Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, today introduced its latest lineup of high performance SATA solid state drives (SSDs) for small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) -- the Samsung PM863 and SM863. These next-generation drives deliver faster speeds and improved reliability in much higher capacities, as well as greater power efficiency, in order to support the heavy demands placed on the data center.

"Companies around the world are racing to digitize their business processes, which is putting increased strain on the data center and extreme pressure on IT managers to find a solution quickly," said Un-soo Kim, Senior Vice President of Branded Product Marketing, Memory Business, at Samsung Electronics. "The PM863 and SM863 solid state drives are the ideal solution, offering much higher density in the 2.5" form factor, which saves IT managers at small and medium sized businesses precious real estate in the data center without sacrificing power or performance thanks to our breakthrough V-NAND technology."

ADATA Technology, a leading manufacturer of high-performance DRAM modules and NAND Flash products, today launches the XPG SX930 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Gaming SSD for professional gamers and overclockers. It comes with a JMicron controller and Enterprise-grade MLC plus NAND Flash, offering excellent performance and durability for gaming systems and workstations. Thanks to ADATA's exclusive pSLC Cache Technology and DDR3 DRAM Cache Buffer, the SX930 leads to victory when you're in a 3D battle with highly-improved efficiency.

Featuring Enterprise-grade MLC plus NAND flash, the XPG SX930 outperforms other SSDs with excellent durability. It is not only suitable for gaming systems, but also ideal for workstations, which require long-term and stable operation. By applying JMicron controllers, the sequential read/write speed of SX930 is up to 560/460 MB/s, and it's available in 120GB, 240GB and 480GB. In addition, the SX930 is equipped with the innovative and exclusive "pSLC Cache Technology" by ADATA, which can effectively enhance the data transfer speed for the ultimate performance to meet professional gamers' demands.

Today, Micron Technology, Inc. announced a new addition to its expansive portfolio of flash storage products, providing a purpose-built solution for cost-sensitive consumer applications seeking high performance and reliability. The new TLC NAND is built on their 16-nanometer (nm) process and delivers a balanced set of features for applications like USB drives and consumer solid state drives. The market appetite for TLC is projected to be strong throughout 2015, constituting almost half of the total NAND gigabytes shipped.

Micron's 16 nm process-recognized by TechInsights as the Most Innovative Memory Device and 2014 Semiconductor of the Year-is a mature and proven storage technology, making it an excellent foundation for a reliable TLC design. TLC, or triple-level cell, is a technology that fits three bits in every flash data cell, creating greater cost and size efficiency. Customers of the technology will benefit from Micron's extensive design support team, who act as trusted advisors to ensure smooth qualification and optimal end-solution performance. Key flash customers and ecosystem partners worldwide have already begun working to integrate this new NAND with their latest designs, ensuring quick adoption in end applications.

Super Talent Technology, a leading manufacturer of NAND Flash storage solutions, announces its SATA Slim SJ2. Super Talent's SATA Slim flash disk modules are used extensively in industrial and embedded computing applications. These low power high performance SSDs are utilized in solutions such as: medical instruments, point-of-sale terminals, laptops, and surveillance set-ups every day. The SATA Slim is a great choice when physical space is a limiting factor for a host system.

The SATA Slim SJ2 can be built with industrial parts that withstand extreme temperature ranges for applications in much harsher environments. Transfer speeds on the SATA Slim SJ2 can reach up to 480 MB/s reads and 400 MB/s writes which uses the SATA-III interface.

Plextor is expected to launch its value SATA SSD line, the M6V, on 17th July, 2015. The drive combines a Silicon Motion SMI-2246 controller, with Toshiba A19 TLC NAND flash chips. The drive comes in capacities of 128 GB, 256 GB, and 512 GB, with DRAM cache sizes of 128 MB, 256 MB, and 512 MB, respectively. All three variants offer sequential read speeds of up to 535 MB/s, while their sequential write speeds are rated up to 170 MB/s, 335 MB/s, and 455 MB/s, respectively. Common features include NCQ, TRIM, and native 256-bit AES encryption. There's a likelihood of Plextor introducing a few new features, such as PlexVault, a software that encrypts and stores your data in hidden partitions, and PlexCompressor, which compresses the least accessed data on your drive.

Micron Technology, Inc. has announced a new encryption-enhanced solid state drive (SSD) for read-centric data center workloads, accelerating the transition from legacy hard disk drives (HDDs) to higher-performance flash-based storage. The M510DC combines a suite of firmware data protection features with the market's first true TCG Enterprise-level data encryption for SSDs-a capability that is of paramount importance to the highly scrutinized medical, banking and government industries.

The M510DC SATA SSD provides a balance of performance, security, enterprise reliability, power and cost. The M510DC SSD is an ideal solution for improving application load times for content delivery networks (CDNs) and enhancing response times to enable quicker decisions in big data analytics. While early enterprise SSD deployments focused on high-endurance drives, data from Greg Wong, founder and principal analyst at Forward Insights, reveals that two-thirds of today's newly optimized data center SSD purchases require one drive fill per day or less. These market changes create a distinct opportunity for customers to focus on a cost-optimized SSD like the M510DC.

OCZ announced the Trion 100, a new lineup of cost-effective SSD for first-time users graduating from HDDs, and for those who want fast read-intensive drives to replace storage HDDs in their systems. Some extremely low price-per-gigabyte figures build their case. The drive features 19 nm TLC NAND flash chips made by Toshiba, driven by a controller also made by Toshiba. This controller features an SLC-caching tech that deals with a small portion of the TLC NAND flash as SLC (by storing just one bit per cell), which has the maximum sequential transfer performance. The controller juggles hot-data in and out of this portion from the rest of the TLC area. Other controller features include DEVSLEEP mode support. In this mode, the drive draws just 6 mW of power. Other essentials such as TRIM and NCQ are also featured.

OCZ Trion 100 comes in four capacities - 120 GB, 240 GB, 480 GB, and 960 GB, priced at US $56.99, $87.99, $184.99, and $369.99, respectively. All four variants offer sequential read speeds of up to 550 MB/s, while the maximum sequential-write speeds are rated at 450 MB/s, 520 MB/s, 530 MB/s, and 530 MB/s, respectively. The maximum 4K random-read performance for the 120 GB variant is rated at 79,000 IOPS; while the other three offer up to 90,000 IOPS. Random-write performance figures for the four variants are 25,000 IOPS, 43,000 IOPS, 54,000 IOPS, and 64,000 IOPS, respectively. The drives are built in the 7 mm-thick 2.5-inch form-factor, with SATA 6 Gb/s interface. The drives ship with OCZ's SSDGuru software that lets you monitor the drive's health, update its firmware, and wipe it. OCZ is offering a 3-year warranty with these drives.Read our review of the OCZ Trion 100 480GB.

SK Hynix Inc. announced it has developed UFS (Universal Flash Storage) 2.0 64 GB (Gigabytes) solution based on its own 16 nm NAND Flash and in-house firmware and controller. This UFS 2.0 represents a groundbreaking leap in performance by enabling High-Speed Gear 3 interface with dual data lanes.

UFS 2.0 is the next generation of embedded flash memory to eMMC for mobile IT gadgets which drives a remarkable boost in reading/writing speed at low power and supports high density. The Company's UFS 2.0 operates at 780 MB/s(Megabytes per second) and 160 MB/s of sequential read/write speed and runs random read/write speed at 32,000 IOPS and 17,000 IOPS. As a result, it works three times faster in read speed than eMMC 5.1.

In addition, this UFS 2.0 utilizes 'Command Queue' technology used in SSD solutions to handle read and write commands simultaneously to achieve data operation efficiency by preventing buffering load in multi-tasking and ordering priorities of data works. To maximize prioritized command processing feature of UFS standard, the device employs 'Multi-Thread' read processing internally to ensure that high priority command is serviced first irrespective of other outstanding tasks, delivering fast response to time-critical host requests for best user experience. In consequence, it realizes even better performance in speed and power consumption over eMMC.

MSI, world leading in motherboard technology, announces the most powerful X99 gaming solution, the X99A GODLIKE GAMING motherboard. Featuring Killer DoubleShot-X3 Pro, Turbo M.2 connectivity, 2X Faster USB 3.1 Type-A and Type-C and a whole new gaming oriented LED feature, MYSTIC LIGHT, the X99A GODLIKE GAMING is the most powerful motherboard to serve you in battle.

The X99A GODLIKE GAMING is world's first RGB LED motherboard, supporting more than 2000 colors and many style presets such as breathing, flashing and waving. Make your build look on fire or cold as ice. You are in control. Simply select any of the colors from the palette to suit the systems' design. Just change it to another one using the easy to use Mystic Light APP available on PC, phone and tablet, and make your PC look & feel brand new! With 2048 different colors and 7 different LED modes, the Mystic Light provides infinite possibilities for gamers to personalize their gaming rig.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., a market leader in advanced memory technology and an innovator in consumer electronics, today introduced the 2-terabyte (TB) 850 PRO and 850 EVO solid state drives (SSDs). Samsung's 3D Vertical NAND (V-NAND) based retail SSD lineup now features 20 different products with a wide range of capacity options from 120 gigabyte (GB) to 2TB. Available in 50 countries, the launch of the 2TB drives addresses the ever-increasing consumer demand for high-performance and high-capacity memory solutions.

"Samsung experienced a surge in demand for 500 gigabyte (GB) and higher capacity SSDs with the introduction of our V-NAND SSDs. The release of the 2TB SSD is a strong driver into the era of multi-terabyte SSD solutions," said Un-Soo Kim, Senior Vice President of Branded Product Marketing, Memory Business at Samsung Electronics. "We will continue to expand our ultra-high performance and large density SSD product portfolio and provide a new computing experience to users around the globe."

ADATA Technology, a leading manufacturer of high-performance DRAM modules and NAND Flash products, today launches thePremier SP600NS34 M.2 2242SATA 6Gb/s SSD for Ultrabooks and desktop PCs. To meet the latest platform and users' expectations, "slimmer, faster, and power-saving", ADATA's Premier SP600NS34 features multiple functions to enhance efficiency, such as DEVSLP, BCH ECC technology, and Intel Smart Response Technology. If you are seeking a new solution to upgrade your Ultrabook, the Premier SP600NS34 will be a great choice with the best cost-performance ratio.

The Premier SP600NS34 comes in capacities of 128GB and 256GB, and adopts the smallest SSD form factor - M.2 2242, with measurements of only 22 x 42 x 3.5mm. However, the compact size does not sacrifice performance - with the JMicron controller, the sequential read speed of SP600NS34 is up to 550MB/s, and the maximum 4K random read/write performance is up to 75K/77K IOPS. The Premier SP600NS34 supports DEVSLP (Device Sleep) technology, helping to consume less power than traditional idle and prolonging the battery life at the same time.

Lite-On, a global leader in the design, development and manufacturing of enterprise Solid-State Drives (SSDs), introduces low latency M.2 PCIe drives to support I/O intensive workloads for one of the largest cloud service providers. Lite-On's EP1 series gives cloud service providers the competitive advantage by offering premium storage for its end users.

Lite-On's Gen2x4 M.2 PCIe SSDs are becoming widely adopted by the cloud computing industry. The M.2 PCIe interface EP1 series are compact, power-efficient solid-state solutions that fit directly into the server's PCIe bus to increase server application performance while delivering fast and reliable access to data without burdening the host CPU and memory resources.

AMD issued a statement on its upcoming Project Quantum SFF gaming desktop featuring Intel CPUs. The company clarified that it will offer both Intel and AMD processors, in the interest of consumer choice. AMD pointed out that the star-attraction in Project Quantum is the fact that it features two "Fiji" graphics processors in CrossFire configuration, to serve up graphics power unheard of, for this form-factor. Buyers will have a choice over the CPU, so if they feel that a CPU of a particular brand serves their needs better, they can make that choice.

Project Quantum will be an SFF gaming PC designed for super high resolution gaming. The company collaborated with liquid cooling majors to come up with a custom solution that cools the CPU and the two "Fiji" GPUs, over a common coolant channel, and a single large radiator. The system is split between two thermally-isolated chambers, with just coolant tubing and wiring running between the two. The bottom chamber features the mini-ITX form-factor motherboard, the dual-GPU video card, the SSD, and the power distribution PCB (PSU is external), while the top chamber is dominated by the radiator, and other liquid cooling components, such as the reservoir, pump, and a single large fan.

QNAP Inc. knows small and medium business IT storage needs well; and starting today has a new Turbo NAS offering that perfectly blends storage capacity, performance, and business productivity - the TS-563. This new 5-drive desktop NAS features up to 30 TB (with five 6 TB drives) of storage and is 10 GbE network ready. This new model also features 2 GB of DDR3L RAM (an 8 GB model was launched in May). The TS-563-2G is the second QNAP product line to be introduced; which features the AMD G-series quad-core 2.00 GHz embedded processor with its impressive, virtualization and hardware accelerated encryption capabilities.

Today's small and medium businesses need to wring every dollar of productivity out of their IT spends and that extends to storage. QNAP's Turbo NAS' have evolved into being far more than just networked storage, file/printer sharing, and backup solutions. Today they can host virtual machines without the expense of VMware, host websites, and a bevy of other business critical applications. Extend the capabilities of a QNAP NAS further with a wide range of free Apps available from 3rd party developers, right from the dashboard of the embedded QTS management interface. QNAP's brand new Qsirch search feature makes it fast and easy to find documents, videos, photos, music, and more on the NAS through natural-search terms similar to how one would use a search engine.

One of the three unexpected products based on the "Fiji" GPU, which AMD announced at its E3 event, Project Quantum, or the quest to design a 4K-worthy SFF gaming PC, which runs two "Fiji" GPUs in CrossFire, had the press assume that the rest of the system could be AMD-based, such as AMD-branded (albeit Patriot Memory manufactured) memory, AMD-branded (albeit OCZ manufactured) SSD; and importantly an AMD-made CPU or APU. Given its liquid-cooling, the prospect of a 95W "Godavari," or even upcoming "Carrizo" APU didn't seem far-fetched. Even a 95W FX CPU could have been deployed, since AM3+ on mini-ITX is not impossible.

When taken apart, Project Quantum was shown to be running an Intel Core i7-4790K "Devil's Canyon" CPU, on an ASRock-made mini-ITX motherboard, with its non-essential parts soldered out. The i7-4790K is neighbored by a pair of half-height Crucial Ballistix memory modules, which is excusable, since there are no half-height AMD Radeon memory modules, yet. The SSD is AMD-branded. The unit features a unified liquid cooling solution that's custom-made for AMD, by Asetek. A large (200 mm?) radiator, with a single fan, cools the CPU, the PCH, as well as the two "Fiji" GPUs.

HP today announced its latest generation Pavilion x2, a new detachable designed to be a tablet first without compromising the notebook experience. HP also announced new ENVY notebooks that combine great battery life in a thinner, new curved design.

"Customers want devices that are portable without sacrificing battery life or power," said Kevin Frost, vice president and general manager, Consumer Personal Systems, HP. "For 2015, we are reinventing our ENVY notebook product line to deliver great battery life, thinner and lighter designs, bright, high resolution displays and Bang & Olufsen audio for better entertainment, communications and productivity experiences."

JEDEC Solid State Technology Association, the global leader in the development of standards for the microelectronics industry, today announced that its JC-64.8 Subcommittee for Solid State Drives is currently engaged in an effort to update the JESD218 standard for Solid State Drive Requirements and Endurance Test Method. Originally published in September 2010 and revised in February 2011, the new update to JESD218 will primarily address improvements in test methodologies to better reflect product expectations, reduce testing options to remove unused methods, and add clarifications to improve the readability and understanding of test methods and artifacts caused by accelerated testing. Additional topics are discussed when brought up by task group participants. JEDEC strongly encourages all interested parties to contact the JEDEC office at 703-907-7560 to become involved with SSD standards development.

JESD218 Solid-State Drive Requirements and Endurance Test Method defines the conditions of use and corresponding endurance verification requirements for both Client and Enterprise application classes, as well as providing a standard endurance rating. Workloads are described in a separate, related document: JESD219 Solid-State Drive Endurance Workloads. Both JESD218 and JESD219 are available for free download from the JEDEC website.

SMART High Reliability Solutions ("SMART HRS"), a provider of current and next-generation solid-state storage solutions specializing in ruggedized, high-performance and high-capacity solid-state drives ("SSDs") for defense, aerospace and industrial markets, today announced its HRS-S3 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s SSD, which has been successfully sampling with key customers, is now available in volume quantities to qualified customers. As the latest in a robust line of products from SMART HRS that emphasizes the company's exclusive focus on solid-state storage solutions, the HRS-S3 is ideal for industrial temperature applications.

Building on the accomplishments of SMART HRS's long line of SSD products for the defense industry, the HRS-S3 SSD delivers performance metrics of 500MB/s sequential read and 400MB/s sequential write speeds while delivering 35K IOPS and 20K IOPS respectively during random operation. Using highly reliable single-level-cell (SLC) NAND Flash, the HRS-S3 is available in capacities ranging from 120 to 960GB.

Aorus showed off its first notebooks featuring NVIDIA G-Sync technology, the 17-inch X7 Pro-Sync, and the 15-inch X5. The X7 Pro-Sync features a 17.3-inch IPS LCD screen with Full HD (1920 x 1080 pixels) resolution and G-Sync support, wired to NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M SLI graphics. You also get a Core i7-4870HQ quad-core processor, 8 GB of RAM a gaming-grade keyboard with scissor-type switches, and up to three 512 GB SSDs in a RAID configuration of your choice.

The new X5 is what Aorus is claiming to be the world's most powerful 15-inch class notebook. It offers a 15.6-inch WQHD+ display (2880 x 1620 pixels resolution), wired to NVIDIA GeForce GTX 965M SLI graphics, with 2x 4GB video memory; a Core i7-5700HQ "Broadwell" CPU, 8 GB of RAM, up to 512 GB of M.2 32 Gb/s SSD storage, with two additional 2.5-inch SATA SSDs; and Killer DoubleShot networking. The case is surprisingly compact for its chops - measuring 390 (W) x 272 (D) x 22.9 (H) mm.

Austrian SSD maker Angelbird unveiled two new PCIe SSDs at Computex, the Wings MX2 and the Wings X2. The Wings MX2 is simple SSD with a PCI-Express 3.0 x4 host interface, and similar chops to today's M.2 (32 Gb/s) SSDs; and should appeal to enthusiasts with older boards that lack M.2 slots. The Wings X2, on the other hand, is a RAID-on-a-stick card. Its main PCB is essentially a SATA RAID card with two SATA 6 Gb/s back-planes. With two 2.5-inch SSDs (possibly the company's own Wings or SSDWrk-series drives installed, the controller puts out a host-abstract RAID 0 volume.

G.Skill unveiled a product that makes it abundantly clear that Phison has established itself as not just a cheap SSD controller maker, but one that can cater to the most choosy PC enthusiasts. The second-generation Phoenix Blade PCIe SSD from G.Skill is driven by a Phison PS5007-E7 processor, which features a native PCI-Express 3.0 x4 host interface, wired to up to 1920 GB of MLC NAND flash. The drive succeeds the PCIe 2.0 x8-based first-generation drive which was launched last October. The drive offers sequential transfer rates of up to 2,600 MB/s reads, with up to 1,400 MB/s writes; and 4K random access performance of 300,000 IOPS reads, with up to 200,000 IOPS writes. The drive is designed to compete with the likes of Intel SSD 750 series, and will be competitively priced.

Silicon Motion Technology Corporation, a global leader in designing and marketing NAND flash controllers for solid state storage devices, today announced that its SM2256 SATA (6 Gb/s) client SSD controller now supports Micron's new 16 nm 128 gigabit (Gb) TLC NAND flash, enabling high-performance and unprecedented reliability for a new class of cost-effective TLC-based SSDs.

SM2256, the world's first SSD controller supporting Micron's 16nm TLC NAND, offers the best performance and cost-optimized four channel SATA 6 Gb/s client SSD controller in the market. Using Micron's 128 Gb 16 nm TLC NAND, the SM2256 delivers up to 540 MB/s sequential read performance and 460 MB/s sequential write, as well as up to 90,000 random read IOPS and 80,000 random write IOPS. Leveraging Silicon Motion's proprietary NANDXtend error-correcting code (ECC) technology, the SM2256 enhances the endurance and retention of TLC NAND, delivering more than three times better reliability for TLC SSD as compared to the existing BCH ECC schemes.

ADATA unveiled its new high-performance 2.5-inch SATA SSD, the XPG SX930. Based on a JMicron-made controller, wired to 19 nm MLC NAND flash, the drive comes in capacities of 120 GB, 240 GB, and 480 GB; with sequential transfer rates of up to 565 MB/s reads, with up to 465 MB/s writes; and 4K random access performance of up to 80,000 IOPS reads with up to 70,000 IOPS writes. Built in the 7 mm-thick 2.5-inch form-factor, with SATA 6 Gb/s interface, the drive supports modern SSD features, such as TRIM and NCQ. The company didn't disclose pricing, but mentioned that the drive will come with 5-year warranties.

Team Group unveiled its cost-effective L3 EVO line of SATA SSDs. Making use of TLC NAND flash chips, these drives come in capacities of 240 GB, 480 GB, and 960 GB (pictured below). The 240 GB and 480 GB variants offer sequential speeds of up to 560 MB/s, with up to 540 MB/s writes; with up to 85,000 IOPS reads and up to 90,000 IOPS writes, in 4K random access performance. The company didn't put out performance figures of the 960 GB variant. The drives feature SATA 6 Gb/s interface, are 7 mm-thick, and support all modern SATA SSD features, including TRIM, NCQ, native AES acceleration, and SMART.

Team Group showed off its flagship M.2 PCIe SSD at Computex, the TM8FP7 series. Available in 128 GB, 256 GB, and 512 GB sizes, the drive takes advantage of PCI-Express 3.0 x4 (32 Gb/s), and offers up to 2,300 MB/s reads with up to 380 MB/s writes on its smallest variant, and up to 2,500 MB/s reads with up to 720 MB/s writes on its biggest one. The drive uses MLC NAND flash, supports DevSleep and TRIM, although there's no word on whether its controller supports NVMe.