With each PlayStation 5 system software release, we've introduced new features designed to enhance the many ways you can access your favorite content, navigate your console, or create new gaming memories with friends. Today, we're thrilled to roll out a new PS5 system software beta that introduces new accessibility features as well as audio options that allow 3D Audio powered by Tempest 3D AudioTech to be enjoyed on compatible Dolby Atmos-enabled HDMI devices such as sound bars, TVs, or home theater systems. The beta also includes more options to quickly find games and console tips, new ways to connect with other players and customize your multiplayer sessions, and support for larger-capacity M.2 SSDs (up to 8 TB).

While beta access will be limited to invited participants in select countries*, we plan to release the update globally later this year. If you're selected to participate in the beta, you'll receive an email invitation today when it's available to download. Some features available during the beta phase may not make it into the final version or may see significant changes. Without further ado, here are some of the highlights from the beta release...

Earlier today, Samsung released its Q2 results, which were a mixed bag with many business units underperforming. However, none were doing as poorly as Samsung's memory business which made a loss of 4.36 trillion Won or around US$3.4 billion. Although not mentioned in the financial report, Reuters are reporting that Samsung is looking to cut production of NAND and DRAM further, as the publication is pointing out that Samsung's chipset business as a whole lost a staggering 8.9 trillion Won or US$7 billion. That said, the loss wasn't quite as bad as in the first quarter of the year and Samsung is expected to cut the loss in half for Q3.

In a statement to Reuters, Samsung said "Production cuts across the industry are likely to continue in the second half, and demand is expected to gradually recover as clients continue to destock their (chip) inventory." This suggests that the expected recovery isn't going to happen as soon as the DRAM and NAND manufacturers expected, as there simply isn't enough demand for either product. SK Hynix has already announced that it's cutting production a further five to 10 percent for NAND, but the company doesn't appear to have had quite as big losses as Samsung. For the time being, this is good news for consumers, as RAM and SSD pricing is about as low as it has ever been. However, with production cuts from all the three major manufacturers of DRAM and NAND, prices will most likely start going up soon, especially as Samsung is said to have depleted most of its inventories.

Micron Technology, Inc., today announced the Crucial X9 Pro Portable SSD and Crucial X10 Pro Portable SSD, two new performance offerings in the Crucial Pro Series product portfolio, designed for content creators such as photographers, videographers, designers, or any performance-seeking consumer. Both drives utilize Micron TLC NAND and leverage a revolutionary single-ASIC portable storage architecture to enable a breakthrough, ultra-compact, lightweight form factor and allows Micron to ship the most capacity per square millimeter in the industry. With either the Crucial X9 Pro and X10 Pro, users can safely store, transport and backup important videos, photos, files and more on the go, without cloud or internet access at lightning-fast speeds.

"We recognize that fast, efficient workflow processes are essential to the success of videographers, photographers and other content creators," said Jonathan Weech, senior director of product marketing for Micron's Commercial Products Group. "We designed and built our two new portable SSDs, the Crucial X9 Pro and the Crucial X10 Pro, to specifically address these demanding workloads. With more photos and videos being taken than ever before, consumers are looking for ways to save, preserve and protect their digital lives reliably and quickly. These two new Crucial Pro Portable SSDs are a great choice for anyone who needs dependable, fast, high-capacity storage."

Solidigm over the weekend announced the Solidigm D5-P5336 line of enterprise SSDs. The company earns bragging rights for having the highest capacity among production SSDs, with these coming in capacities of up to 61.44 TB—an incredible amount of storage that HDDs have yet to catch up to. These drives are targeted at the data-center, where they not just replace HDDs due to their sheer density, but also provide the advantage of responsive flash storage. The drives aren't gunning to top SSD performance charts, the design goal is simply capacity and reliability. The D5-P5336 series feature enterprise-grade QLC NAND flash memory that's been extensively tested for reliability and write endurance.

The Solidigm D5-P5336 series comes in three data-center relevant form-factors—15 mm-thick U.2, 7.5 mm-thick E3.S, and the E1.L (ruler) form-factor. Capacities start at 7.68 TB for the U.2 and E3.S models, and 15.36 TB for the E1.L. The maximum capacity on offer is 61.44 TB for the U.2 and E1.L form-factors, and 30.72 TB for the E3.S. Among the capacity variants are 15.36 TB, 30.72 TB, and 61.44 TB. The drives use a proprietary controller that takes advantage of the PCI-Express 4.0 x4 host interface, and NVMe 1.4c protocol. The star attraction, however, is the 192-layer 3D QLC NAND flash memory made in-house by Solidigm.

Axiomtek—a world-renowned leader relentlessly devoted to the research, development, and manufacture of series of innovative and reliable industrial computer products of high efficiency - is pleased to announce the SHB160, a new PICMG 1.3 full-size single board computer powered by the LGA1700 13th/12th Gen Intel Core i7/i5/i3, Pentium or Celeron processor with the Intel R680E/H610E chipset. The industry-specific SBC supports dual 2.5 GbE LAN for the ultimate connection experience with blazing data-transfer speed. It also supports PCIe 4.0 for more flexibility and higher bandwidth to GPUs, SSDs, and other peripherals. Offering superior computing performance, rugged design, flexible I/O expansion as well as enhanced graphics capabilities, the SHB160 aims to satisfy the requirements of AIoT applications such as vision inspection, objective classification, factory automation, intelligent video analysis, and smart city.

Axiomtek's SHB160 offers up to four DDR5-4400 MHz ECC or non-ECC U-DIMM slots for up to 128 GB of system memory. The full-size slot CPU card has six SATA-600 ports with software RAID 0/1/5/10 support (Intel R680E chipset) or four SATA-600 ports (Intel H610E chipset). In addition, the SHB160 has one M.2 Key M 2280 slot with PCIe 4.0 x4 signal for NVMe SSD (Intel R680E chipset). It also delivers superior graphics performance with the Intel UHD Graphics and offers dual display configurations via DVI-I and DisplayPort++ (internal header) ports. One PCIe x16 Gen 4 slot, one PCIe x4 Gen 4 slot or four PCIe x1 Gen 4 slots, and four 32-bit PCI bus masters are available on the board to provide an optimum solution with a diverse range of configurations. Equipped with one M.2 Key E 2230 slot, the SHB160 also supports Wi-Fi 6 for faster data transferring while reducing latency and enhancing security.

As a global provider of ultimate storage products and solutions, Hangzhou Hikstorage Technology Co.,Ltd.("Hiksemi") is committed to constantly exploring and inventing to meet the demand of consumers. Seeing that SSDs have emerged as the mainstream technology in digital data storage, Hiksemi has made full efforts in the field of PCIe 4.0 SSDs with the rich technical experience. Recently, Hiksemi has launched high-performance PCIe 4.0 SSD, FUTURE Series, designed for PC enthusiasts, gamers and content creators.

Just as the name FUTURE, this series is born to break limits and embrace the future. FUTURE SSD has faster speed, stronger performance, larger capacity, making users even more powerful in the world of game entertainment and content creation.

Nixxes and Insomniac yesterday published their official PC specification requirements for the Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart port (arriving on July 26). The announcement was made via a post on the game's Steam store page, but the two teams decided to remove it soon after (perhaps the information was released too early). Several news sites were quick enough to note that the PC version of Ratchet & Clank: Rift will be the first DirectStorage 1.2 game with support for GPU decompression. Senior Lead Programmer Richard van der Laan stated (in the now deleted update): DirectStorage ensures quick loading times and GPU decompression is used at high graphics settings to stream assets in the background while playing. Traditionally, this decompression is handled by the CPU, but at a certain point there is an advantage to letting the GPU handle this, as this enables a higher bandwidth for streaming assets from storage to the graphics card. We use this to quickly load high-quality textures and environments with a high level of detail.

His colleague, Principal Programmer Alex Bartholomeus, also chipped in with: "For Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart on PC, we added adaptive streaming based on live measurement of the available hardware bandwidth. This allows us to tailor the texture streaming strategy for the best possible texture streaming on any configuration." The most surprising aspect gleaned from the PC specification sheet is the minimum performance requirement (720p @ 30 FPS) of a hard disk drive (HDD) acting as the main storage device, although they would prefer that you go with a more modern storage option. A solid-state drive (SSD) is deemed necessary for the "Recommended" tier at 1080p/60 FPS. This is quite amusing considering that Insomniac's creative director, Marcus Smith, once said (in an official PlayStation showcase video) that Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart's dimensional rift hopping "would not have been possible without the Solid State Drive of the PlayStation 5."

BIOSTAR, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, and storage devices, today unveils the brand new M800 Series PCIe Gen4x4 M.2 SSD, designed to revolutionize gaming for everyone from casual enthusiasts to professional gamers and streamers. The all-new M800 Series SSD promises incredible performance and high-speed data transfer, ensuring smoother gameplay and faster load times, ideal for gaming streamers and content creators. Its core features include a PCIe Gen4x4 interface, standard M.2 2280 form factor, BIOSTAR unique design, support for NVMe v1.3, and end-to-end data protection.

Available in 2 TB, 1 TB, and 512 GB capacity, the M800 series promises a read speed of up to 5000 MB/s and a maximum write speed of 4450 MB/s, outperforming the competition and ensuring an incredibly immersive gaming experience. Moreover, the PCIe Gen 4 x4 interface is designed to leverage the increased bandwidth provided by PCIe Gen 4, offering faster read and write speeds compared to its predecessors. As a result, it enhances the overall system performance, optimizes boot load-up time, and ensures faster application and game loading.

Durabook, an innovator in purpose-built, rugged computing solutions, today announced upgrading its U11 Rugged Tablet with the 12th Gen Intel processor and other architectural innovations that establish it as the most versatile 11-inch rugged tablet. The U11 rugged tablet solution goes above and beyond standard requirements to elevate the professional user's experience.

Upgrading the U11 CPU to the latest Intel 12th generation Alder Lake platform, with Intel Core i7 and i5 processors, is significant in part because it enables performance up to 225% faster than the previous, 10th Gen CPU. Sporting the Coolfinity fanless thermal solution lets the U11 tablet operate quietly while offering higher reliability and decreasing downtime and repairs that negatively impact productivity. Delivered with Intel Iris Xe Graphics boosts the U11's computing power to process large amounts of data, images, and video feeds in real-time. Packing these and a trove of functions and features into a rugged tablet appeals to professional users that desire the utmost performance with the ease of a tablet.

Samsung Electronics, a world leader in advanced semiconductor technology, today announced that it has initiated mass production of its new automotive Universal Flash Storage (UFS) 3.1 memory solution optimized for in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) systems. The new solution offers the industry's lowest energy consumption, enabling car manufacturers to provide the best mobility experience for consumers.

The UFS 3.1 lineup will come in 128, 256 and 512-gigabyte (GB) variants to meet different needs of customers. The enhanced lineup allows more efficient battery life management to future automotive applications such as electric or autonomous vehicles. The 256 GB model, for instance, has reduced its energy consumption by about 33% compared to the previous generation product. The 256 GB model also provides a sequential write speed of 700-megabytes-per-second (MB/s) and a sequential read speed of 2,000 MB/s.

The first batch of PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSDs didn't quite deliver on the promise of doubling performance from PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSDs, but now it appears that Sabrent has managed to work some magic with its upcoming Rocket X5 SSD. The SSD is still based on the same Phison E26 controller as all other current PCIe 5.0 NVMe drives and from what we know, the controller is paired to Micron's 232-layer B58R NAND, a combination that should be able to reach 2400 MT/s across eight channels. However, it's not the only drive with this combination of components, so it seems like the magic here might be in the firmware.

A 2 TB version of the Rocket X5 was tested in CrystalDiskMark 8.0.4 and reached a read speed of 14,179 MB/s or just over 14 GB/s, with write speeds trailing somewhat at 12,280 MB/s. The random 4K numbers are looking good too with 106 MB/s for reads and 448 MB/s for writes, a step up from the competition at least, if not a major one with regards to the read speed. The downside you ask? Sabrent has equipped the Rocket X5 with not only a heatsink and heatpipes, but also a tiny fan, which is likely to add some noise at some time in the future when the fan starts to give up. We obviously don't know the price of the Rocket X5 either, but Sabrent tends to have competitively priced products.

Jonsbo, a Chinese case manufacturer known for unique case designs, has introduced the new Jonsbo C6 and N2 cases to its offerings. The C6 is a compact and versatile Micro-ATX case designed to appeal to many users, including gamers. It offers ample space for up to three 120 mm fans, ensuring efficient air cooling within the case. The front of the C6 can accommodate two 140 mm fans, further enhancing airflow. To promote optimal ventilation, the front, side panels, and lid of the C6 are made of air-permeable mesh. Regarding hardware compatibility, the C6 can house graphics cards with a maximum length of 255 mm and CPU coolers with a height of up to 75 mm. Additionally, it provides the flexibility to install an HDD or two SSDs in the front without a 120 mm fan. The Jonsbo C6 is available in black and white color options, catering to different aesthetic preferences.

TrendForce reports that OEMs have continued making concerted efforts to scale back production. However, given that the trajectory of market demand is still unclear, it's expected that the NAND Flash market will continue to be in a state of oversupply in 3Q23. Cautious inventory management by buyers is preventing a stabilization in NAND Flash prices even with an anticipated seasonal surge in demand for 2H23. TrendForce predicts that NAND Flash wafers will be the first to see a price hike in 3Q23 as prices for module products such as SSDs, eMMCs, and UFS will likely continue to fall due to tepid downstream demand. Consequently, the overall ASP of NAND Flash is forecast to continue dropping by about 3~8% in 3Q23, though a possibility exists prices may recover in 4Q23.

Client SSD: Although notebook shipments are expected to gradually recover in 3Q23, reversing an oversupply of SSD will continue to be challenging. Furthermore, a portion of suppliers have implemented aggressive promotions to secure customer orders and hit shipping targets in light of weakened demand and less-than-satisfactory order volumes from major clients, putting pressure on other suppliers. TrendForce estimates that the ASP of client SSDs will fall by 8~13% in the third quarter.

As processors and chipsets move into a new generation, many motherboard manufacturers have launched latest-generation motherboards that have allowed the consumer market to embrace a new generation of PCIe 5.0 Solid-State Drives (SSD). ADATA Technology Co., Ltd., the world's leading memory brand, today launched its LEGEND 970 SSD. The LEGEND 970 can reach maximum sequential read/write speeds of 10,000/10,000 MB per second. Its most unique feature is a double-layer aluminium alloy heatsink with built-in micro-fan and surface crystallization that forms a patented active air-cooling system. The surface crystallization improves thermal conductivity, significantly reducing temperatures by 10% compared with fanless heatsinks to maintain stable performance during extended high-speed operation. The LEGEND 970's R&D, design, and superior cooling mechanism will be the benchmark of a new generation of storage products and it is expected to become the most influential PCIe Gen 5 storage solution in the consumer market.

ADATA ushers in a new era with its patented heat dissipation solution! From market consensus, it has become commonly accepted that active cooling is required for timely heat dissipation during high-speed PCIe 5.0 data transmission to ensure high temperatures do not affect reading and writing or slow down the system. The LEGEND 970 adopts a double-layer extruded aluminium heatsink design which features dense air ducts to divert hot and cold air. When heat is conducted upward, the rotation of the built-in micro fan circulates the confluence of hot and cold air and quickly expels exhaust heat from both ends of the extruded aluminium fins. At the same time, the LEGEND 970 increases heat dissipation through the addition of "surface crystallization " on the aluminium heatsink surface, increasing overall air contact area and maximizing the heat dissipation efficiency of its air cooling system. This unique "active heat dissipation" design significantly reduces temperatures by 10% compared to fanless heatsinks. More importantly, it can withstand high temperature stress tests and maintain stable performance even after long-term high-speed operation.

Transcend Information (Transcend), a leading manufacturer of embedded memory products, is proud to release the latest U.2 NVMe SSD, the UTE210T. Designed for generative AI, high-performance computing (HPC), and big data analytics, this powerful SSD is built with the 112-layer 3D NAND flash, an 8-channel controller, and a PCIe Gen 4x4 interface. Experience high speeds, low latency, and minimal power consumption with your systems, but most of all, enjoy sequential R/W speeds of up to 7,200/6,500 MB/s and stable and reliable system performance that supports various applications of use.

Compliant with the NVMe 1.4 specification, Transcend's UTE210T comes bundled with a U.2 connector, enabling the drive to configure the PCIe interface with the U.2 backplane, ultimately enhancing transfer stability without compromising your servers. To address the demanding workloads associated with AI, its built-in DRAM provides exceptional random read speeds, which not only reduces NAND flash Program/Erase cycles (P/E cycles), but effectively extends drive lifespan to help manage a wide range of workloads. The UTE210T comes with up to 8 TB of storage capacity, ensuring servers and data centers are able to process vast amounts of data without compromising system performance.

In the world of modern embedded computing, motherboards and systems are equipped with numerous M.2 and Mini-PCI Express sockets. These sockets provide ideal homes for networking communication adapters and solid-state drives (SSDs), including NVMe-compatible SSDs. With an abundance of sockets, embedded systems now have unparalleled connectivity and storage options.

Cervoz recognizes this need and introduces a new industrial SSD perfectly suited for these boards and systems: the M.2 2242 PCIe Gen 3 x 2 (B+M Key) SSD, T421. This SSD is designed specifically for embedded motherboards and systems, making it a perfect fit for industrial applications ranging from retail and gaming solutions to embedded computing devices.

ASUS Chinese GM—Tony Yu—has shown off a graphics card concept on Bilibili that has a rather unusual feature, a slot for an M.2 NVMe SSD. The card is based on NVIDIA's GeForce RT 4060 Ti GPU and although not all details are clear at this point in time, but ASUS is taking advantage of the unused PCIe lanes on the card, since the AD106 GPU only uses eight PCIe lanes, the PCIe connector on the card has space for a further eight lanes. In theory ASUS could have added a pair of SSDs, since there are a total of eight lanes available, but as this was just a proof of concept, they seemingly stuck with a single SSD.

It's unclear if ASUS relies on bifurcation or if the company has added some kind of bridge chip, but bifurcation makes more sense, as a bridge chip would add a lot more cost. The neat thing with the NVMe drive being on the GPU, is that it also connects to the heatsink of the graphics card, which means the cooling should be rather good. However, for this to work properly, the SSD would have to be mounted back to front compared to how it would be mounted on a motherboard. Based on the test results, the SSD runs at a cool 42 degrees C, even when the GPU is being stress tested. It's likely that this product will not make it to markets outside of China, if it's ever launched into retail.

Samsung Electronics today announced that it plans to open Samsung Game Portal, an online store specializing in gaming, on Samsung.com in more than 30 countries around the world, starting with the U.S., the U.K., Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Brazil in late June. The Game Portal is a one-stop online store for gamers designed to significantly increase the convenience of browsing and purchasing products such as smartphones, TVs, gaming monitors and high-performance SSDs. It also provides customers with a variety of gaming-related content in one place, fine-tuned to their preferences and experiences.

In 2021, Accenture, a leading global professional services company, published an illuminating gaming-related study. The study found that half of the gaming population are cross-platform gamers who use more than one device to play, spending an average of 16 hours a week gaming, as well as eight hours a week watching gaming-related video content and six hours a week participating in gaming-related communities. In response to these customer trends, Samsung has designed the Game Portal to provide an impressive variety of content, such as gaming product information, domestic and international expert reviews, product purchase benefits and offers, product utilization ideas that help users enjoy games more and game-related news.

In today's world demand for visual brilliance and digital content creation is skyrocketing, paving the way for more advanced technologies that support the production and consumption of rich content. For consumers, students, and professionals, fast, reliable tools are a must-have to keep their imaginations flowing. Building upon its award-winning SSD portfolio, Western Digital released the WD Blue SN580 NVMe solid state drive (SSD). The new, NVMe PCIe Gen 4.0 internal flash drive is purpose-built for the creative enthusiast community and professionals to use when upgrading current PCs or elevating a custom build.

"As creator workflows become more robust and complex with heavy applications and large multimedia assets like 4K video, it's easy to become frustrated with long load times," said Eric Spanneut, vice president of client and enterprise SSDs for Western Digital. "The new WD Blue SN580 NVMe SSD boosts productivity, so professionals and entrepreneurial creators can focus on bringing their imaginations to life without having to wait long for files to transfer or programs to load."

[Editor's note: Our in-depth review of the SN580 is now live]

The European brand expands its portfolio of PCIe Gen 4 x4 SSDs in M.2 format with a model dedicated to the PS 5 console. It is the IRDM PRO SLIM - ideal not only for gamers, but also professionals and enthusiasts.

The IRDM PRO SLIM is a twin model of the IRDM PRO M.2 SSD. Unlike its predecessor, the new drive is offered without a heatsink, making it 100% compliant with Sony's requirements for PlayStation 5 console drives. The technical parameters speak in favour of choosing an SSD from a European manufacturer. Maximum read and write speeds are 7000/6850 MB/s, respectively. The PCIe 4 x4 NVMe interface delivers twice the speed of older 3 x4 solutions. The memory speed is also influenced by DRAM buffer of up to 2 GB, thanks to which the drive works stably even under heavy use.

ATP Electronics, the global leader in specialized storage and memory solutions, introduces its latest high-speed N601 Series M.2 2280 and U.2 solid state drives (SSDs) sporting the 4th generation PCIe interface and supporting the NVMe protocol. The new ATP PCIe Gen 4 SSDs' 16 GT/s data rate is double that of the previous generation, translating to a bandwidth of 2 GB/s for every PCIe lane.

Using x4 lanes, these SSDs have a maximum bandwidth of 8 GB/s, meeting the growing need for high-speed data transfer in today's demanding applications and making them suitable for both read/write-intensive, mission-critical industrial applications such as networking/server, 5G, data logging, surveillance, and imaging, with performance on par, if not better, than mainstream PCIe Gen 4 consumer SSDs in the market.

Patriot Memory, a leading manufacturer of high-performance enthusiast memory modules, SSDs, flash storage and gaming peripherals, has announced the upcoming release of their newest Gen 4 x4 SSD, the VP4300 Lite M.2 PCIe Gen 4 x4 SSD. With lightning-fast read speeds of up to 7400 MB/s and harnessing Patriot Viper's new cooling technology, the VP4300 Lite is designed to take gaming to new heights. Along with NVMe 2.0 support, a special edition ultra-thin graphene cooling heat spreader built and capacities of up to 4 TB, the VP4300 Lite will deliver a powerful balance of speed, performance and storage that includes everything gamers could need.

The VP4300 Lite will also be fully compatible with the PlayStation 5, offering sequential read speeds of up to 6100 MB/s as the first PC-PS5 compatible SSD from Patriot Viper to bring supreme performance to PC and console gamers alike. "It is our pleasure to introduce the VP4300 Lite as our newest Gen 4 x4 SSD," said Les Henry, VP of N. America and S. America Sales. "The VP4300 Lite represents our push to keep revolutionizing gaming storage solutions, and we're proud to offer an SSD built both for PC and console gamers."

ASUS today announced BR1402 series, the world's first 2-in-1 ruggedized 14-inch laptops aimed at K-12 education—and designed for the need of modern students and hybrid learning. Available in both traditional clamshell form (BR1402C) and a convertible design that flips 360° to become a versatile multitouch tablet (BR1402F), the all-new BR1402-series laptops are built to military-grade standards and packed with clever protective features to help students through their learning journey.

BR1402 series are also loaded with essentials for the demands of hybrid study, enabling education to flow seamlessly from the classroom into the home and beyond. To empower a full day's study, these laptops include up to 10-hour battery life, full-function USB-C, up to WiFi 6 for speedy connectivity and a modular design to ensure easy maintenance and upgrades.

Not entirely unexpected, Seagate is getting ready to launch its first PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSD which will be going under the name of FireCuda 540 and now details of the upcoming drive have appeared online courtesy of Amazon UK, B&H Photo and others that have put up the product for pre-order. For those worried about the lack of a 4 TB SKU, you can relax, as the company is planning a 4 TB SKU, which is made clear from the pictures posted by Amazon UK. However, changing the digit in the model number that represents the drive size, doesn't bring up any info about a 4 TB SKU at the moment.

It doesn't look like the FireCuda 540 will be competing with the fastest PCI 5.0 NVMe drives, as it's only listed as offering sequential drives speeds of up to 10 GB/s, although this applies to both read and write speeds for the 2 TB SKU, with the 1 TB SKU being somewhat slower with read speeds of 9.5 GB/s and write speeds of 8.5 GB/s. The 1 TB SKU is good for 1,000 TB TBW, with the 2 TB SKU doubling this to 2,000 TB and the 4 TB SKU apparently hitting 3,949 TB or as Seagate put it, this allows you to erase 90 percent of the drive every day for five years. B&H Photo has the drives listed at US$189.99 for the 1 TB SKU and US$319,99 for the 2 TB SKU—making both SKUs cheaper than Crucials T700—with Amazon UK listing the 1 TB SKU for £203.48 and no pricing for the 2 TB SKU. It's unclear when the Seagate FireCuda 540 will launch, but it can't be far away.

Galax has today announced a new flagship SSD for the Chinese market—ITHome noticed the Hall of Fame (HOF) Extreme 50S PCIe 5.0 SSD's reveal on Weibo. A very similar looking and named model was released a few months ago, but the new contender has added an "S" to its designation, so we expect it to offer a performance upgrade over its non-S sibling (a top performer for its time). Galax's own lab tests propose that the successor is capable of delivering read and write speeds up to 12.4 GB/s and 11.8 GB/s (respectively), a nice bump up from the previous gen model's 10.0 & 9.5 GB/s. ITHome's report suggests that these new storage drives are capable of reaching 1500K IOPS.

The HOF Extreme 50S and HOF Extreme 50 (non-S) series share the same Phison controller - PS5026-E26 - according to news sources. There are no differences in terms of NAND and cache configurations, but the newer models are likely faster thanks to refined ECC algorithm technology and fifth-generation LDPC error correction capabilities. No pricing and launch date(s) were available at the time of writing—ITHome understands that Galax will release a 2 TB model first, and a 4 TB will follow it.