HighPoint's RocketAIC 6542AWW has established a new milestone for turnkey NVMe Storage. Despite the external RAID solution's tidy dimensions (it stands only 4.84 inches tall, 8.27 inches deep, and 9.25 inches in length), it is equipped with eight of Solidigm's D5-P5336 NVMe SSDs, and provides an astonishing 491.52 TB of enterprise storage capable of delivering 28GBs of real-world transfer speed; ideal for Edge Applications that demand fast, high-density storage solutions with small hardware footprint.

The compact external storage chassis' integrated power supply and powerful cooling system enable the NVMe media to be completely isolated from the host hardware platform. Not only does this free up interior space for the host server or workstation, it can significantly improve reliability and efficiency by offsetting power consumption and ensuring that waste heat generated by the SSDs never enters the computing environment.

Corsair today announced the immediate release of the MP700 ELITE series of PCIe 5.0 SSDs. These new drives bring the next generation of storage technologies to mainstream markets, offering incredible performance and reliability at a more affordable price point. The MP700 ELITE boasts incredible sequential read speeds of up to 10,000 MB/sec and sequential write speeds of up to 8,500 MB/sec, powered by the cutting-edge PCIe 5.0 x4 controller. This leap in performance ensures users can experience faster boot times, quicker game loads, and seamless file transfers, taking their overall computing experience to new heights.

Featuring High-Density 3D TLC NAND, the MP700 ELITE series provides the perfect blend of performance and endurance, keeping your system running smoothly for years. With support for Microsoft DirectStorage, these drives can communicate directly with your graphics card, significantly reducing load times for compatible games and enhancing gameplay.

SMART Modular Technologies, a global leader in integrated memory solutions, solid-state drives, and hybrid storage products, today announced its new ruggedized T6EN PCIe/NVMe flash drives for aerospace, defense, and industrial applications. This new family of SSDs is available in U.2, E1.S and M.2 2280 form factors, enabling flexibility for end users based on their specific application and configuration needs. These T6EN SSDs offer capacities up to 15 TB (terabytes) for the U.2 version and up to 8 TB for the E1.S and M.2-2280 versions. All three versions utilize 3D TLC flash memory.

"Our new T6EN SSDs deliver a rich, ruggedized feature set coupled with our proprietary security algorithms, erase trigger, and hardware write-protection," explains Mike Guzzo, senior director of SMART's RUGGED line of flash products. Delivering a more robust SSD starts at the design stage, where SMART specifies higher margins for routing of signals, thicker PCBs, and more durable enclosures. During the engineering and development process, SMART selectively sources only the highest reliability components and performs deep integration testing - including 8-hour burn-in testing under wide degrees of temperature variation - to ensure conformance with all requirements for secure, ruggedized storage.

Samsung Electronics today reported financial results for the third quarter ended Sept. 30, 2024. The Company posted KRW 79.1 trillion in consolidated revenue, an increase of 7% from the previous quarter, on the back of the launch effects of new smartphone models and increased sales of high-end memory products. Operating profit declined to KRW 9.18 trillion, largely due to one-off costs, including the provision of incentives in the Device Solutions (DS) Division. The strength of the Korean won against the U.S. dollar resulted in a negative impact on company-wide operating profit of about KRW 0.5 trillion compared to the previous quarter.

In the fourth quarter, while memory demand for mobile and PC may encounter softness, growth in AI will keep demand at robust levels. Against this backdrop, the Company will concentrate on driving sales of High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) and high-density products. The Foundry Business aims to increase order volumes by enhancing advanced process technologies. Samsung Display Corporation (SDC) expects the demand of flagship products from major customers to continue, while maintaining a quite conservative outlook on its performance. The Device eXperience (DX) Division will continue to focus on premium products, but sales are expected to decline slightly compared to the previous quarter.

Micron Technology, Inc., today announced that its 9550 PCIe Gen 5 E1.S data center SSDs have been added to the NVIDIA recommended vendor list (RVL) for the NVIDIA GB200 NVL72 system and its derivatives. The GB200 NVL72 uses the GB200 Grace Blackwell Superchip to deliver rack-scale, energy-efficient AI infrastructure. The enablement of PCIe Gen 5 storage in the system makes the Micron 9550 SSD an ideal fit for optimizing performance and power efficiency in AI workloads like large-scale training of AI models, real-time trillion-parameter language model inference and high-performance computing (HPC) tasks.

Micron 9550 delivers world-class AI workload performance and power efficiency:
Compared with other industry offerings, the 9550 SSD delivers up to 34% higher throughput for NVIDIA Magnum IO GPUDirect (GDS) and up to 33% faster workload completion times in graph neural network (GNN) training with Big Accelerator Memory (BaM). The Micron 9550 SSD saves energy and sets new sustainability benchmarks by consuming 81% less SSD energy per 1 TB transferred than other SSD offerings with NVIDIA Magnum IO GDS and up to 43% lower SSD power in GNN training with BaM.

TrendForce's latest investigations reveal that the combined market share of the top five SSD module makers in the retail sector has surged from 59% in 2022 to 72% in 2023, reinforcing a trend of larger companies expanding their dominance. These major players are leveraging their scale to negotiate more favorable prices for NAND Flash, boosting their competitive edge and ensuring they have sufficient resources to stock up in preparation for market shifts.

TrendForce reports that shipments of branded SSDs in the retail market reached 180 million units in 2023, marking a YoY growth of 3.7%. Reflecting on the SSD market for that year, it appeared that many PCs purchased during the pandemic had entered their typical replacement cycle.

For enterprises in search of a high-performance, reliable, and cost-effective boot-drive solution, the HighPoint SSD6202A is the ideal choice. Engineered for enterprise computing environments, the robust, low-profile PCIe NVMe RAID AIC enhances the reliability and redundancy of the host platform by isolating the system's boot device from critical applications and primary data storage. The SSD6202A incorporates an impressive array of hardware and software features designed to maximize the performance, reliability and serviceability of NVMe storage media.

Native Hardware Support Streamlines Integration & Service Workflows
SSD6202A AICs are natively supported by all current Linux and Windows-based operating system and virtualization platforms, and require no additional device drivers or software applications to perform optimally. Hosted NVMe SSDs and RAID arrays will be automatically recognized as ordinary drives during OS installation, and can be formatted and partitioned as desired. The universal PCIe x8 host interface enables the SSD6202A to be seamlessly integrated into any PCIe Gen 3, 4 or 5 platform, and can deliver up to 7,000 MB/s of real-world transfer throughput using just a pair of off-the-shelf M.2 SSDs.

ASUS today announced the ProArt PA602 Wood Edition, a PC case that bolsters the aesthetics and sustainability of the original creator-focused PA602 chassis with parts constructed of durable and eye-catching wood.

A classic material for contemporary luxury
The ProArt PA602 Wood Edition seamlessly integrates wooden pieces into three locations. It starts with long handles along the top edge of the chassis, each sturdy enough to hold 30 kg. A second wood piece provides an eye-catching backdrop for the front I/O panel. Finally, long wood pieces are used for the ventilated front panel of the chassis. The wood used for the ProArt PA602 Wood Edition is certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), so users can trust that it was sourced from responsibly managed forests. Ash is the wood of choice because it offers superior hardness and durability, versus wood such as walnut. After selecting ideal pieces of lumber, the material's durability is enhanced with a thermowood treatment. Shaping and surface grinding refine each piece to exact specifications, and a two-step coating process highlights the natural appearance of the wood grain and applies a low-sheen finish. The wood elements of the ProArt PA602 Wood Edition elevate its sophisticated, professional look. With its minimalist design rooted in clean lines and pleasing symmetry, the ProArt PA602 Wood Edition chassis has an aesthetic that is never out of place.

Supermicro, Inc., a Total IT Solution Provider for AI, Cloud, Storage, and 5G/Edge, is launching a new optimized storage system for high performance AI training, inference and HPC workloads. This JBOF (Just a Bunch of Flash) system utilizes up to four NVIDIA BlueField-3 data processing units (DPUs) in a 2U form factor to run software-defined storage workloads. Each BlueField-3 DPU features 400 Gb Ethernet or InfiniBand networking and hardware acceleration for high computation storage and networking workloads such as encryption, compression and erasure coding, as well as AI storage expansion. The state-of-the-art, dual port JBOF architecture enables active-active clustering ensuring high availability for scale up mission critical storage applications as well as scale-out storage such as object storage and parallel file systems.

"Supermicro's new high performance JBOF Storage System is designed using our Building Block approach which enables support for either E3.S or U.2 form-factor SSDs and the latest PCIe Gen 5 connectivity for the SSDs and the DPU networking and storage platform," said Charles Liang, president and CEO of Supermicro. "Supermicro's system design supports 24 or 36 SSD's enabling up to 1.105PB of raw capacity using 30.71 TB SSDs. Our balanced network and storage I/O design can saturate the full 400 Gb/s BlueField-3 line-rate realizing more than 250 GB/s bandwidth of the Gen 5 SSDs."

TrendForce's latest findings reveal that NAND Flash products have been impacted by weaker-than-expected seasonal demand in the second half of 2024, leading to a decline in wafer contract prices in Q3. This downward trend is projected to deepen, with prices expected to drop by more than 10% in Q4.

Enterprise SSDs are the only segment likely to see modest price growth—supported by stable order momentum—with contract prices forecast to rise by 0-5% in Q4. However, PC SSDs and UFS will see more cautious procurement strategies from buyers, as weaker-than-expected sales of end products drive buyers to adopt a conservative approach. As a result, TrendForce projects overall NAND Flash contract prices will decline by 3-8% in Q4.

Western Digital Corp. today announced that its PCIe Gen 5 DC SN861 E.1S enterprise-class NVMe SSDs have been certified to support the NVIDIA GB200 NVL72 rack-scale system.

The rapid rise of AI, ML, and large language models (LLMs) is creating a challenge for companies with two opposing forces. Data generation and consumption are accelerating, while organizations face pressure to quickly derive value from this data. Performance, scalability, and efficiency are essential for AI technology stacks as storage demands rise. Certified to be compatible with the GB200 NVL72 system, Western Digital's enterprise SSD addresses the growing needs of the AI market for high-speed accelerated computing combined with low latency to serve compute-intensive AI environments.

In the past 13 years, global data production has surged, increasing an estimated 74 times. (1) Looking forward, McKinsey projects AI to spur 35% annual growth in enterprise SSD capacity demand, from 181 Exabytes (EB) in 2024 to 1,078EB in 2030. (2) To address this growing demand, ScaleFlux, a leader in data storage and memory technology, is announcing a significant expansion of its product portfolio. The company is introducing cutting-edge controllers for both NVMe SSDs and Compute Express Link (CXL) modules, reinforcing its leadership in innovative technology for the data pipeline. "With the release of three new ASIC controllers and key updates to its existing lineup, ScaleFlux continues to push the boundaries of SSD and memory performance, power efficiency, and data integrity," points out Hao Zhong, CEO and Co-Founder of the company.

Three New SoC Controllers to Transform Data Center Storage
ScaleFlux is proud to unveil three new SoC controllers designed to enhance data center, AI and enterprise infrastructure:

Samsung Electronics, the world leader in advanced memory technology, today announced it has begun mass-producing PM9E1, a PCIe 5.0 SSD with the industry's highest performance and largest capacity. Built on its in-house 5-nanometer (nm)-based controller and eighth-generation V-NAND (V8) technology, the PM9E1 will provide powerful performance and enhanced power efficiency, making it an optimal solution for on-device AI PCs. Key attributes in SSDs, including performance, storage capacity, power efficiency and security, have all been improved compared to its predecessor (PM9A1a).

"Our PM9E1 integrated with a 5 nm controller delivers industry-leading power efficiency and utmost performance validated by our key partners," said YongCheol Bae, Executive Vice President of Memory Product Planning at Samsung Electronics. "In the rapidly growing on-device AI era, Samsung's PM9E1 will offer a robust foundation for global customers to effectively plan their AI portfolios."

addlink Technology, a leader in digital storage innovation, proudly announces the launch of its advanced M.2 Gen 5 SSD series, the G55 and G55H. Designed for AI professionals, gamers, and hardware enthusiasts, these SSDs promise to transform your storage experience. Achieve blazing speeds up to 10,300 MB/s with the G55 and G55H Gen 5 x4 SSDs, powered by a low-power TSMC 7 nm process controller. Offering performance 50% faster than Gen 4 and up to 20 times faster than SATA SSDs, these drives are fully optimized for the latest Intel and AMD Gen 5 platforms.

The G55H is equipped with a premium heatsink to ensure consistent peak performance without throttling. Its slim 8.75 mm profile guarantees compatibility with most PCs and the PlayStation 5, providing unparalleled performance without compromise. The G55 features an ultraslim 2.3 mm design with high-density flash memory on one side, using 50% less power than other Gen 5 x4 SSDs. This makes it perfect for professionals who require high performance on the go without overheating or sacrificing battery life.

Memory and SSD maker Crucial noticed an uptick in support requests by users claiming that their Gen 5 or Gen 4 NVMe SSDs would drop to PCIe Gen 1 speeds, besides being unable to boot into Windows after a restart. Crucial then did some digging, and localized the issue to users with motherboards based on the AMD X670E chipset, AMD's flagship Socket AM5 platform chipset. While not a function of the chipset itself, it turns out that there is a flaw in the way AMD designed the PCI-Express I/O of the X670E platform, specifically the PCIe Gen 5-capable M.2 NVMe interfaces that are attached to the CPU, causing them to drop in speeds to Gen 1. This problem isn't surfacing on the AMD B650 or the B650E, or even the X670—it is oddly specific to the X670E, despite the Gen 5 M.2 NVMe slots not being wired to the chipset.

While AMD made no public statement on the technical aspect of the flaw, if we were to guess, this could be a faulty implementation of PCIe ASPM (active state power management) at the firmware level, which reduces the speed of the PCIe link layer to reduce power. The default setting for PCIe ASPM in most motherboard UEFI setup programs tends to be "disabled," although there could be a bug in the firmware of X670E motherboards, causing it to engage, and in a buggy manner. Most UEFI BIOS setup programs tend to have two separate sets of PCIe ASPM settings—one for the CPU-attached PCIe root (which includes the x16 PEG and CPU-attached NVMe slots), and the other for downstream PCIe connectivity from the chipset.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, today announced it has successfully developed the industry's first PCIe 4.0 automotive SSD based on eighth-generation vertical NAND (V-NAND). With industry-leading speeds and enhanced reliability, the new auto SSD, AM9C1 is an optimal solution for on-device AI capabilities in automotive applications. With about 50% improved power efficiency compared to its predecessor, the AM991, the new 256 GB auto SSD will deliver sequential read and write speeds of up to 4400 MB/s and 400 MB/s, respectively.

"We are collaborating with global autonomous vehicle makers and providing high-performance, high-capacity automotive products," said Hyunduk Cho, Vice President and Head of Automotive Group at Samsung Electronics' Memory Business. "Samsung will continue to lead the Physical AI1 memory market that encompasses applications from autonomous driving to robotics technologies."

KLEVV, the premier consumer memory and storage brand introduced by Essencore, is keen to unveil the all-new GENUINE G560 PCIe Gen5x4 NVMe M.2 SSD and CRAS C715 PCIe Gen3x4 NVMe M.2 SSD. Strategically named for its raw, unrivaled performance, the GENUINE G560 PCIe Gen5x4 NVMe M.2 SSD offers top-of-the-line hardware and cutting-edge storage technology packed into a highly refined product.

As KLEVV's first-ever PCIe Gen 5 SSD, it boasts exceptional speeds with sequential read and write capabilities of up to 14,000 MB/s and 12,000 MB/s, respectively. Alongside an impressive 4K random IOPS of up to 1,400K, the GENUINE G560 sets a new standard in advanced storage solutions. Engineered with a revolutionary 23x-layer 3D NAND, the GENUINE G560 delivers unparalleled efficiency and reliability, ideal for professional gamers, content creators, and casual use.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, today announced it has begun mass producing PM9E1, a PCle 5.0 SSD with the industry's highest performance and largest capacity. Built on its in-house 5-nanometer (nm)-based controller and eighth-generation V-NAND (V8) technology, the PM9E1 will provide powerful performance and enhanced power efficiency, making it an optimal solution for on-device AI PCs. Key attributes in SSDs, including performance, storage capacity, power efficiency and security, have all been improved compared to its predecessor (PM9A1a).

"Our PM9E1 integrated with a 5 nm controller delivers industry-leading power efficiency and utmost performance validated by our key partners," said YongCheol Bae, Executive Vice President of Memory Product Planning at Samsung Electronics. "In the rapidly growing on-device AI era, Samsung's PM9E1 will offer a robust foundation for global customers to effectively plan their AI portfolios."

TrendForce's latest reports reveal that the second quarter of 2024 saw a significant increase in demand for enterprise SSDs due to the increased deployment of NVIDIA GPU platforms and rising storage needs driven by AI applications, along with a surge in demand from server brands. The surge in demand for high-capacity SSDs for AI applications—coupled with suppliers' inability to adjust capacity in the first half of the year—resulted in a supply shortage that drove average enterprise SSD prices up by more than 25% QoQ. This price increase led to a revenue growth of over 50% for suppliers.

Looking ahead to the third quarter, demand from North American CSP customers continues to rise, and server brands show no signs of slowing down their orders, further boosting procurement volumes of enterprise SSD. With supply shortages persisting into the third quarter, TrendForce forecasts a 15% increase in contract prices compared to the previous quarter, with supplier revenues expected to grow by nearly 20%.

SK hynix Inc. announced today that it has developed PEB110 E1.S (PEB110), a high-performance solid-state drive (SSD) for data centers. With the advent of the AI era, customer demand for high-performance NAND solutions such as SSDs for data centers, as well as ultra-fast DRAM chips including high bandwidth memory (HBM), is growing. In line with this trend, the company has developed and introduced a new product with improved data processing speed and power efficiency by applying the fifth-generation (Gen 5) PCIe specifications.

SK hynix expects to meet diverse customer needs with a more robust SSD portfolio following successful mass production of PS1010 with the introduction of PEB110. The company is currently in the qualification process with a global data center customer and plans to begin mass production of the product in the second quarter of next year, pending qualification. PCle Gen 5, applied to the new product, provides twice the bandwidth of the fourth generation (Gen 4), enabling PEB110 to achieve data transfer rates of up to 32 gigatransfers per second (GT/s). This enables PEB110 to double the performance of the previous generation and improve power efficiency by more than 30%.

TrendForce reports that NAND Flash prices continued to rise in 2Q24 as server inventory adjustments neared completion and AI spurred demand for high-capacity storage products. However, high inventory levels among PC and smartphone buyers led to a 1% QoQ decline in NAND Flash bit shipments. Despite this, ASP increased by 15% and drove total revenue to US$16.796 billion, a 14.2% growth compared to the previous quarter.

All NAND Flash suppliers returned to profitability starting in the second quarter and are expanding capacity in the third quarter to meet strong demand from AI and server markets. However, weaker-than-expected PC and smartphone sales in the first half of the year are likely to constrain NAND Flash shipment growth.

Enterprise storage/computing is becoming less centralized in datacenters and controlled environments and becoming more distributed. Data is being driven to the edge where operating conditions are more extreme, locations are not easy to reach, and often, on the constant move. A new breed of storage solutions is needed, which combines the benefits of industrial solid-state drives (SSDs) and enterprise solutions. ATP Electronics, the global leader in specialized storage and memory solutions, proudly unleashes a product class like no other, going beyond the limits of traditional storage solutions, and offering the best of both of industrial and enterprise worlds: the new Industrial Enterprise Series.

The Industrial Enterprise N651Sie Series SSDs leverage NVMe PCIe Gen 4 x4 and are available as M.2, U.2, and E1.S. They are built for the age of data deluge as centralized computing increasingly moves to the edge, and enterprise operations in uncontrolled environments become more prevalent. They combine the best of enterprise and industrial features, making them excellent as boot drives, data storage drives, or mixed-use drives.

Gabriel Ferraz, maintainer of the TechPowerUp SSD database and content creator, recently published an article that shows the relationship between SLC (Single-Level Cell) cache technology and its performance impact on SSDs. Using a Pichau Aldrin Pro 2 TB SSD featuring an Innogrit IG5236 controller and YMTC 128-layer TLC NAND, Gabriel has uncovered both the advantages and potential drawbacks of this feature. The article reveals that with SLC cache enabled, which acts as a high-speed buffer, the SSD achieved remarkable write speeds of up to 6.5 GB/s, but only until 691 GB had been written. Beyond that, speeds dropped to 2.2 GB/s and then to 860 MB/s as the drive filled up.

Disabling the SLC cache delivers more consistent performance results that are 2.1 GB/s across the whole capacity of the SSD, but with lower peak performance. Testing also examined the impact on power consumption and efficiency. With the SLC cache active, the SSD consumed approximately 5 W of power while achieving over 3000 MB/s bandwidth. Disabling the cache reduced power consumption but at the cost of halving the bandwidth to around 1900 MB/s, resulting in lower overall efficiency. Maximum power consumption with cache enabled peaked at 7.3 W, compared to a lower figure when operating in constant TLC mode. Below, you can see some performance benchmarks published on The Overclock Page.

Kingston Digital, Inc., the flash memory affiliate of Kingston Technology Company, Inc., a world leader in memory products and technology solutions announced its latest data center SSD, DC2000B, a high-performance PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD optimized for use in high-volume rack-mount servers as an internal boot drive. Using the latest Gen 4x4 PCIe interface with 112-layer 3D TLC NAND, DC2000B is ideally suited for internal server boot drive applications as well for use in purpose built systems applications where higher performance and reliability are required. DC2000B includes on-board hardware-based power loss protection (PLP), a data protection feature not commonly found on M.2 SSDs. It also includes a new integrated aluminium heatsink that helps to ensure broad thermal compatibility across a wide variety of system designs.

"Whitebox server makers and Tier 1 server OEMs continue to equip their latest generation servers with M.2 sockets for boot purposes as well as internal data caching," said Cameron Crandall, enterprise SSD business manager, Kingston. "DC2000B was designed to deliver the necessary performance and write endurance to handle a variety of high duty cycle server workloads. Bringing the boot drives internal to the server preserves the valuable front loading drive bays for data storage."

HighPoint has unveiled the industry's first 16x M.2 Ports NVMe RAID AIC; the SSD7749M2. Featuring an unprecedented 16 independent M.2 device channels, and armed with HighPoint's proven PCIe Gen 4 Switch Architecture and NVMe cooling technology, SSD7749M2 RAID AICs are capable of delivering 28 GB/s of transfer throughput while supporting an astounding 128 TB of client-class NVMe storage; attributes that are particularly beneficial for AI driven workflows that require high-speed storage solutions capable of rapidly processing vast quantities of data. The compact, professional-grade PCIe AIC storage solution can be easily integrated into any x86 workstation or server platform capable of supporting modern dual-width GPUs, and is equipped with a comprehensive suite of management and monitoring tools designed to optimize and streamline the platforms NVMe storage ecosystem.

Advanced Architecture Maximizes Capacity and Performance
Innovative, dual-sided, vertically aligned M.2 loading trays can directly host up to sixteen 2280 form factor M.2 SSDs using only one side of the PCB. This unique architecture results in an impressively slim hardware footprint, with a form factor similar to that of a high-end dual-width GPU. The sixteen device channels can operate independently or concurrently, and enable the SSD7749M2 to support an astonishing 128 TB of M.2 storage, with the potential to scale up to 256 TB in the near future, all from a single PCIe slot!