seek smaller and faster storage solutions that deliver higher bandwidth and lower latency for processing massive amounts of data for everything from gaming and large file transfers to 4K video rendering, data analytics and more on their ultra-thin notebooks and PCs.

Aesthetically unparalleled. Uncompromised in performance. Most popularly known for pushing PCs past their limits and holding multiple records at the world's largest overclocking events, Ian "8Pack" Parry is no stranger when it comes to breaking the laws of what many PC enthusiasts would commonly consider to be the impossible.

Meet the 8Pack Rocket. Distinctly crafted, highly refined and equipped with nothing less than the best, 8Pack's latest beast isn't one that's happy being confined to the home. Designed for portability and travel, all-the-while packing the power; the 8Pack Rocket is an overclocked powerhouse for on-the-go performance that's perfect for LAN parties.

Toshiba company OCZ today announced the new VX500 line of performance SSDs in the 2.5-inch form-factor, featuring SATA 6 Gb/s interface. The drives are based on a new-generation platform by OCZ's parent company Toshiba. The drives combine Toshiba TC358790 controller with 15 nm MLC NAND flash memory chips by Toshiba. The drives come in capacities of 128 GB, 256 GB, 512 GB, and 1 TB, and offer price/GB comparable to TLC NAND flash-based drives; yet with performance comparable to high-end MLC NAND flash drives.

All four variants offer up to 550 MB/s sequential reads. The 128 GB, 256 GB, 512 GB, and 1 TB variants offer up to 485 MB/s, 510 MB/s, 515 MB/s, and 515 MB/s of sequential writes, respectively. Random access performance is rated around 90,000 IOPS reads, with up to 65,000 IOPS writes. The 128 GB variant is priced at US $63.99, the 256 GB variant at $92.79, the 512 GB variant at $152.52, and the 1 TB variant at $337.06. The drives are backed by 5-year warranty. Acronis TrueImage disk cloning software comes included.Read our review of the VX500 512GB here.

Samsung is giving finishing touches to a new line of PCI-Express solid-state drives (SSDs) that offer performance that matches or beats the current SSD 950 Pro series, at lower price-points, the 960 EVO. These drives leverage the company's 48-layer 3D-VNAND flash memory, and the new "Polaris" SSD controller by Samsung, to serve up performance that beats the 950 Pro. Samsung could transfer some of the cost-savings in using the inexpensive flash standard to the consumer, highlighted by the company's decision to brand these drives "EVO."

Tom's Hardware discovered that the Samsung PM961 drives are analogous to the 960 EVO, featuring identical components - the "Polaris" controller, and 48-layer TLC 3D-VNAND flash chips . These drives come in capacities of 128 GB, 256 GB, 512 GB, and 1 TB, with sequential transfer rates of up to 3000 MB/s reads, with up to 1150 MB/s writes; up to 360,000 IOPS 4K random-read, and up to 280,000 IOPS 4K random-write. The 960 EVO will ship in M.2 NGFF-2280 and PCIe add-on card form-factors, with PCI-Express 3.0 x4 bus interfaces. The drives will support the NVMe protocol.

HP Inc. today debuted two new PCs, HP Pavilion Wave and HP Elite Slice, that are revolutionizing traditional designs for the home and workplace. HP is transforming the desktop PC to create unique experiences that deliver the power customers expect in small, creative designs. The HP Pavilion Wave is designed for entertainment and productivity for the home by combining desktop power and great audio experiences.

For customers who want a PC that can fit into small places, the new offering is a beautiful and compact design with the power of a full-sized desktop. This unique desktop is built around a fully integrated, advanced audio system to play music, listen to movies, web chats and Cortana. It features an iconic triangular form with an innovative parabolic reflector with an integrated speaker on top of the PC for superb, 360-degree sound to fill a room with crisp audio.

Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ: WDC) today announced that its popular HGST-branded Ultrastar SN150 PCI Express (PCIe) NVMe solid state drive (SSD) is now certified for use with VMware Virtual SAN and vSphere. Optimized for easy set-up, the Ultrastar SN150 SSD for VMWare environments reduces latency, and brings hyperscale-level performance and enhanced Quality of Service (QoS) time to virtualized servers and cloud storage. This can significantly lower the total cost of ownership of VMware storage environments over traditional storage architectures by reducing performance tuning and field support costs. In server-side environments where VMware virtualization management is utilized, the Ultrastar SN150 is an ideal option for data center managers building or deploying systems on VMware Virtual SAN or vSphere.

Part of Western Digital's HGST-branded Ultrastar data center storage solutions family, the certified Ultrastar SN150 is available in a low-profile, half-height, half-length (HHHL), add-in card form factor and is one of the first NVMe SSDs in the industry to utilize VMware's in-box NVMe driver. For data center administrators, this helps eliminate the hassle of time-consuming downloads and configurations, and allows faster deployment. The Ultrastar SN150 drive is available in capacities ranging from 1120GB1 to 3820GB and offers speeds which exceed Virtual SAN's highest performance class (Class F) specifications, enabling it to easily address the heaviest data workloads in a variety of virtualized server and storage configurations, including all-flash and hybrid configurations utilizing flash for caching and hard disk drives for storage capacity.

Kingston Digital, Inc., the Flash memory affiliate of Kingston Technology Company, Inc., the independent world leader in memory products, today announced Data Center 400 (DC400) SSD, the latest solid-state drive to its family of enterprise solutions. DC400 SSD is an entry-level enterprise drive designed for server use in data centers especially for customers who deploy a rip-and-replace strategy. It is ideal for read-intensive applications such as boot, web servers and lower data rate operational databases and analytics - especially in data center mixed workload environments where endurance and reliability are important.

DC400 SSD offers superior quality of service for data center customers whose workload environment calls for sustained IOPS and consistent low latency. An expanded on-board DRAM acceleration cache enables high, sustained IOPS to increase performance over a wide range of read/write workloads. Standard as well as user-adjustable over-provisioning improves random IOPS performance and endurance while enterprise firmware improves latency and delivers consistently low data access times under steady-state workloads. Additionally, DC400 SSD features enterprise-class reliability with end-to-end data path protection and firmware-implemented power-loss protection ("pFAIL").

ADATA Technology, a leading manufacturer of high performance DRAM modules and NAND Flash products, today launched the Ultimate SU800 SATA 6Gb/s 3D NAND solid state drive, part of a complete range of SSD offerings that utilize advanced 3D NAND Flash. At the forefront of SSD innovation and development, ADATA has committed to transitioning to 3D NAND across its entire SSD portfolio, from mainstream consumer offerings to hardened industrial application models designed for the harshest environments.

The Ultimate SU800 is a mid-range model that makes the most of 3D NAND, or stacked Flash, representing a considerable upgrade for existing 2D NAND SSD users and a massive step up for HDD users. With its incorporation of floating gate cell NAND and a high quality SMI controller, the Ultimate SU800 arrives in diverse capacities - 128GB to 1TB. It embodies the 3D NAND generation with higher density, improved performance, and increased reliability when compared to 2D or planar NAND Flash SSDs. ADATA plans to expand the Ultimate series of solid state drives with higher-end SU900 by September.

ADATA Technology, a leading manufacturer of highperformance DRAM modules and NAND Flash products, today launched the Premier SC660 external solid state drive and Premier HC660 external hard drive. The two share a luxurious, sandblasted metal design that measures just 9.6mm in thickness. The grooved enclosure featured in both models is highly durable, resistant to shocks, scratches, and chipping thanks to an electroplated coating.

ADATA continues to offer customers more options for external storage, enabling content mobility with easy sharing, multi-OS compatibility, and enhanced durability. Whether in SSD or hard drive form, the shared design of the SC660 and HC660 makes them highly attractive and practical storage products for users that want a combination of eye-catching style and portability.

Crucial today, in a statement to TechPowerUp stated that it has canceled the Ballistix TX3 PCIe solid-state drive launch. The company canceled the product on the basis of "prioritization of company resources and investments." The company however stated that it will continue to develop SSD products that target the gamer-enthusiast market that the Ballistix TX3 PCIe was intended for. "We are, however, continuing to explore potential opportunities for future gaming products and will provide an update as new plans are formalized," the company stated.

Crucial first unveiled the Ballistix TX3 at the 2016 Computex Expo, where it demonstrated its M.2 variants. The drives combined Silicon Motion's new SMI2260H processor with Micron-made 3D MLC NAND flash memory. The drive took advantage of 32 Gb/s PCIe and the new NVMe protocol to offer transfer rates up to four times higher than current performance-segment SATA 6 Gb/s SSDs.

QNAP Systems, Inc. today announced the internal testing results of the QNAP TS-831X Turbo NAS and proved that a TS-831X with eight solid-state drives (SSDs) can reach read speeds of 1499 MB/s and write speeds of 665 MB/s with its all-native SATA 6 Gb/s ports and integrated dual 10 GbE SFP+ LAN ports, making it the perfect solution for high-bandwidth applications.

As SSD are becoming increasingly prevalent on the market due to their falling costs, higher performance, zero noise and low power consumption, they have become the greatest choice for uncompromising I/O performance and 10 GbE applications. A TS-831X with eight native SATA 6 Gb/s ports allows users to enjoy an SSD cache with no slot position restrictions. Even in a RAID 5 or RAID 6 setup, the full SATA 6 Gb/s ports can still ensure the highest throughput performance without internal I/O and data access being constricted by non-SATA 6 Gb/s ports.

Seagate Technology announced today at the Flash Memory Summit conference two new flash innovations that extend the limits of storage computing performance in enterprise data centers to unprecedented levels. The new products include a 60 terabyte (TB) Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) solid-state-drive (SSD) - the largest SSD ever demonstrated - and the 8TB Nytro XP7200 NVMe SSD. These two new products represent the high performance end of Seagate's Enterprise portfolio - a complete ecosystem of HDD, SSD and storage system products designed to help customers manage the deluge of data they face and move the right data where it's needed fast to meet rapidly evolving business priorities and market demands.

The 60TB SAS SSD and 8TB Nytro XP7200 NVMe SSD are the newest additions to Seagate's data center portfolio and are designed to help enterprise IT leaders obtain more value from the rapidly expanding amount of data they must contend with, even under the most demanding application requirements. The 60TB SAS SSD features twice the density and four times the capacity of the next highest-capacity SSD available today - equivalent to the capacity needed to accommodate 400 million photos on a typical social media platform, or 12,000 DVD movies. This single controller architecture also delivers the lowest cost per gigabyte for flash available today.

At the 2016 Flash Memory Summit, Samsung unveiled a massive 32-terabyte solid state drive (SSD) for enterprise applications. The drive leverages the company's 4th generation, 64-layer 3D V-NAND flash memory, making it the company's highest-capacity SSD, upping the 15.36 TB drive the company unveiled in March, 2016. The drive is built in the 12 mm-thick, 2.5-inch form-factor, and features the SAS 12 Gb/s interface. At the summit, the company announced that it plans to have 100 TB SSDs ready by 2020.

VIA Technologies, Inc, today announced that it be will demonstrating its latest VIA NVMe PCIe Gen III & SATA III SSD controllers in Booth#818 of the 2016 Flash Memory Summit being held from August 9th to 11th in the Santa Clara Convention Center, California, USA. Featuring the VIA LDPC PLUS ECC decoding engine with Gear-Shifting technology, the second generation VIA SSD controllers offer best-in-class error correction capability and ensure high-throughput performance without overheating issues.

"VIA Gear-Shifting technology leverages our unique dual hardware decoding architecture to maximize data integrity and longevity," said Richard Brown, VP International Marketing, VIA Technologies, Inc. "Our second generation VIA SSD controllers are the ideal choice for computing devices that require superior SSD performance with high cost-efficiency."

Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. (TAEC), a committed technology leader, will showcase its new BG series solid state drive (SSD) family featuring cutting-edge BiCS FLASH with 3-bit-per-cell TLC (triple-level cell) technology and Toshiba's new single-package ball grid array (BGA) NVMe PCI Express (PCIe) Gen3 x2 SSD at the 2016 Flash Memory Summit held in Santa Clara, California between August 8 - 11. Delivering a smaller footprint, lower power consumption and better performance than traditional storage options, the BG SSD series is purpose-built for the future wave of ultra-thin mobile PCs, including 2-in-1 convertible notebooks and tablets.

With a surface area 95 percent smaller than conventional 2.5-inch SATA storage devices and 82 percent smaller than M.2 Type 22806, the Toshiba BG series condenses both the controller and NAND flash memory in a single 16 mm x 20 mm BGA package enabling device manufacturers to prioritize features like battery capacity for longer operating times. The BG series is also available mounted on a M.2 Type 22307 module for applications requiring socketed storage. BG SSDs utilize BiCS FLASH, a three-dimensional (3D) stacked cell structure, making it possible to accommodate up to 512 GB of storage capacity in this high-performance and compact form factor. Additionally, the BG series SSDs utilize an in-house Toshiba-developed controller and firmware for a full, vertically developed solution, ensuring technology is tightly integrated for optimal performance, power consumption and reliability.

BIOSTAR is proud to announce its latest product series targeted for power users and gamers looking for high-performance storage: BIOSTAR announces the debut their G300 series of solid-state drives (SSD). With the current trend of enthusiasts switching to SSDs for faster storage performance especially for eSports and the gaming market where performance is a key consideration, SSDs are the top choice for gamers versus traditional hard disk drives. With SSDs, games and level load faster, the system is more responsive and you spend more time gaming.

With SSDs growing in popularity as the preferred storage for gaming PCs due to their faster performance, gamers are becoming more and more stringent in their buying decisions because of the large selection of SSDs in the market. All SSDs offer better performance than conventional mechanical hard disk drives but not all SSDs are the same.

Seagate Technology plc, today unveiled a first-of-its kind, high-capacity drive that can help data centers more easily accommodate exponential data growth, while still maintaining high levels of computing power and performance. The two terabyte (TB) version of its Nytro XM1440 M.2 non-volatile memory express (NVMe) Solid State Drive (SSD) is the highest-capacity, enterprise-class M.2 NVMe SSD available today, making it well suited for demanding enterprise applications that require fast data access, capacity and processing.

As the latest addition to the Seagate Nytro SSD product line, the 2TB Nytro XM1440 M.2 NVMe SSD is designed to accelerate enterprise data access, with twice the density of prior M.2 NVMe environments. Optimized for read-intensive and mixed workloads, its high capacity and small form factor are ideal for today's cloud and enterprise data center environments, where speed and processing power in a small footprint are increasingly important. The drive can help meet the needs of demanding enterprise applications including online transaction processing, high-performance computing and big data analytics. It also helps manage storage growth with deduplication and compression, allowing data centers to easily create more virtual machines instantly without having to add additional servers - enabling today's data centers to more easily manage their ever-expanding storage growth.

Crucial, a leading global brand of memory and storage upgrades, today announced additional capacities of the Crucial MX300 solid state drive (SSD). Built for speed and loaded with advanced features, the new drives deliver an immediate increase to system performance.

With read speeds up to 530 MB/s and write speeds up to 510 MB/s on all file types, the Crucial MX300 enables users to boot up almost instantly, load programs with ease, and accelerate demanding applications. The drive is engineered with Micron 3D NAND technology, resulting in an endurance rating of up to 220 TB total bytes written by leveraging larger NAND cells to deliver top-notch performance and prolong endurance.

Kingston Digital, Inc., the Flash memory affiliate of Kingston Technology Company, Inc., the independent world leader in memory products, today announced it is shipping UV400 SSD. The "ultra value" UV400 SSD allows fast boot times, application loading and file transfers for mainstream users at a great price point. UV400 is powered by a four-channel controller for incredible speeds of up to 550 MB/s read and 500 MB/s write, and is 10x faster than a 7200 RPM hard-disk drive (HDD).

UV400 is rugged and more durable than a mechanical hard drive as it is shock and vibration resistant making it more reliable for use in notebooks and other mobile computing devices. It is available as a stand-alone drive or as a bundle kit with all the accessories needed (2.5" USB enclosure for notebooks and 3.5" adapter for desktop, SATA cable and Acronis data migration software download coupon) for easy do-it-yourself installation. UV400 comes in 120 GB, 240 GB, 480 GB and 960 GB (shipping soon).

ADATA Technology, a leading manufacturer of highperformance DRAM modules and NAND Flash products, today unveiledthe SE730, SC660, and SV620 external SSDs. The three are compatible with Windows, Mac OS, and Android, thus bringing solid state storage expansion and convenience to the majority of notebooks, ultrabooks, desktops, and even media boxes and game consoles.

From the USB Type-C SE730with its IP68 dust and water proofing to the cost-effective SC660 and SV620, each offers at least four times the performance of an external mechanical drive while consuming far less power (excellent for portable device batteries), operating in total silence, and ensuring vastly better shock resistance. The drives are ideal for mobile or stationary scenarios. They use carefully-sorted and certified controllers and memory chips, undergoing rigorous ADATA testing. Likewise, PCB pr! oduction and enclosure assembly meet demanding ADATA standards, backed by a 3-year warranty. The SE730 and SV620 launch today while the SC660 will release in August.