At the end of July, Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) announced the specifications and guidelines for expanding the console's built-in internal storage and confirmed that the PlayStation 5 (PS5) will now support M.2 SSDs for users to expand storage for game files and applications on the PS5. Today, TEAMGROUP's gaming brand, T-FORCE, is unveiling the T-FORCE CARDEA A440 Pro Special Series M.2 PCIe SSD with the industry's first-ever white graphene heat sink. The latest M.2 SSD, made specifically for expanding storage and will be available for gamers around the world on major e-commerce platforms in October, 2021.

The T-FORCE CARDEA A440 Pro Special Series M.2 SSD is being announced today by TEAMGROUP and is equipped with the industry's first-ever white graphene heat sink. The M.2 PCIe 4.0 SSD, created specifically to expand PS5 storage, can reach read/write speeds of up to 7,400/7,000 MB/s and offers storage capacities of up to 8 TB. The T-FORCE CARDEA A440 Pro Special Series M.2 SSD meets the specifications for the PS5 in heat sink size, read/write speeds, and supported capacities, allowing PS5 gamers to install it easily and get the storage they need instantly.

While the server industry transitions to the latest generation of processors based on the x86 platform, the Intel Ice Lake and AMD Milan CPUs entered mass production earlier this year and were shipped to certain customers, such as North American CSPs and telecommunication companies, at a low volume in 1Q21, according to TrendForce's latest investigations. These processors are expected to begin seeing widespread adoption in the server market in 3Q21. TrendForce believes that Ice Lake represents a step-up in computing performance from the previous generation due to its higher scalability and support for more memory channels. On the other hand, the new normal that emerged in the post-pandemic era is expected to drive clients in the server sector to partially migrate to the Ice Lake platform, whose share in the server market is expected to surpass 30% in 4Q21.

ATP Electronics, a global leader in specialized storage and memory solutions, has announced that its A600Sc Series serial ATA solid state drives (SATA SSDs) have been successfully qualified for compatibility and interoperability with Adaptec Smart Storage PCIe Gen 4 Tri-Mode SmartRAID 3200, SmartHBA 2200, and HBA 1200 Smart Storage adapters.

Designed for storage platforms in next-generation data centers, the Adaptec PCIe Gen 4 SAS/SATA/NVMe HBA and RAID tri-mode adapters deliver significantly higher performance through PCIe Gen 4 x16 CPU interfaces as well as SAS and SATA storage. The new offerings simplify integration and provide flexibility to aggregate diverse storage devices with Microchip's proven security and manageability features for the most demanding server storage applications.

Seagate has confirmed that it now has a PS5-compatible SSD that should be a worthwhile drop-in replacement for the PS5's user-replaceable storage. This isn't a new product, mind you: the company has announced the Firecuda 530 for some time now. However, the company did announce that this SSD can be used in the PS5 system - even if just barely. With space being so constrained in the PS5's NVMe SSD slot, not all SSDs can even physically fit the available space (110 x 25 x 11.25 mm) - and especially not all SSDs featuring a heatsink, even if PS5's compatibility requirements demand such an heatsink to be present so as to avoid thermal throttling.

The FIrecuda 530 1 TB can easily best Sony's 5500 MB/s sequential read requirements for SSD compatibility with the PS5 - the PCIe 4.0 Firecuda 530 offers 7,300 MB/s on that regard, so it more than fits the part. The user-replaceable SSD storage on the PS5 will only be available for Beta users at first, via an upcoming software update for the console, and there are some hoops to jump through in migrating data to it. Seagate is also releasing a 2 TB version ($569.99) and a 4 TB version ($1,049.99). Seagate's own user-replaceable SSD for the Xbox Series X|S, the Storage Expansion Card, is available in 1 TB capacity for $219.

Samsung Electronics today reported financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2021. Total consolidated revenue was KRW 63.67 trillion, a 20% increase from the previous year and a record for the second quarter. Operating profit increased 34% from the previous quarter to KRW 12.57 trillion as market conditions improved in the memory market, operations normalized at the Austin foundry fab, and as effective global supply chain management (SCM) helped maintain solid profitability for the finished product businesses.

The Semiconductor business saw a significant improvement in earnings as memory shipments exceeded previous guidance and price increases were higher than expected, while the Company strengthened its cost competitiveness. For the Display Panel Business, a one-off gain and an increase in overall prices boosted profits.

The ramp-up of the Intel Ice Lake and AMD Milan processors is expected to not only propel growths in server shipment for two consecutive quarters from 2Q21 to 3Q21, but also drive up the share of high-density products in North American hyperscalers' enterprise SSD purchases, according to TrendForce's latest investigations. In China, procurement activities by domestic hyperscalers Alibaba and ByteDance are expected to increase on a quarterly basis as well. With the labor force gradually returning to physical offices, enterprises are now placing an increasing number of IT equipment orders, including servers, compared to 1H21. Hence, global enterprise SSD procurement capacity is expected to increase by 7% QoQ in 3Q21. Ongoing shortages in foundry capacities, however, have led to the supply of SSD components lagging behind demand. At the same time, enterprise SSD suppliers are aggressively raising the share of large-density products in their offerings in an attempt to optimize their product lines' profitability. Taking account of these factors, TrendForce expects contract prices of enterprise SSDs to undergo a staggering 15% QoQ increase for 3Q21.

Kioxia Corporation, a world leader in memory solutions, today announced two new solid state drive (SSD) series scheduled to be released in the fourth quarter of 2021. The EXCERIA PRO and EXCERIA G2 Series are the company's latest consumer-grade solutions for today's hardcore enthusiasts and mainstream DIY system builders. Kioxia's new SSDs, which are products under development, will be on reference exhibit at the China Digital Entertainment Expo and Conference (ChinaJoy) in Shanghai from July 30th to August 2nd.

Using the next generation PCIe Gen4 x4 interface, the EXCERIA PRO Series is built for demanding PC environments. This brand new series will offer more than 2x the max sequential read speeds of the PCIe Gen3 based EXCERIA PLUS Series, delivering a high performance storage experience for content creators, gamers and professionals.

Greenliant is now sampling SATA M.2 2242 ArmourDrive PX Series solid state drives (SSDs) that support 5K program-erase (P/E) cycles and advanced EX series SSDs with superior data retention and high endurance that support 60K, 120K and industry-leading 300K P/E cycles. SATA M.2 2242 ArmourDrive SSDs operate at industrial temperatures (-40 to +85 degrees Celsius) and are rigorously tested for shock and vibration to withstand the most extreme environments. See SATA M.2 ArmourDrive product information at http://bit.ly/SATA-M2-SSD.

Designed with Greenliant's EnduroSLC Technology, the new EX Series SSDs are available in 4 GB, 8 GB, 20 GB, 40 GB, 80 GB, 160 GB and 320 GB capacities, and are included in Greenliant's Long-Term Availability (LTA) program for 1-bit-per-cell (SLC) NAND based products (http://bit.ly/SSD-LTA-program). The new PX Series SSDs, available in 64 GB, 128 GB, 256 GB and 512 GB capacities, use 3-bit-per-cell (TLC) 3D NAND flash memory to provide cost-effective industrial storage.

SK hynix Inc. today announced financial results for its second quarter 2021 ended on June 30, 2021. The consolidated revenue of the second quarter 2021 was 10.322 trillion won, while the operating profit amounted to 2.695 trillion won and the net income 1.988 trillion won. Operating margin for the quarter was 26% and net margin was 19%.

It was the first time in three years that SK hynix recorded the quarterly revenue of more than 10 trillion won as the memory market condition, which began to recover earlier this year, continued to improve in the second quarter. The company last logged more than 10 trillion won in the third quarter of 2018 when the memory market was booming.

OWC, the premier zero-emissions Mac and PC technology company, and a respected provider of Memory, External Drives, SSDs, Mac & PC docking solutions, and performance upgrade kits announces the new OWC Envoy Pro SX, the Thunderbolt portable SSD that can withstand any condition. The mild-mannered exterior of the OWC Envoy Pro SX hides its true nature. It's super-fast. Super-versatile. Super-portable. And rugged enough to endure the most challenging work and play settings.

This little beast of an SSD handles all data storage and backup challenges like a real superhero when put to the test. The OWC Envoy Pro SX is versatile enough to be used as a bus-powered drive for daily storage and backup tasks. It can handle workflows easily handle the speed demands of production-level audio, design, and photography workflows. And it serves up real-world performance speeds up to 2847 MB/s with modern Thunderbolt and USB 4 equipped Macs and PCs. Built along the OWC Envoy Pro EX's award-winning lineage, this tiny but mighty ½ pound portable drive is 1/3 smaller. It features a removable Thunderbolt cable and is test certified to handle the nastiest environments. From managing obstacles in the field to crushing deadlines at home, the OWC Envoy Pro SX lets you unleash your productivity power without needing a cape or mask.

Innodisk, a leading global provider of industrial flash and memory solutions, announces its industrial-grade 112-Layer 3D TLC SSDs along with the world's highest capacity up to 8 TB. The 112-layer SSDs introduces a complete product line including the SATA 3TG6-P and 3TE7 series, as well as the PCIe Gen 3 x4 and Gen 4 x4 series.

The new TLC SSD Series marks Innodisk's continued development with 3D NAND design, bringing better efficiency, faster performance, and increased capacity. Compared to the previous 96-layer technology that offered a maximum of 2 TB storage, the new 112-layer PCIe Gen 4x4 series increase the capacity to 8 TB for U.2 SSD, which is the highest in the industry, while increased the capacity to 4 TB for M.2 (P80). Beyond capacity increases, 112-layer is also faster, with the PCIe Gen 4x4 series clocking in at speeds up to 7500/6700 MB/s (8CH) and 3800/3000 MB/s (4CH). The marked increase in performance meets the growing needs of AIoT applications and industries in 5G, edge computing, deep learning, smart surveillance and smart medical where speed and higher capacity support are critical.

PNY announced today the launch of the LX2030 and LX3030 line of ultra high endurance SSDs to the company's assortment of solid-state drives. The new LX families of SSDs offer ever higher levels of endurance designed for "proof of space and time" applications like Chia (XCH) Plotting.

The PNY LX2030 and LX3030 M.2 NVMe SSDs are the ideal solution for "proof of space and time" applications like plotting Chia Coin. To secure the blockchain, the data needs to be first created in a process called "plotting", which is only required once per plot file. This process is write intensive, so a desirable SSD for plotting has high sustained write bandwidth and endurance (TBW, or terabytes written). Typically this level of write performance and endurance was only seen on enterprise class SSDs.

The recent wave of COVID-19 outbreaks in India has weakened sales of retail storage products such as memory cards and USB drives, according to TrendForce's latest investigations. However, demand remains fairly strong in the main application segments due to the arrival of the traditional peak season and the growth in the procurement related to data centers. Hence, the sufficiency ratio of the entire market has declined further. NAND Flash suppliers have kept their inventories at a healthy level thanks to clients' stock-up activities during the past several quarters. Moreover, the ongoing shortage of NAND Flash controller ICs continues to affect the production of finished storage products. Taking account of these demand-side and supply-side factors, TrendForce forecasts that contract prices of NAND Flash products will rise marginally for 3Q21, with QoQ increases in the range of 5-10%.

OWC, the premier zero-emissions Mac and PC technology company, and a respected provider of Memory, External Drives, SSDs, Mac & PC docking solutions, and performance upgrade kits, announces the OWC U2 ShuttleOne. This innovative "build your own" heat dissipating full metal adapter brings U.2 SSD performance and capacity to the mainstream in a flexible, easy-to-use design. Performance enthusiasts, IT admins, M&E pros, gamers, and more can now use a readily available and affordable NVMe M.2 "blade" style SSD in a 2.5-inch U.2 bay. Whether you have a U.2 bay equipped server, workstation, gaming rig, or external drive, the OWC U2 ShuttleOne gives you access to a new world of storage possibilities.

The OWC U2 ShuttleOne offers a full-metal housing that solidly protects your drive and data while providing cooling that's superior to adapters made with other materials. The OWC U2 ShuttleOne delivers complete drive reliability and takes your workflow beyond the limits. Small form factor NVMe M.2 SSDs can pack a powerful performance but swapping them can damage the connector and make the drive unreadable. The OWC U2 ShuttleOne lets you change your NVMe M.2 SSD at will in any 2.5-inch U.2 drive bay with the peace of mind that your drive will stay protected. This innovative adapter is fully certified and rated up to PCIe Gen 4, meaning the OWC U2 ShuttleOne supports your drive's fastest performance up to 8,000 MB/s. The OWC U2 ShuttleOne can make your dream of mind-blowingly fast speeds a reality.

MSI is announcing the launch of its solid state drive (SSD) product line with the introduction of SPATIUM. The initial product offering will include M480, M470, and M370, which are Gen4 and Gen3 PCIe NVMe SSDs in compact M.2 2280 form factors that can be installed into compatible desktop motherboards and laptops.

MSI continues to refine its identity as a high-performance PC brand and SPATIUM was envisioned to expand our ecosystem and cover the high-performance storage category. These SSDs are built with high-quality, high-density 3D NAND flash that deliver the best compromise of performance and endurance for professionals, content creators, and gamers. Among the performance improving technologies include a DRAM cache buffer for M480 and M470, and a SLC cache for all announced models.

GIGABYTE Technology, one of the top global manufacturers of motherboards, graphics cards, and hardware solutions, today announced the AORUS XTREME Gen4 AIC SSD with 28 GB/s ultra-fast access speed. This high capacity and extreme performance SSD builds in eight 4 TB 2nd generation PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSDs with PHISON PS5018-E18 controller, AORUS XTREME Gen4 AIC SSD offers ultra-high transfer bandwidth and superior access performance through RAID configuration.

The AORUS Xtreme Gen4 AIC SSD features ultimate thermal design with large aluminium finned heatsink, M.2 baseplate for passive cooling, 10 temperature sensors and active dual-fan heat dissipation design, while the exclusive SSD Tool Box offers users real-time status and temperature monitoring of SSDs. GIGABYTE AORUS Storage Manager allows users to configure a RAID array with a single click and 3-phase fan speed adjustment, which enabling AORUS XTREME Gen4 AIC SSD to keep cool and performing at a high level. It promises a non-throttling experience for users who phase for high capacity and breakthrough performance.

Kingston, the flash memory affiliate of Kingston Technology Company, Inc., a world leader in memory products and technology solutions, today announced the availability of the DC1500M, a U.2 data center NVMe PCIe SSD for mixed-use workloads. Leveraging a high-performance Gen 3.0 x4 PCIe NVMe design, the DC1500M delivers predictable random IO performance as well as predictable latencies over a wide range of workloads.

"DC1500M adds support for multiple namespaces making it ideal for environments including virtualisation and web hosting," said Tony Hollingsbee, SSD business manager, Kingston EMEA. "From high-performance cloud services, media capture and transport to a range of big-data applications, DC1500M sets the standard for applications where QoS and predictability of performance are paramount. Data centers need drives that are reliable, have serviceable form factors and are equipped with the enterprise-grade features that make it easier to maintain SLAs."

TEAMGROUP unveils the T-FORCE CARDEA Z44Q PCIe 4.0 SSD with two patented cooling modules, QLC Flash, and PCIe Gen 4x4 interface that supports the latest NVMe 1.4 standard and provides a massive capacity of up to 4 TB. Consumers can opt for different specs based on their preference and needs, and gamers can have everything from cooling, performance, and capacity in one SSD, and explore the infinite possibilities with T-FORCE CARDEA Z44Q PCIe4.0 SSD.

Equipped with QLC Flash, the T-FORCE CARDEA Z44Q PCIe 4.0 SSD supports the latest PCIe Gen 4x4 interface and NVMe 1.4 standards, meaning that it is compatible with PCIe Gen3.0 interface while offering up to 4 TB in capacity. The read/write speeds reach up to 5,000/4,000 MB/s, which are 10 times faster than traditional SSDs, making it a pioneer for the new TB M.2 era and the best choice for players in terms of cooling, speed, and capacity.

Seagate today announced its newest PC gaming SSD, the FireCuda 530, at the company's inaugural virtual gaming event, SG21. The new drive offers gamers the latest PCIe Gen4 NVMe SSD technology and the fastest performance from the company's line of PC gaming storage products - bringing speed, endurance, and high capacity to the peak of PC performance.

Delivering sequential read speeds of up to 7300 MB/s, the FireCuda 530 catalyzes PCIe Gen4 power with transfer rates up to two times faster than PCIe Gen3 SSDs and 12 times faster than SATA-based SSDs. The drive is built with a Seagate-validated E18 controller and the latest 3D TLC NAND to provide the most advanced speed and durability for PC gaming. Seagate also offers a minimalist heatsink option, specially designed by EKWB that swaps out cooling fins for a more massive, high-grade aluminium block with a finely textured finish, maximizing cooling.

When solid state drives were first manufactured, they were designed using form factors similar to hard disk drives. But, because they are made from flash memory, SSDs can be designed in various form factors that best take advantage of the unique needs of respective client, hyperscale and enterprise compute environments. The form factor that is best suited for rack storage over the current industry-standard M.2 drive is the E1.S, according to experts at Phison Electronics Corp., a global leader in NAND flash controller integrated circuits and storage solutions. Phison's own E1.S SSD with the world's highest capacity storage is coming to market soon.

When first released, the M.2 form factor was popular in hyper-scale data centers due to its small size, low-cost structure, flexibility and scalability of multiple drives per server. But the M.2 form factor is not hot-pluggable and typically a challenge to service with the SSD installed on an internal motherboard socket. The M.2 form factor dimensions are also not ideal to fully utilize the space available in a 1U rack height (1.75") for storage capacity.

ASRock has been accommodating the mining craze and the company is today launching its H510 Pro BTC+ motherboard designed to host a suite of GPUs. More precisely, the company has released a motherboard with six full-size PCIe 3.0 x16 slots. Measuring at the huge 50.1 x 22.4 cm, the motherboard is anything but small. There is room to install any triple-slot GPU with ease, as the slots are spaced out nicely. However, to feed all six GPUs at full speed, you would need as many as 96 lanes. That is why only the first slot runs at full x16 speed, while others are stuck at x1 speeds. The H510 chipset can not support 96 lanes naturally.

To power the board, you need a double 24-pin PCIe power connector. The power is regulated by four-phase power delivery with 50 Amp chokes. There is one SATA III connector and an M.2 PCIe 3.0 slot for M.2 SSDs that are up to 110 mm long. The motherboard is available for purchase at Newegg at the price tag of $279.

SMART Modular Technologies, a SMART Global Holdings, Inc. company (Nasdaq: SGH) and a global leader in memory solutions, solid-state drives and hybrid storage products, today announced the new T5EN PCIe/NVMe M.2 2280 and U.2 flash drives for aerospace, defense and industrial applications that require durable, rugged, and secure memory storage.

Extending SMART Modular's T5E family of SSDs, the T5EN offers capacities up to 8 TB (M.2 up to 4 TB) Gen 3 x4 performance using 3D TLC flash with pSLC support. "With the growing trend toward NVMe in embedded systems, developing the T5EN was a natural progression and complement to our existing product line," explains Mike Guzzo, senior director of SMART Modular's RUGGED line of Flash products. Guzzo adds, "Fundamentally, the T5EN includes all of the existing advantages of the T5E, such as very high capacity, superior reliability for harsh environmental extremes, military erase algorithm support, as well as 256 bit encryption. These advantages equate to a higher level of protection for mission-critical data and instill confidence in the overall reliability of the data storage devices that support high-performing NVMe architectures."

KINGMAX today unveiled the AX448 line of M.2 NVMe SSDs. These drives come in high capacity variants of 1 TB, 2 TB, and 4 TB, and take advantage of the PCI-Express 4.0 x4 host interface, and NVMe protocol. The 1 TB variant offers sequential transfer rates of up to 4500 MB/s reads, with up to 1750 MB/s writes. The 2 TB variant does up to 4700 MB/s reads, with up to 3300 MB/s writes. The 4 TB variant tops the charts with up to 4800 MB/s reads, and up to 3450 MB/s writes, at least on paper. Endurance of the three variants is rated at up to 200 TBW for the 1 TB variant, up to 400 TBW for the 2 TB variant, and up to 800 TBW for the 4 TB variant. The drive is likely using QLC NAND flash, given these endurance numbers, although the company didn't mention the controller or NAND flash type.

PLEXTOR, a leading provider of high-performance storage solutions, announces the launch of the M10P series PCIe Gen4 solid state drives (SSD). With faster speeds, higher capacities, and excellent stability, M10P series SSDs offer avid gamers and audio-visual (AV) enthusiasts alike a high-performance device that also exudes gaming flair with its dynamic industrial design and RGB lighting.

Implementing the next generation of PCIe, Gen4, M10P series SSDs can deliver read/write speeds of up to 7000/5000 MB/s, approximately two times faster than previous generation SSDs. This amazing performance is achieved in combination with Plextor's proprietary PlexNitro II technology, which uses an SLC cache mechanism as a buffer to improve read and write speeds. PlexNitro II technology ups the ante on random read/write performance and enhances sequential read/write performance by up to fifty-percent over previous generation SSDs.

Championing the Zoned Storage initiative, Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ: WDC) today announced at its Flash Perspective Event that it has teamed with Percona, a leader in open source database software and services, to unlock the performance benefits of Western Digital's Ultrastar DC ZN540 NVMe ZNS SSDs for MySQL Server, one of the most popular open-source transactional databases in the world.

"Many of our customers are using MySQL as a database for their online data services and this new partnership with Percona will allow customers to unlock the full capabilities of our innovative ZNS flash solutions. With our contributions to the Linux and MySQL open-source communities, MySQL users will be able to install the Percona Server for MySQL and get out-of-the-box support for Western Digital Zoned Namespaces SSDs," said Wim De Wispelaere, vice president, Strategic Initiatives at Western Digital. "This demonstrates our continued commitment to deliver innovative data center infrastructure products and to build our partnership ecosystem to make those easy to implement by our customers."