Today, Intel launched the new Intel NUC 13 Extreme Kit (code-named Raptor Canyon) and Intel NUC 13 Extreme Compute Element, which combine to make the most powerful Intel NUC ever built. The NUC 13 Extreme features unlocked 13th Gen Intel Core desktop processors and space for new triple-slot, 12-inch graphics cards to unleash even more performance for enthusiast gamers and content creators.

"This year marks the 10-year anniversary for our impressive lineup of Intel NUC products, and the Intel NUC 13 Extreme (code named Raptor Canyon) is an excellent representation of how far we've come. Our first ever NUC demonstrated a breakthrough in the miniaturization of a small desktop PC into an ultra-small PC form factor. While much larger than our tiniest mini-PC, our latest Intel NUC 13 Extreme sets a new bar for how to pack stellar gaming performance in a form factor that is 70% smaller than a typical 50L gaming tower. Along with the epic performance you expect from an Intel NUC product, we also deliver exceptional product quality and feature density in a completely modular and customizable design," said Brian McCarson, Intel Vice President and General Manager of the Intel NUC Group.

Acer is bidding to buy 11 million equity shares of Apacer, a major DRAM and NAND flash products manufacturer. The shares, valued at NTD 363 million, will make the Taiwanese prebuilt PC and notebooks giant an 8.97% shareholder of Apacer's stock. The announcement put out by Apacer also speaks of an enhancement of "strategic collaborations" between the two companies. This could only mean one thing—that Apacer becomes a supplier of DRAM and NAND flash products to Acer.

Acer sells a small but significant lineup of SSDs and PC memory products in the DIY retail channel. These products are sourced from BIWIN, an OEM of DRAM and NAND flash products. Will Apacer replace BIWIN as a supplier? We'll have to wait and see. Besides an OEM, Apacer sells its own-branded memory cards, USB flash drives, SSDs, and PC memory modules; besides holding the PC enthusiast brand ZADAK, which sells high-end SSDs and overclocking memory modules.

GIGABYTE Technology, one of the top global manufacturers of motherboards, graphics cards, and hardware solutions, announces today the latest PCIe 4.0 M.2 SSD - AORUS Gen4 5000E which comes in two capacities of 500 GB and 1000 GB with 5000 MB/s read speed and 30% lower on overall power consumption. The AORUS Gen4 5000E has passed several comprehensive performance and stability tests to ensure users the most stable SSD with next-level performance.

"PCIe M.2 SSD dominates the present market with its advantages of small size and premium performance, making it the perfect choice for users to enhance storage performance, especially in the case of speedy PCIe 4.0 SSDs", said Jackson Hsu, Director of the GIGABYTE Channel Solutions Product Development Division. "Since the well-reputed PCIe 4.0 SSD first launched in 2019, GIGABYTE carries on with the belief in providing top-quality products to meet the needs of superior performance and ultra durability. AORUS Gen4 5000E SSD with 5000 MB/s read speed performs a key role in the improvement of storage performance."

Colorful Technology Company Limited, a professional manufacturer of graphics cards, motherboards, all-in-one gaming and multimedia solutions, and high-performance storage, announces the new Battle-AX memory kits with support for the latest Intel platform, available in DDR4 and DDR5 memory modules. COLORFUL also launches two new CN Series NVMe SSDs in PCIe Gen4 and PCIe Gen3 interfaces. The new memory and storage products aim to provide builders upgrading to the newer mainstream system platforms as well as older generation systems with DDR4 memory and PCIe Gen 3 M.2 SSD slots.

The COLORFUL Battle-AX DDR5 and DDR4 memory is perfect for mainstream users that plan to upgrade to the latest Intel platforms. The Battle-AX DDR5 memory sports a black heatspreader while the Battle-AX DDR4 sports a white heatspreader. The Battle-AX DDR5 memory is available in 8 GB and 16 GB modules and frequencies of DDR5-4800 and DDR5-5200. The Battle-AX DDR4 memory is also available in 8 GB and 16 GB modules and frequencies of DDR4-3200 and DDR4-3600. The Battle-AX DDR5 memory supports Intel XMP 3.0 for quick and easy memory overclocking via the BIOS. The COLORFUL Battle-AX Series memory is covered with 3-year warranty.

NVMe SSDs with M.2 format have become standard PC equipment because they allow high transfer rates and extremely low access times and thus enable faster and more effective working or gaming on the PC. Due to their construction, however, M.2 NVMe SSDs are only able to deliver their maximum performance for a short time. The controller chip heats up quickly and starts to throttle the SSD's performance early. To ensure that the full performance of the memory can be used permanently, Alphacool is expanding its portfolio for M.2 NVMe 2280 SSD water coolers and now also offers a brass variant of the HDX Pro Water with MCX connectors.

The HDX Pro Water is a reasonable choice when there is little space in the PC case and optimal hose paths are difficult to achieve. With the help of the MCX 2x manifold and the 5/3 mm hose (both included), the SSD water cooler in the MCX version can be integrated easily as well as space-saving. The installation is uncomplicated. The MCX 2x distributor is integrated into the water circuit via two G1/4" connections with internal thread. Here it is recommended to use the connections from Alphacool's Eiszapfen series. In the 2nd step, the HDX Pro SSD water cooler is connected to the MCX 2x manifold via the 5/3 mm PVC hose.

Transcend, a leading brand in digital storage and multimedia products, has officially launched the advanced PCIe 4.0 M.2 solid-state drive (SSD) MTE250S. Featuring 3D NAND flash, an 8-channel controller, and DRAM cache, this SSD delivers sequential read and write speeds of up to 7200/6500 MB/s (R/W) and ample capacity of up to 2 TB. Its ultra-thin graphene heatsink ensures stable performance during non-stop operation, and its proven performance will bring gamers, content creators, and software developers a fundamental boost, helping them excel in their fields.

Fully compliant with the latest NVMe 1.4 specifications, MTE250S comes in an M.2 2280 form factor with an 8-channel controller and a fast PCIe Gen4 x4 interface, unleashing sequential R/W speeds of up to 7200/6500 MB/s and 4K random R/W speeds reaching 530K IOPS. Video editors and gamers alike will benefit from its impressive speeds, reduced downtime, and ample capacity of up to 2 TB, all of which are necessary for tackling the most demanding tasks.

Kingston Digital, Inc., the Flash memory affiliate of Kingston Technology Company, Inc., a world leader in memory products and technology solutions, today announced TrendForce has named it as the number one third-party supplier of SSDs in the channel for all of 2021. According to TrendForce, Kingston accounted for a massive 26 percent of the 127 million units shipped in 2021.

Although the pandemic continued to disrupt the supply of SSD related components in 2021, shipments through global distribution channels saw an annual growth rate of 11%. While production demand increased, shipment volume was affected when wafer supply was too limited to meet order lead time. In response, Kingston adopted a limited supply strategy as product prices rose. These findings show through Kingston's global strategy for sourcing components, the company was well ahead of its competitors considering a global pandemic and chip shortage. The results reinforced Kingston as the clear leader in SSD production, as the second-place supplier accounted for only 8 percent of the total channel market. As a category, third-party suppliers (non-semiconductor) SSD makers accounted for 58% of the total shipments in 2021.

According to the latest TrendForce research, pandemic-induced materials shortages abated in the second half of this year and the supply and delivery of short-term materials has recovered significantly. However, assuming materials supply is secure and demand can be met, the annual growth rate of server shipments in 2023 is estimated to be only 3.7%, which is lower than 5.1% in 2022.

TrendForce indicates that this growth slowdown is due to three factors. First, once material mismatch issues had eased, buyers began adjusting previously placed purchase order overruns. Thus, ODM orders also decreased but this will not affect the 2022 shipment volume of whole servers for the time being. Second, due to the impact of rising inflation and weakness in the overall economy, corporate capital investment may trend more conservative and IT-related investment will emphasize flexibility, such as the replacement of certain server terminals with cloud services. Third, geopolitical changes will drive the continuing emergence of demand for small-scale data centers and previous construction of hyperscale data centers will slow. The recent ban on military/HPC servers issued by the U.S. Department of Commerce on October 7 has a very low market share in terms of its application category, so the impact on the overall server market is limited at present. However, if the scope of the ban is expanded further in the future, it will herald a more significant slowdown risk for China's server shipment momentum in 2023.

Back in March 2022, Microsoft formally debuted the DirectStorage 1.0 API that enables direct interactions between a GPU and a storage device; thereby reducing the processing load of the storage stack on the CPU and main memory. This release, however, lacked a killer feature that's available to consoles—asset decompression. With the lukewarm response from game developers to DirectStorage 1.0 for PC, Microsoft has finally updated the API, introducing the feature with DirectStorage 1.1.

With this feature, your GPU can not only directly fetch game assets from the storage device (an SSD that uses either NVMe or AHCI protocols), but also pull them in their natively-stored compressed state. These assets are then decompressed by the GPU using compute shaders, and the decompressed assets remain in the video memory. This will directly impact game loading times, as asset decompression no longer involves the CPU. Its impact on the game's framerate will be minimal, as the API mainly accelerates game loading times, not gameplay itself. Game assets are organized pieces of data such as textures, 3D model files, music, sound effects—pretty much all of the individual pieces of content that make up a 3D scene.

QNAP Systems, Inc., a leading computing, networking, and storage solution innovator, introduced today the high-performance TVS-hx74 QuTS hero NAS series, including the 4-bay TVS-h474, 6-bay, TVS-h674 and 8-bay TVS-h874 models that incorporate 12th Gen Intel Core multi-core/multi-thread processors. The TVS-hx74 running ZFS-based QuTS hero operating system ensures data integrity and supports block-level inline data deduplication and compression, near-limitless snapshots, and real-time SnapSync. Featuring PCIe Gen 4 (up to twice the transmission speed of Gen 3) expandability, M.2 NVMe SSD caching, and 2.5 GbE connectivity, the TVS-hx74 tackles demanding business challenges in storage, backup, virtualization, and application servers.

"QNAP's TVS-hx74 is the ideal entry-level ZFS NAS for SMBs," said Meiji Chang, General Manager of QNAP, adding "The multi-core processors and versatile expandability also fulfill multi-tasking demands in enterprise IT environments and provide abundant computing resources for virtualization applications." "We are excited to see QNAP employ Intel's cutting-edge solution within their latest NAS series. The 12th Gen Intel Core multi-core/multi-thread processors will deliver excellent computing performance for accelerating SMB virtualization applications and graphical demands," said Jason Ziller, General Manager, Client Connectivity Division at Intel Corporation.

NVMe SSDs in M.2 format have become standard PC equipment, as they allow high transfer rates and extremely low access times and thus enable faster and more effective work or gaming. Due to their design, however, M.2 NVMe SSDs are only capable of delivering their maximum performance for a short time. The controller chip heats up extremely quickly and begins to throttle the SSD's performance at an early stage. To ensure that the full performance of the memory can be used permanently, Alphacool now offers the Core M.2 NVMe PCIe 4.0 Liquid Cooler with digital aRGB illumination.

The Core M.2 NVMe PCIe 4.0 Liquid Cooler features 5 digitally addressable RGB LEDs that create a unique illumination. The LEDs can be connected to a digital RGB controller or a digital RGB capable mainboard and thus controlled as desired. The material mix of acrylic, nickel-plated copper and aluminium also gives the cooler a noble design.

Crystal Group, Inc., a leading designer and manufacturer of rugged computer and electronic hardware, announced today the release of a ruggedized and tamper-proof NVMe M.2 drive validated across their portfolio of rugged, high-performance compute solutions for tactical edge applications. Using new, proprietary Crystal Group ruggedization techniques on the tamper-evident Seagate BarraCuda 515 solid state drive (SSD) extends the drive's capabilities to military platforms by meeting strict U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) cybersecurity and environmental operating requirements.

"Marrying advanced data security features with comprehensive environmental standards streamlines two critical performance needs for tactical edge applications into one solution," said Todd Prouty, senior business development manager at Crystal Group. "Integrating these capabilities at both the drive level and hardware level provides maximum physical and data protections for long-life, seamless compute performance and accuracy in and across all domains."

Cloud storage provider Backblaze is one of the industry players providing insightful reports into the health and reliability of the storage mediums they invest in to support their business. In its most recent report, the company shared data that may finally be pointing towards the general perception (and one of SSD's call to fame upon their introduction): that they boast of higher reliability and lower failure rates than HDDs.

The company's latest reports shows that SSDs have entered their fifth operating year without an escalation in failure rates: something that seems to plague HDDs pretty heavily starting from year 4. The idea is simple: SSDs should be more reliable because there are no moving part (no platters and no read/write heads that can fail). However, SSDs do have other points of failure, such as NAND itself (the reason there's TBW ratings) or its controller. Backblaze's data does however show that those concerns may be overrated. Of course, there's a chance that SSDs employed by Backblaze will hit a "reliability" wall of the sort that HDDs seem to enter in year four of their operation, where failure rates increase immensely. More data throughout a larger span of time will be welcome, but for now, it does seem that SSDs are the best way for users to keep their data available.

QNAP Systems, Inc., a leading computing, networking, and storage solution innovator, today launched reliable QuTS hero NAS TS-hx87XU-RP series, available in 9, 18, 22, and 30-bay models. The series integrates the power of Intel Xeon E-2300 series processors with fast 10GbE and 2.5GbE Multi-Gig connectivity and an efficient HDD/SSD hybrid storage architecture that balances performance, capacity, and cost. Running the ZFS-based QuTS hero operating system, the TS-hx87XU-RP series prioritizes data integrity and provides powerful data reduction, near-limitless snapshots, up to 5 petabytes capacity per shared folder, and more, serving as ideal storage solution that meets today's business requirements for file servers, virtualization servers, VDI, and backup/restore.

Designed for heavy business workloads, the TS-hx87XU-RP has extreme computing power from the Intel Xeon E processor, along with up to 128 GB DDR4 ECC memory to fuel multitasking demands and redundant power supply protection. In-built 10GBASE-T and 2.5 GbE network ports fulfill bandwidth-demanding tasks such as virtualization, large file transfers, and real-time applications. High-speed PCIe Gen 4 slots are included for extending core NAS functionality, such as adding additional 10/25 GbE network interface cards, QM2 cards to add M.2 SSDs and 2.5 GbE/10GbE ports, Fibre Channel cards for SAN storage, and storage expansion cards to connect QNAP expansion enclosures. The TS-hx87XU-RP series can pair with QNAP's managed and unmanaged 10GbE/2.5 GbE switches, assisting organizations in implementing high-speed, secure and scalable network environments without going over budget.

KIOXIA America, Inc. has introduced new Industrial Grade flash memory devices. This new lineup utilizes the latest generation KIOXIA BiCS FLASH 3D flash memory with 3-bit-per-cell (triple-level cell, TLC) technology, and is available in a 132-BGA package. Densities range from 512 gigabits (64 gigabytes) to 4 terabits (512 gigabytes) to support the unique requirements of industrial applications - including telecommunication, networking, embedded computing and much more.

The storage requirements for many industrial applications stand in stark contrast to those of SSDs designed to be housed in climate-controlled data centers - including the need for extended temperature ranges and the ability to maintain high reliability and performance in rugged operating conditions. Designed with these needs in mind, the new KIOXIA devices support a wide temperature range (-40°C to +85°C) and offer suitable products for the industrial market.

Kingston released the NV2 line of entry-level M.2 NVMe SSDs succeeding the NV1 series from early-2021, which was infamous for its hardware-specs lottery. The biggest change with the NV2 series is the move to PCI-Express Gen 4 (from Gen 3 for the NV1 series), even though it doesn't appear like they can take advantage of all that bandwidth.

The Kingston NV2 comes in capacities of 250 GB, 500 GB, 1 TB, and 2 TB; and offer sequential transfer speeds of up to 3000 MB/s reads, with up to 1300 MB/s writes; with endurance ratings of up to 80 TBW for 250 GB, 160 TBW for 500 GB, 320 TBW for 1 TB, and 640 TBW for 2 TB. The company won't mention the controller + NAND flash combo in use (so it could use whatever combination it wants to in the future, as long as the advertised speeds and endurance are achieved); but in all likelihood, this is Phison E19T DRAMless controller that features PCI-Express 4.0 x4, paired with 3D QLC NAND flash. Kingston is backing these with 3-year warranties.

Seagate Technology Holdings plc, a world leader in mass-data storage infrastructure solutions, today announced its next-generation Exos X systems, the advanced storage arrays powered by Seagate's sixth generation controller architecture. The new Exos X systems feature up to twice the performance of the previous generation and enhanced enterprise-class durability. To help protect the stored data, Exos X systems incorporate ADAPT (Advanced Distributed Autonomic Protection Technology) erasure coding solution with Seagate's innovative self-healing storage technology ADR (Autonomous Drive Regeneration).

The Exos X series is a family of petabyte-scale, rack-mounted block storage enclosures that aggregate and virtualize dozens to hundreds of hard drives and SSDs for maximum data resiliency, availability and performance. Exos X systems are ideal as highly available enterprise storage infrastructure for conventional enterprise data centers as well as private clouds.

Here are some of the first pictures of the GoodRAM IRDM Ultimate PCIe Gen 5 M.2 NVMe SSD. Built in the M.2-2580 form-factor, the drive combines Phison's upcoming E26 controller, with what's likely KIOXIA 162-layer 3D TLC NAND flash memory. The controller takes advantage of the PCI-Express 5.0 x4 interface, and NVMe 2.0 protocol, offering sequential transfer speeds of around 10 GB/s reads, with around 9.5 GB/s writes. The drive comes in capacities of 1 TB, 2 TB, and 4 TB. It comes with a fairly large heatsink included. AMD Socket AM5 will be the first platform to feature CPU-attached PCIe Gen 5 M.2 slots, which goes on sale by late-September. The first PCIe Gen 5 NVMe SSDs, according to AMD, should be here by November.

Lexar, a leading global brand of flash memory solutions, is proud to announce the Lexar Professional NM800PRO M.2 2280 PCIe Gen4 x4 NVMe SSD, with a heatsink model also available. It is engineered for hardcore gamers, professionals and creators who demand high-performance computing.

The Lexar Professional NM800 M.2 2280 NVMe SSD provides maximum SSD performance that puts you in the computing fast lane with speeds up to 7500 MB/s read and 6500 MB/s write. With blazing-fast performance, the Lexar NM800 PRO SSD leverages the 12 nm controller to produce lower power consumption and longer battery life for all your high-performance computing needs. Unlike traditional hard disk drives, the Lexar NM800PRO SSD has no moving parts, so it's built to last. On top of that, it's also shock and vibration resistant, making it one robust and reliable SSD.Update Sep 6th: Added pricing information.

According to TrendForce research, material supply improvement and spiking demand for enterprise SSDs from North American hyperscale data center and enterprise clients in 2Q22 coupled with the Kioxia contamination incident in 1Q22 prompted customers to ramp up procurement to avoid future supply shortages. Manufacturers also give priority to meeting the needs of server customers due to the high pricing of enterprise SSD. In the second quarter, overall revenue of the enterprise SSD market increased by 31.3% to US$7.32 billion.

As the market leader, Samsung has grown its enterprise SSD revenue to US$3.26 billion with the recovery of enterprise SSD procurement. Especially in the second quarter, when orders for other consumer products continued to decline, enterprise SSD became the company's outlet for reducing production capacity. At present, Samsung has been continuously investing in the development of next-generation transmission specification products such as the CXL 2.0 product released at the Flash Summit in early August, in order to maintain a leading position in the market.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, today announced the 990 PRO, the company's high-performance NVMe SSD based on PCIe 4.0. Delivering lightning-fast speeds and superior power efficiency, the new SSD is optimized for graphically demanding games and other intensive tasks including 3D rendering, 4K video editing and data analysis.

"With continuing innovations in gaming, 4K and 8K technology as well as AI-driven applications, consumers' need for high-performance storage is growing exponentially," said KyuYoung Lee, Vice President of the Memory Brand Product Biz Team at Samsung Electronics. "The 990 PRO provides an optimal balance of speed, power efficiency and reliability, making it an ideal choice for avid gamers and creative professionals seeking uninterrupted work and play."

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, and hardware solutions announced the AORUS Gen5 AIC Adaptor with PCIe 5.0 support. It is a single-slot Add In Card, featuring four NVMe M.2 slots, supporting a maximum of four PCIe 5.0 SSDs with 16 TB storage. By configuring a RAID array, the bandwidth can boost up to 60 GB/s to allow massive data files to transfer in a snap. The eight integrated temperature sensors and active temperature-controlled double ball bearing fan should satisfy users with large-capacity, ultra-fast and ultra-cool data access.

"With the coming PCIe 5.0 platform, high-speed storage can reach access speed of more than 10 GB/s. For users who chase higher performance, GIGABYTE AORUS Gen5 AIC leads the way to extreme performance by building a disk array." said Jackson Hsu, Director of the GIGABYTE Channel Solutions Product Development Division. "Integrating four PCIe 5.0 slots, users can choose different NVMe M.2 SSDs with customized capacity and performance for the greatest flexibility. Meanwhile, the advanced thermal design prevents thermal throttling under high-speed operation which makes GIGABYTE AORUS Gen5 AIC the best choice when upgrading storage performance."

ADATA Technology, a leading manufacturer of industrial-grade DRAM modules and NAND Flash products today announces its first industrial-grade PCIe Gen4 x4 M.2 2280 solid state drive, the IM2P41B8. Utilizing the ultra-high-speed PCIe Gen4 x4 interface, it delivers excellent read and write performance for processing large data loads, and the durability and security industrial-grade applications require.

The IM2P41B8 M.2 2280 is equipped with WDC's 112-layer 3D TLC flash memory with a maximum capacity of 4 TB. With the PCIe Gen4 x4 interface and NVMe 1.4 support, the IM2P41B8 offers performance that is 230% higher than PCIe 3.0, random read and write speeds of up to 220,000/175,000 IOPS, and sustained read and write speeds of up to 7000/6500 MB/s. What's more, it feature 3K P/E cycle rating for excellent durability.

Global memory brand, Team Group, has created numerous innovative SSD products over the years with its cutting-edge research and development to offer the very best solutions in the storage market. Today it has announced MP44L M.2 PCIe 4.0 SSD, featuring a unique breakthrough cooling technology: the industry's first SSD label to incorporate graphene copper foil. This less than 1 mm thick Heat Dissipating Graphene SSD Label has received Utility Patents and is tightly adhered to the SSD to provide precise and greater cooling. The design of MP44L M.2 PCIe 4.0 SSD's heat dissipating graphene SSD label eliminates the possibility of installation interference. Moreover, it allows users to enjoy double the cooling performance and the increased stability of PCIe Gen4 without the need to install additional thermal equipment when it's paired with an M.2 slot heatsink.

Team Group's brand new MP44L M.2 PCIe 4.0 SSD is a storage upgrade solution for Gen4 x4 SSDs. It offers a read speed of 5,000 MB/s and a write speed of 4,500 MB/s and supports SLC Cache technology, which provides over double the operation efficiency of Gen3 SSDs. By solving the problem of computer lag, it allows users to multitask with ease and enjoy fast and smooth performance. The MP44L SSD provides excellent data transfer accuracy due to its LDPC (Low-Density Parity Check Code) technology. It supports Windows TRIM optimization commands and the latest NVMe 1.4 standard.

During this year's Flash Memory Summit, Phison, a company known for SSD controllers and now flash drives, demonstrated a system running AMD Ryzen 7000 series processors based on Zen 4 architecture. What is interesting about the shown specification is that the system was running an engineering sample of an upcoming Zen 4-based CPU with the latest storage technologies at impressive speeds. Using a Phison PS5026-E26 SSD controller, also called E26, the PCIe 5.0 SSD is powered by Micron's latest 232-layer TLC NAND flash. This new NAND technology will also bring greater densities to the market by promising higher endurance, higher read/write speeds, and better efficiency.

With AMD's upcoming AM5 platform, support for PCIe 5.0 SSDs is a welcome addition. And we today have some preliminary tests that show just how fast these SSDs can run. In CrystalDiskMark 8.0.4, it achieved over 10 GB/s in both read and write. We know that the E26 controller is capable of 12 GB/s speeds, so more fine-tuning is needed. Being an early sample, we expect final specifications to be better. The system is powered by an engineering sample of a six-core, twelve-threaded Zen 4 CPU running at unknown clocks, codenamed 100-000000593-20_Y. We can expect to see more of this technology once AMD's AM5 platform lands and Phison-powered SSDs hit the shelves in September.