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!

Eurocom launches the Blitz Ultra, a 14-inch and 16-inch enterprise class laptop loaded with features related to security and manageability while carrying unmatched connectivity and expandability. It is powered by Intel's ultra-efficient 14th-gen Intel Ultra Meteor Lake Processor, a robust 73Wh 10hrs+ battery and a captivating 16:10 screen. Your productivity will soar to new heights. Heavy duty, yet lightweight 1.6 kg / 3.52 lbs design that meets military standard MIL-STD 810H. When it comes to security features, the Blitz Ultra has built-in TPM 2.0 data-encryption module, BIOS support for SED (Self Encrypting Drives) and a Kensington lock making it the ultimate enterprise-class laptop for security, connectivity and expandability.

"The Eurocom Blitz Ultra is designed for government, military, security, healthcare and corporate professionals engaged in mission-critical computing and/or handling corporate IP assets and/or customer's sensitive data. It provides secure access via data encryption via TPM 2.0 module. Blitz Ultra has a Factory- installed Offline Permanent Disconnect Option. This is an optional upgrade to physically remove all connectivity and communications components to ensure a 100% offline system for maximum security of sensitive data and protection of intellectual property. " - Mark Bialic, Eurocom President.

TrendForce's latest report on enterprise SSDs reveals that a surge in demand for AI has led AI server customers to significantly increase their orders for enterprise SSDs over the past two quarters. Upstream suppliers have been accelerating process upgrades and planning for 2YY products—slated to enter mass production in 2025—in order to meet the growing demand for SSDs in AI applications.

TrendForce observes that increased orders for enterprise SSDs from AI server customers have resulted in contract prices for this category rising by over 80% from 4Q23 to 3Q24. SSDs play a crucial role in AI development. In AI model training, SSDs primarily store model parameters, including evolving weights and deviations.

Western Digital, a leader in Flash and HDD data storage, is unveiling groundbreaking solutions and technology demonstrations at FMS 2024 that raise the bar for performance, capacity and efficiency for transformative AI Data Cycle workloads. These innovations cater to diverse market segments from hyperscale cloud to automotive and consumer storage. Attendees will also gain insights from a keynote address by Rob Soderbery, executive vice president and general manager of Western Digital's Flash Business Unit, on Tuesday at 3 PM. During the keynote, Soderbery will delve into the strategic advancements propelling the future of NAND, AI and data storage from the data center to the edge.

"As AI technologies advance and become increasingly embedded in the world around us, the demand for storage will only continue to grow," said Soderbery. "Western Digital's product and technology roadmaps are strategically aligned to ensure our customers have the most advanced, reliable solutions to stay ahead in the rapidly changing AI landscape. This holistic approach ensures that our customers receive the most power-efficient, high-performing and high-capacity solutions tailored to their specific needs. We are excited to showcase our full range of products and new technologies and demonstrate how they can transform AI now and into the future."

Today, Solidigm, a leading provider of innovative NAND flash memory solutions, announced the launch of the Solidigm D7-PS1010 and D7-PS1030 data center solid-state drives (SSDs). As the fastest PCIe 5.0 SSDs shipping in volume today, these drives are well suited for the IO intensity found in modern mainstream, mixed, and write-centric workloads.

"The Solidigm D7-PS1010 and D7-PS1030 SSDs were meticulously engineered to meet the increasingly demanding IO requirements across a range of workloads such as general-purpose servers, OLTP, server-based storage, decision support systems and AI/ML," said Greg Matson, Senior Vice President of Strategic Planning and Marketing at Solidigm. "In a world where every watt counts, these drives are PCIe 5.0 done right, not only delivering industry-leading four-corner performance, but also up to 70% better energy efficiency compared to similar drives by other manufacturers."

NVM Express, Inc. today announced the release of three new specifications and eight updated specifications. This update to NVMe technology builds on the strengths of previous NVMe specifications, introducing significant new features for modern computing environments while also streamlining development and time to market.

"Beginning as a single PCIe SSD specification, NVMe technology has grown into nearly a dozen specifications, including multiple command sets, that provide pivotal support for NVMe technology across all major transports and standardize many aspects of storage," said Peter Onufryk, NVM Express Technical Workgroup Chair. "NVMe technology adoption continues to grow and has succeeded in unifying client, cloud, AI and enterprise storage around a common architecture. The future of NVMe technology is bright and we have 75 new authorized technical proposals underway."

Sabrent teased its upcoming Rocket XTRM5 portable SSD. The company's flagship portable storage product, the drive implements Thunderbolt 5 (works on Thunderbolt 4 and Thunderbolt 3 at reduced speeds). It is able to take advantage of Thunderbolt 5 with 80 Gbps per-direction bandwidth, although we haven't seen anything in the product's teaser to suggest that it implements the Intel Bandwidth Boost technology, which would have given it 120 Gbps on one of the directions (either reading or writing), while the other direction is reduced to 40 Gbps.

The Rocket XTRM5, like most portable SSDs these days, is an enclosure with an M.2-2280 slot inside. This one encloses an M.2 Gen 5 NVMe SSD, and while Sabrent hasn't put out any performance numbers, we expect them to be above 64 Gbps (Gen 4 x4 maximum theoretical bandwidth per direction), to take advantage of the 80 Gbps per direction Thunderbolt 5 bandwidth. It is slated to come in 1 TB, 2 TB, and 4 TB capacity variants. Its enclosure is well-ventilated, and is made of aluminium all around. The company didn't put out a release date.

addlink Technology Co., Ltd., a global leader in high-performance storage solutions, proudly announces the launch of its groundbreaking new SSDs designed specifically for NAS storage systems: the NAS D60 and D20 SSDs. These cutting-edge SSDs are poised to set new standards in speed, reliability, and capacity, transforming the NAS storage landscape.

addlink's NAS D60 and D20 SSDs exemplify the company's dedication to innovation and quality. These products are meticulously designed to meet the rigorous demands of modern NAS users, providing reliable, high-performance storage solutions that enhance productivity and data management. Whether for home use or enterprise-level applications, the NAS D60 and D20 offer unmatched performance, endurance, and value.

ScaleFlux, a leader in developing storage and memory technologies, marks its 10th anniversary by sampling its latest NVMe SSDs, the CSD5000 series. Purpose-built for the AI Era, CSD5000 is designed to alleviate bottlenecks in the AI/ML, Cloud, and Data Center computing infrastructure. Getting jobs on and off the GPUs and CPUs rapidly is crucial to reaching optimal utilization of the infrastructure for AI/ML, HPC, AI analytics, and cloud-native computing. "To enable high xPU utilization levels, the storage devices must be up to the tasks of reliably delivering massive amounts of data at blinding speeds and of rapidly and securely storing the checkpoints and outputs, all in a power-efficient manner - exactly what the CSD5000 was designed to do," said ScaleFlux CEO, Hao Zhong. Coinciding with the company's 10th anniversary, this release highlights a decade of remarkable achievements and sets the stage for an exciting future of continued growth and technological advancements.

Introducing the CSD5000: A New Chapter in SSD Storage
Built on the ScaleFlux FX5016 PCIe 5 SSD controller, the CSD5000 series sets a new bar for SSD performance, capacity density, efficiency, and feature set. Expanding upon the innovative write reduction technology and capacity expansion features from the previous generations of ScaleFlux drives, CSD5000 brings unrivaled capabilities to data storage.

Samsung Electronics today reported financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2024. The Company posted KRW 74.07 trillion in consolidated revenue and operating profit of KRW 10.44 trillion as favorable memory market conditions drove higher average sales price (ASP), while robust sales of OLED panels also contributed to the results.

Memory Market Continues To Recover; Solid Second Half Outlook Centered on Server Demand
The DS Division posted KRW 28.56 trillion in consolidated revenue and KRW 6.45 trillion in operating profit for the second quarter. Driven by strong demand for HBM as well as conventional DRAM and server SSDs, the memory market as a whole continued its recovery. This increased demand is a result of the continued AI investments by cloud service providers and growing demand for AI from businesses for their on-premise servers.

Micron Technology, Inc., announced today that it is shipping ninth-generation (G9) TLC NAND in SSDs, making it the first in the industry to achieve this milestone. Micron G9 NAND features the industry's highest transfer speed of 3.6 GB/s, delivering unsurpassed bandwidth for reading and writing data. The new NAND enables best-in-class performance for artificial intelligence (AI) and other data-intensive use cases from personal devices and edge servers to enterprise and cloud data centers.

"The shipment of Micron G9 NAND is a testament to Micron's prowess in process technology and design innovations," said Scott DeBoer, executive vice president of Technology and Products at Micron. "Micron G9 NAND is up to 73% denser than competitive technologies in the market today, allowing for more compact and efficient storage solutions that benefit both consumers and businesses."

TrendForce's latest report on the memory industry reveals that DRAM and NAND Flash revenues are expected to see significant increases of 75% and 77%, respectively, in 2024, driven by increased bit demand, an improved supply-demand structure, and the rise of high-value products like HBM.

Furthermore, industry revenues are projected to continue growing in 2025, with DRAM expected to increase by 51% and NAND Flash by 29%, reaching record highs. This growth is anticipated to revive capital expenditures and boost demand for upstream raw materials, although it will also increase cost pressure for memory buyers.

ATP Electronics, the global leader in specialized storage and memory solutions, proudly unveils the N651Si Series E1.S solid state drives (SSDs), which offer best in class performance, endurance, and data retention capabilities for the most demanding applications.

Supporting industrial temperature operating range (-40°C to 85°C) along with hardware power loss protection (HW PLP), the new SSDs offer the highest levels of reliability and total cost of ownership value in harsh environments, making them especially beneficial for mission-critical applications running under extreme temperatures, such as automotive, data logger, data centers, and defense/aerospace. Engineered for 1U Edge servers, the EDSFF offering with 9.5 mm symmetrical enclosure is available with up to 8 TB capacity and is constructed with 512 Gb prime NAND die 176-layer 3D triple level cell (TLC).

South Korean startup Panmnesia has unveiled an interesting solution to address the memory limitations of modern GPUs. The company has developed a low-latency Compute Express Link (CXL) IP that could help expand GPU memory with external add-in card. Current GPU-accelerated applications in AI and HPC are constrained by the set amount of memory built into GPUs. With data sizes growing by 3x yearly, GPU networks must keep getting larger just to fit the application in the local memory, benefiting latency and token generation. Panmnesia's proposed approach to fix this leverages the CXL protocol to expand GPU memory capacity using PCIe-connected DRAM or even SSDs. The company has overcome significant technical hurdles, including the absence of CXL logic fabric in GPUs and the limitations of existing unified virtual memory (UVM) systems.

At the heart of Panmnesia's solution is a CXL 3.1-compliant root complex with multiple root ports and a host bridge featuring a host-managed device memory (HDM) decoder. This sophisticated system effectively tricks the GPU's memory subsystem into treating PCIe-connected memory as native system memory. Extensive testing has demonstrated impressive results. Panmnesia's CXL solution, CXL-Opt, achieved two-digit nanosecond round-trip latency, significantly outperforming both UVM and earlier CXL prototypes. In GPU kernel execution tests, CXL-Opt showed execution times up to 3.22 times faster than UVM. Older CXL memory extenders recorded around 250 nanoseconds round trip latency, with CXL-Opt potentially achieving less than 80 nanoseconds. As with CXL, the problem is usually that the memory pools add up latency and performance degrades, while these CXL extenders tend to add to the cost model as well. However, the Panmnesia CXL-Opt could find a use case, and we are waiting to see if anyone adopts this in their infrastructure.Below are some benchmarks by Panmnesia, as well as the architecture of the CXL-Opt.

TrendForce reports that while the enterprise sector continues to invest in server infrastructure—especially with the rising adoption of AI driving demand for enterprise SSDs—the consumer electronics market remains lackluster. This, combined with NAND suppliers aggressively ramping up production in the second half of the year, is expected to push the NAND Flash sufficiency ratio up to 2.3% in the third quarter, curbing the blended price hike to a modest 5-10%.

This year, NAND Flash prices saw a robust rebound as manufacturers kept production in check during the first half, helping them regain profitability. However, with a noticeable ramp-up in production and sluggish retail demand, wafer spot prices have dropped significantly. Some wafer prices are now over 20% below contract prices, casting doubts on the sustainability of future price hikes.

SK hynix presented its leading AI memory solutions at COMPUTEX Taipei 2024 from June 4-7. As one of Asia's premier IT shows, COMPUTEX Taipei 2024 welcomed around 1,500 global participants including tech companies, venture capitalists, and accelerators under the theme "Connecting AI". Making its debut at the event, SK hynix underlined its position as a first mover and leading AI memory provider through its lineup of next-generation products.

"Connecting AI" With the Industry's Finest AI Memory Solutions
Themed "Memory, The Power of AI," SK hynix's booth featured its advanced AI server solutions, groundbreaking technologies for on-device AI PCs, and outstanding consumer SSD products. HBM3E, the fifth generation of HBM1, was among the AI server solutions on display. Offering industry-leading data processing speeds of 1.18 terabytes (TB) per second, vast capacity, and advanced heat dissipation capability, HBM3E is optimized to meet the requirements of AI servers and other applications. Another technology which has become crucial for AI servers is CXL as it can increase system bandwidth and processing capacity. SK hynix highlighted the strength of its CXL portfolio by presenting its CXL Memory Module-DDR5 (CMM-DDR5), which significantly expands system bandwidth and capacity compared to systems only equipped with DDR5. Other AI server solutions on display included the server DRAM products DDR5 RDIMM and MCR DIMM. In particular, SK hynix showcased its tall 128-gigabyte (GB) MCR DIMM for the first time at an exhibition.

KLEVV by Essencore had a formidable lineup of high-end gaming PC memory and SSDs at Computex 2024. We were greeted at the booth with an Essencore-branded LPCAMM2 module with 32 GB density, and LPDDR5-8533 speeds on tap. The Genuine G560 (it's named Genuine) is a modern M.2 NVMe Gen 5 SSD with a fanless heatsink. It comes in capacities of 1 TB, 2 TB, and 4 TB; with sequential speeds ranging between 13 GB/s to 14 GB/s reads, and 9.5 GB/s to 12 GB/s writes; and depending on the capacity, the endurance is between 700 TBW to 3000 TBW. The CRAS C930 is a premium M.2 Gen 4 SSD, with 1 TB and 2 TB models available, sequential read speeds of up to 7.4 GB/s, and sequential write speeds between 6.4 GB/s to 6.8 GB/s. Endurance ranges between 750 TBW for the 1 TB model, and 1500 TBW for the 2 TB.

At the value end of KLEVV's SSD lineup is the CRAS C925, which offers mostly similar performance numbers to the C930, but with slightly different endurance ratings. It ranges between 500 GB and 2 TB; with the same 7.4 GB/s maximum read speeds, but slightly lower maximum write speeds of 6.2 GB/s for the 500 GB model, 6.3 GB/s for the 1 TB, and 6.5 GB/s for the 2 TB model; and endurance rated at 600 TBW, 1200 TBW, and 2400 TBW, respectively.