AMD made additions to its Radeon-branded SSD lineup, with the new R3 Series. Targeted at the entry-level segment, these drives come in capacities of 120 GB, 240 GB, 480 GB, and 960 GB; and combine TLC NAND flash memory with Silicon Motion SM2256KX controllers. The 120 GB, 240 GB, and 480 GB variants offer read speeds of up to 520 MB/s, the 960 GB variant up to 510 MB/s. The 120 GB variant writes at up to 360 MB/s, the 240 GB and 480 GB variants at 470 MB/s, and the 960 GB variant at up to 450 MB/s. The drives are built in the 7 mm-thick 2.5-inch form-factor, and feature the SATA 6 Gb/s interface. The 120 GB, 240 GB, and 480 GB variants are priced at US $40.99, $69.99, and $136.99, respectively. Prices of the 960 GB variant are not known.

Crucial is reportedly readying a successor to its best-selling MX200 performance-segment SSD. The new MX300, which will initially be launched in a 750 GB capacity (model: CT750MX300SSD1), will feature 3D (stacked) NAND flash memory. This particular model serves up sequential transfer speeds of up to 530 MB/s reads, with up to 510 MB/s writes. Looking at the way Crucial is pricing the drive in Japan (JPY ¥24,000), its stateside pre-tax MSRP could very well be sub-$200, working out to a price/GB of at most $0.26. According to the source, the drive could launch later today.

SanDisk Corporation, a global leader in flash storage solutions, today announced the SanDisk Z410 SSD, a cost-competitive, half-terabyte solid state drive (SSD) that enables manufacturers to design for a broad range of desktop PCs and laptops. The 15-nanometer, three-bits-per-cell based Z410 SSD delivers the performance, capacities and form factor ideal for mainstream computing platforms.

"SSDs are being rapidly adopted as the preferred storage option across the entire spectrum of the PC marketplace," said Tarun Loomba, vice president and general manager of Client Platform Solutions, SanDisk. "In addition to the performance and durability benefits that SSDs provide, the SanDisk Z410 SSD delivers storage that is ample for most consumers and the right size for typical corporate users. The Z410 is an important addition to our overall SSD portfolio, as our customers require a complete range of storage options, from home/office PCs to the latest high-performance, ultra-thin laptops."

Lite-On unveiled the Mu-II line of consumer SSDs. Built in the 2.5-inch form-factor with SATA 6 Gb/s interface, the drives come in capacities of 120 GB, 240 GB, and 480 GB. The drives feature Toshiba-made 15 nm TLC NAND flash memory. The 480 GB variant offers sequential speeds of up to 555 MB/s reads with 520 MB/s writes; the 240 GB and 480 GB variants, and up to 500 MB/s reads with up to 360 MB/s writes for the 120 GB variant. Standard features include TRIM and NCQ. The drives will be backed by 3-year warranties.

Intel unveiled the SSD 5 series (SSD 540s) of mainstream solid-state drives. The SSD 5 Series is part of Intel's new nomenclature for its consumer SSD lineup. The SSD 7 Series leads the pack with the highest performance, leveraging exotic interfaces such as M.2 PCIe, U.2, or PCIe add-on card, and NVMe protocol; the SSD 5 Pro series retains conventional 2.5-inch SATA 6 Gb/s and M.2 SATA interfaces, but with the fastest MLC NAND flash memory. The SSD 5 series, however, offers TLC NAND flash memory, and is designed to be cost-effective.

The SSD 5 series comes in capacities of 180 GB, 240 GB, 360 GB, 480 GB, and 1 TB, and in two form-factors - 7 mm-thick 2.5-inch, and 80 mm M.2 with SATA 6 Gb/s interface. Transfer rates vary by model, but you're looking at read speeds of up to 560 MB/s, with write speeds of up to 480 MB/s. The SSD 5 Series is perhaps the only TLC NAND flash SSD in the market to ship with a 5-year warranty.

Plextor announced the M7V, a new line of cost-effective consumer SSDs, which succeed the M6V Series launched last July. Available in 2.5-inch and M.2 form-factors, the drives take advantage of the SATA 6 Gb/s interface. Available in capacities of 128 GB, 256 GB, and 512 GB, the M7V is driven by a Marvell 88SS1074B1 processor, wired to Toshiba 15 nm TLC NAND flash memory, and DDR3 DRAM caches of 256 MB, 512 MB, and 768 MB, respectively. The 512 GB M.2 variant features higher 1 GB DRAM cache. The drives offer sequential transfer rates of up to 560 MB/s reads on all three variants, with up to 500 MB/s, 530 MB/s, and 530 MB/s, respectively. Depending on the capacity, you get a manufacturer rated TBW tolerance of 80 TB, 160 TB, or 320 TB. Plextor didn't announce pricing.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, announced today that it is now shipping the industry's largest solid state drive (SSD) - the "PM1633a," a 15.36 terabyte (TB) drive. First revealed at the 2015 Flash Memory Summit in August, the 15.36TB SSD is based on a 12Gb/s Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) interface, for use in enterprise storage systems. Because the PM1633a comes in a 2.5-inch form factor, enterprise storage managers can fit twice as many of the drives in a standard 19-inch, 2U rack, compared to an equivalent 3.5-inch storage drive

"To satisfy an increasing market need for ultra-high-capacity SAS SSDs from leading enterprise storage system manufacturers, we are directing our best efforts toward meeting our customers' SSD requests," said Jung-bae Lee, Senior Vice President, Memory Product Planning and Application Engineering Team, Samsung Electronics. "We will continue to lead the industry with next-generation SSDs, using our advanced 3D V-NAND memory technology, in order to accelerate the growth of the premium memory market while delivering greater performance and efficiency to our customers."

Toshiba Corporation's Semiconductor & Storage Products Company today announced the launch of the "SG5 series" of client SSDs integrating NAND chips fabricated with 15nm TLC process technology. The new products, which include high capacity 1024GB models, will be available in 2.5-type and M.2 2280 (single- and double-sided) form factors, to meet various mounting requirements from the expansion of SSD application fields. Sample shipments start from today.

The SG5 series is equipped with Toshiba's proprietary QSBC (Quadruple Swing-By Code) error correction technology, a highly efficient error correction code (ECC) which helps protect customer data from corruption and improves reliability. Toshiba will continue strengthening its SSD lineup, meeting the various needs of users and leading the continuously expanding SSD market.

Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc., a committed technology leader, announces the availability of the new Trion 150 SSD series, an affordable performance upgrade for mainstream notebooks and desktops. Built with the Toshiba's 15 nm Triple-Level Cell (TLC) NAND flash technology from Toshiba, the Trion 150 series continues to deliver the superior balance of reliability, endurance and value of its predecessor, Trion 100, with increased real world performance.

Offering an easy and affordable way for entry-level users to enhance their mobile or desktop systems, Trion 150 SSDs provide a superior computing experience, enabling increased multitasking and productivity over traditional hard drives. Rated for sequential read speeds up to 550 MB/s, sequential write speeds up to 530 MB/s and random write I/O performance up to 91,000 IOPS, the Trion 150 series help improve boot time, system responsiveness and optimize storage operations.

Plextor, a leading developer of high performance storage devices, will be adding the new third generation, four-lane PCI-Express NVMe M.2 M8Pe solid-state drive (SSD), and the M7V Series mainstream SATA SSD to its exemplary line of solid-state drive products at the upcoming 2016 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in the Plextor suite at the Aria.

The M8Pe is the first Plextor SSD with the revolutionary NVMe protocol that helps reduce access latency, allowing for faster speeds. It connects via PCIe, enabling 4KB random read performance up to 270,000 IOPS, and 4KB write performance up to 150,000 IOPS. M8Pe PCI express drives are designed to give gamers and other high intensity users complete synergy and maximum performance. M8Pe features M.2 form factor allowing better airflow and cooling, increases the speed and performance of the SSD. PlexTurbo latest version 3.0, an intelligent RAM caching solution uses the system memory to boost access storage performance compared to standard factory SSDs. Other features of M8Pe include PlexCompressor, a smart compression technology that gives the user more storage capacity without impacting user experience and system performance., and PlexVault, a useful feature allowing private data to be hidden securely for shared computers using Plextor SSDs.

Marvell, a world leader in storage, cloud infrastructure, Internet of Things (IoT), connectivity and multimedia semiconductor solutions, today announced expansion of its Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) solid-state drive (SSD) controller technology to support Host Memory Buffer (HMB), an NVMe revision 1.2 feature enabling DRAM-less SSDs to use host memory and achieve performance comparable to SSD designs with embedded DRAM but at much lower cost and power consumption. Marvell's 88NV1140 marks the industry's first SSD controller that supports HMB. Furthermore Marvell is partnering with other leaders in the PC ecosystem to accelerate the adoption of HMB-enabled SSDs for a new generation of low power, small form factor mobile computing systems.

"As the world's leading SSD controller provider, Marvell has once again made a unique contribution to the storage industry by pioneering the integration of Host Memory Buffer technology into DRAM-less products," said David Chen, Vice President of SSD Business at Marvell. "The HMB feature greatly enhances system memory utilization, reduces total system cost, lowers power consumption and provides consumers with a new class of mobile computing devices. I am very pleased with our ongoing collaboration with leading ecosystem partners and look forward to the fast adoption of HMB in the broad consumer market."

Crucial, a leading global brand of memory and storage upgrades, today announced the new Crucial BX200 solid state drive (SSD), which offers substantial yet affordable performance gains compared to a standard hard drive. The drive, designed for consumers and SMBs, allows users to load applications in seconds, boot up almost instantly, and accelerate every day applications.

The new BX200 provides sequential read and write speeds up to 540 MB/s and 490 MB/s respectively on all types of data, as well as random read and write speeds up to 66k and 78k IOPS respectively. Additionally, when compared to a typical hard drive, the new BX200 is more than 13 times faster and 40 times more energy efficient for almost instantaneous access to data, resulting in longer battery life and a cooler, quieter system. The new drive utilises a Silicon Motion SM2256 Controller and is coupled with Micron verified firmware, allowing users to upgrade their existing infrastructure at an affordable price, which is a great alternative to buying a whole new system.

Kingston announced the SSDNow UV300 line of mainstream solid-state drives. Built in the 5 mm-thick (Ultrabook-compatible) 2.5-inch form-factor (with spacers for 7 mm and 9.5 mm thickness), these drives embed TLC NAND flash memory, driven by a Phison S10 class processor. Available in 120 GB, 240 GB, and 480 GB capacities, the drives offer sequential transfer rates of up to 550 MB/s reads, with up to 510 MB/s writes; with endurance (TBW) rated at 64 TB, 128 TB, and 256 TB, respectively. 4K random access speeds are rated at 85,000 IOPS for the 120 GB and 240 GB variants, and 75,000 IOPS for the 480 GB variant. Kingston didn't reveal pricing.

Toshiba's Digital Products Division (DPD), a division of Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc., announced today two new internal solid-state drive (SSD) storage devices with up to 960 GB of capacity. The new SSDs include the Toshiba Q300 Pro Series Internal SSD Hard Drive, built for gaming and creative applications with high-end demand for performance and reliability and the Toshiba Q300 Series Internal SSD, offering a balance of high performance and value, ideal for PC upgrades from traditional hard drives. With Adaptive Size SLC Write cache technology to enable SLC-like performance, both models offer high processing speed and low power consumption and are compatible with Windows, Mac and Linux.

"Toshiba's announcement of the new Q300 Pro and Q300 internal SSDs demonstrates that Toshiba is continuously striving to bring the best storage solutions to the market," said Maciek Brzeski, Vice President of Branded Storage Products, Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc., Digital Products Division. "Today's announcement addresses increasing consumer demand for speed, performance, quality and reliability to improve their computing experience. As the inventor of flash memory, our new Q300 and Q300 Pro Internal SSD Series delivers leading-class performance and reliability to meet a wide variety of computing needs."

Silicon Motion Technology Corporation, a global leader in designing and marketing NAND flash controllers for solid-state storage devices, today announced it will be presenting at the upcoming Flash Memory Summit in Santa Clara, CA from August 11th to 13th and will be showcasing an array of SSD solutions at booth #313, including the award winning SM2246EN SATA 6Gb/s SSD solutions, the new products using SM2256, the world's first turnkey SSD controller supporting TLC NAND and the new SM2260 PCIe 3.0 SSD controller.

ADATA Technology, a leading manufacturer of high performance DRAM modules and NAND flash products, today launched the Premier SP550 SSD, which uses triple-level cell (TLC) architecture to offer an affordable SSD without compromising performance. The Premier SP550 is the first ADATA drive to include the Silicon Motion (SMI) SM2256 controller, which uses NANDXtend technology to help ADATA implement SSD technologies such as data shaping, LDPC ECC, and a RAID engine for enhanced data protection, stability, and reliability. SLC caching technology has been implemented to boost performance.

"The launch of ADATA's Premier SP550 SSD with our SM2256 client controller represents a milestone in SSD adoption," said Nelson Duann, Silicon Motion's Vice President of Product Marketing. "TLC-based SSDs significantly improve the affordability of high performance, low power SSDs."

Toshiba Corporation today unveiled the new generation of BiCS FLASH, a three-dimensional (3D) stacked cell structure flash memory. The new device is the world's first 256-gigabit (32gigabytes) 48-layer BiCS device and also deploys industry-leading 3-bit-per-cell (triple-level cell, TLC) technology. Sample shipments will start in September.

BiCS FLASH is based on a leading-edge 48-layer stacking process that surpasses the capacity of mainstream two dimensional NAND Flash memory while enhancing write/erase reliability endurance and boosting write speeds. The new 256 Gb device is suited for diverse applications, including consumer SSD, smartphones, tablets and memory cards, and enterprise SSD for data centers.

Today, Micron Technology, Inc. announced a new addition to its expansive portfolio of flash storage products, providing a purpose-built solution for cost-sensitive consumer applications seeking high performance and reliability. The new TLC NAND is built on their 16-nanometer (nm) process and delivers a balanced set of features for applications like USB drives and consumer solid state drives. The market appetite for TLC is projected to be strong throughout 2015, constituting almost half of the total NAND gigabytes shipped.

Micron's 16 nm process-recognized by TechInsights as the Most Innovative Memory Device and 2014 Semiconductor of the Year-is a mature and proven storage technology, making it an excellent foundation for a reliable TLC design. TLC, or triple-level cell, is a technology that fits three bits in every flash data cell, creating greater cost and size efficiency. Customers of the technology will benefit from Micron's extensive design support team, who act as trusted advisors to ensure smooth qualification and optimal end-solution performance. Key flash customers and ecosystem partners worldwide have already begun working to integrate this new NAND with their latest designs, ensuring quick adoption in end applications.

Plextor is expected to launch its value SATA SSD line, the M6V, on 17th July, 2015. The drive combines a Silicon Motion SMI-2246 controller, with Toshiba A19 TLC NAND flash chips. The drive comes in capacities of 128 GB, 256 GB, and 512 GB, with DRAM cache sizes of 128 MB, 256 MB, and 512 MB, respectively. All three variants offer sequential read speeds of up to 535 MB/s, while their sequential write speeds are rated up to 170 MB/s, 335 MB/s, and 455 MB/s, respectively. Common features include NCQ, TRIM, and native 256-bit AES encryption. There's a likelihood of Plextor introducing a few new features, such as PlexVault, a software that encrypts and stores your data in hidden partitions, and PlexCompressor, which compresses the least accessed data on your drive.

SanDisk Corporation, a global leader in flash storage solutions, today introduced the iNAND 7232 storage solution, a new, advanced embedded flash drive (EFD) optimized to deliver best-in-class imaging performance and superior storage capacity in flagship mobile devices. Available in capacities up to 128 GB, the iNAND 7232 storage solution enables original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to introduce smartphones, tablets and other connected devices that feature ample storage to meet the needs of increasing consumer content while providing data-rich application experiences and next-generation digital photography capabilities.

"From North America to China, consumers are demanding higher and higher capacity storage," said Christopher Bergey, SanDisk's vice president and general manager of Mobile and Tablet Solutions. "Our iNAND 7232 storage solution not only enables mobile OEMs to cost-effectively deliver the robust storage mobile users want, it is also our most advanced embedded storage solution to date. It leverages new, innovative application-level storage architecture and SanDisk's latest 15 nanometer flash storage technology to enable outstanding application experiences, terrific 4K Ultra HD video capture and digital photography experiences never before possible in flagship smartphones."

OCZ announced the Trion 100, a new lineup of cost-effective SSD for first-time users graduating from HDDs, and for those who want fast read-intensive drives to replace storage HDDs in their systems. Some extremely low price-per-gigabyte figures build their case. The drive features 19 nm TLC NAND flash chips made by Toshiba, driven by a controller also made by Toshiba. This controller features an SLC-caching tech that deals with a small portion of the TLC NAND flash as SLC (by storing just one bit per cell), which has the maximum sequential transfer performance. The controller juggles hot-data in and out of this portion from the rest of the TLC area. Other controller features include DEVSLEEP mode support. In this mode, the drive draws just 6 mW of power. Other essentials such as TRIM and NCQ are also featured.

OCZ Trion 100 comes in four capacities - 120 GB, 240 GB, 480 GB, and 960 GB, priced at US $56.99, $87.99, $184.99, and $369.99, respectively. All four variants offer sequential read speeds of up to 550 MB/s, while the maximum sequential-write speeds are rated at 450 MB/s, 520 MB/s, 530 MB/s, and 530 MB/s, respectively. The maximum 4K random-read performance for the 120 GB variant is rated at 79,000 IOPS; while the other three offer up to 90,000 IOPS. Random-write performance figures for the four variants are 25,000 IOPS, 43,000 IOPS, 54,000 IOPS, and 64,000 IOPS, respectively. The drives are built in the 7 mm-thick 2.5-inch form-factor, with SATA 6 Gb/s interface. The drives ship with OCZ's SSDGuru software that lets you monitor the drive's health, update its firmware, and wipe it. OCZ is offering a 3-year warranty with these drives.Read our review of the OCZ Trion 100 480GB.

Silicon Motion Technology Corporation, a global leader in designing and marketing NAND flash controllers for solid state storage devices, today announced that its SM2256 SATA (6 Gb/s) client SSD controller now supports Micron's new 16 nm 128 gigabit (Gb) TLC NAND flash, enabling high-performance and unprecedented reliability for a new class of cost-effective TLC-based SSDs.

SM2256, the world's first SSD controller supporting Micron's 16nm TLC NAND, offers the best performance and cost-optimized four channel SATA 6 Gb/s client SSD controller in the market. Using Micron's 128 Gb 16 nm TLC NAND, the SM2256 delivers up to 540 MB/s sequential read performance and 460 MB/s sequential write, as well as up to 90,000 random read IOPS and 80,000 random write IOPS. Leveraging Silicon Motion's proprietary NANDXtend error-correcting code (ECC) technology, the SM2256 enhances the endurance and retention of TLC NAND, delivering more than three times better reliability for TLC SSD as compared to the existing BCH ECC schemes.

Team Group unveiled its cost-effective L3 EVO line of SATA SSDs. Making use of TLC NAND flash chips, these drives come in capacities of 240 GB, 480 GB, and 960 GB (pictured below). The 240 GB and 480 GB variants offer sequential speeds of up to 560 MB/s, with up to 540 MB/s writes; with up to 85,000 IOPS reads and up to 90,000 IOPS writes, in 4K random access performance. The company didn't put out performance figures of the 960 GB variant. The drives feature SATA 6 Gb/s interface, are 7 mm-thick, and support all modern SATA SSD features, including TRIM, NCQ, native AES acceleration, and SMART.

OCZ Storage Solutions -- a Toshiba Group Company and the most awarded solid state drive (SSD) brand of all time, today announced plans to showcase the all-new Trion 100 series, a new SSD based on Triple-Level Cell (TLC) NAND flash, at this year's Computex in Taipei, Taiwan held June 2 - 6. As OCZ's new value-oriented option, Trion 100 SSDs are built to provide an easy and affordable way for entry-level users to optimize their mobile or desktop systems.

Leveraging Toshiba's Alishan SSD controller and premium A19 TLC flash memory technology, the Trion 100 series was designed to deliver a superior balance of performance, reliability, and value and will be available this summer. Running live in OCZ's Computex booth, Trion 100's preliminary performance ratings include up to 550MB/s of bandwidth and up to 91,000 random read IOPS, making the Trion 100 series a competitive upgrade solution that will transform any notebook or PC.

"Computex is the ideal venue for us to unveil our upcoming TLC NAND-based Trion 100 SSDs," said Alex Mei, CMO and GM of the Client Business at OCZ Storage Solutions. "By leveraging controller and TLC NAND technology from Toshiba, we are pleased to be able to bring to market the exciting new Trion 100 SSD Series which will offer end-users an optimal mix of performance, features, and value, making it easier than ever for value-conscious consumers to leverage the benefits of a high quality yet affordable SSD that delivers improved desktop and mobile computing experiences."

Micron Technology, Inc., and Intel Corporation today revealed the availability of their 3D NAND technology, the world's highest-density flash memory. Flash is the storage technology used inside the lightest laptops, fastest data centers, and nearly every cellphone, tablet and mobile device.

This new 3D NAND technology, which was jointly developed by Intel and Micron, stacks layers of data storage cells vertically with extraordinary precision to create storage devices with three times higher capacity than competing NAND technologies. This enables more storage in a smaller space, bringing significant cost savings, low power usage and high performance to a range of mobile consumer devices as well as the most demanding enterprise deployments.