Gigabyte Technology, one of the top global manufacturers of motherboards, graphics cards, and hardware solutions, announces today the latest AORUS Gen4 7000s SSD with up to 7 GB/s read speed. Enhanced by the new generation PCIe 4.0 controller with advanced 3D-TLC NAND Flash, it boosts up to 55% more performance than previous generation PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD. AORUS Gen4 7000s SSDs come in two capacity variants, 2 TB and 1 TB with M.2 2280 interface to make installation easy. They equip big aluminium thermal interface in different sizes and double side thermal pad with Nanocarbon coating for improved heat dissipation. Meanwhile, the SSD Tool Box application provides the instant overview and adjustment of SSD status.

"The storage devices are taking advantage of the PCIe 4.0 transfer speed that raised from 5 GB/s to almost 8 GB/s, which is great news for users who expect to optimize storage performance and reduce the bottle neck of system operation." said Jackson Hsu, Director of the GIGABYTE Channel Solutions Product Development Division. "AORUS Gen4 7000s SSDs further advance the standards set by our previous SSD products to provide users with breakthrough performance. After the OS installed, uses can enjoy unprecedented 7 GB/s read speed with 1 TB or 2 TB storage capability. The thermal solution and the double-sided thermal pad are designed to slow down the throttling that might occur at high-speed operation of SSD, thus boost the system performance."

Samsung is reportedly readying the 870 EVO line of SATA SSDs, with the drives succeeding the 860 EVO series. While there's no word on the type of NAND flash chips used with these drives, it's very likely that they feature a new generation 3D TLC (3 bits per cell) NAND flash memory, as QLC (4 bits per cell) has been marketed by Samsung under the 870 QVO series, which the company launched back in July 2020. The new-gen 3D TLC NAND could enable the 870 EVO drives to reach capacities as high as 4 TB, and offer slightly higher sequential transfer rates, with WinFuture.de reporting up to 560 MB/s sequential reads, and up to 530 MB/s writes, compared to 550/520 MB/s for the 860 EVO series. Being based on TLC (3 bpc) should also give these drives higher write endurance than the 870 QVO series.

Advances in technology have seen the emergence of two major development trends for storage products. On the one hand, there are more products types than ever, with diversity being the clear trend. On the other hand, the speed of product upgrades is also picking up, indicating that there will be rigorous demands for storage enterprises in the near future.

The FORESEE P800 is the latest flagship product of FORESEE, Longsys' embedded storage brand. It supports the current mainstream NVMe 1.3 protocol, provides M.2 2280 specifications, and meets PCIe Gen3 x4 standards. It utilizes both a Marvell 28 nm DRAM-base master control and original 3D TLC chips. In terms of performance, the P800 supports L1.2 low power consumption to help terminal devices lower power consumption and increase battery life. The P800's temperature control algorithm balances speed and temperature during operation. It is available in 256 GB, 512 GB, and 1 TB capacities to meet the diverse needs of various terminals, and is suitable for high-performance notebooks and desktops.

Today, at Intel's Memory and Storage 2020 event, the company highlighted six new memory and storage products to help customers meet the challenges of digital transformation. Key to advancing innovation across memory and storage, Intel announced two new additions to its Intel Optane Solid State Drive (SSD) Series: the Intel Optane SSD P5800X, the world's fastest data center SSD, and the Intel Optane Memory H20 for client, which features performance and mainstream productivity for gaming and content creation. Optane helps meet the needs of modern computing by bringing the memory closer to the CPU. The company also revealed its intent to deliver its 3rd generation of Intel Optane persistent memory (code-named "Crow Pass") for cloud and enterprise customers.

"Today is a key moment for our memory and storage journey. With the release of these new Optane products, we continue our innovation, strengthen our memory and storage portfolio, and enable our customers to better navigate the complexity of digital transformation. Optane products and technologies are becoming a mainstream element of business compute. And as a part of Intel, these leadership products are advancing our long-term growth priorities, including AI, 5G networking and the intelligent, autonomous edge." -Alper Ilkbahar, Intel vice president in the Data Platforms Group and general manager of the Intel Optane Group.

Samsung's latest 980 Pro SSD is not unlike the hypercar of solid state storage: ridiculously fast, ludicrously expensive. The company had announced that a 2 TB version would be available sometime near these holidays, and Scan.co.uk has just listed one such 2 TB part. If you want one of the best PCIe 4.0 SSDs money can buy, and one of the only ones based on TLC (Triple Layer Cell) technology, then you might be in luck.

The reseller is listing the 2 TB version of the 980 Pro for a cool £443 (including tax), which translates to about $590. That's more than double the pricing of some very interesting PCIe 4.0 solutions. Considering the 1 TB version ticks at read speeds up to 7,000 MB/s and write speeds at up to 5,000 MB/s with an endurance of 600 TBW, expect the 2 TB version to be even faster and more consistent. Maybe improve your storage subsystem while we are faced with the current gaming hardware shortages? Consider, however, that delivery is estimated for early January 2021.

Plextor late last week unveiled the M8V Plus line of mainstream SATA SSDs in the 2.5-inch and M.2-2280 form-factors. The M8V Plus is an incremental update of the original M8V series from 2018. What's new is the implementation of KIOXIA-sourced 96-layer TLC NAND flash replacing 64-layer chips from Toshiba. The M8V Plus series comes in 256 GB, 512 GB, and 1 TB variants, while the original M8V came in 128-thru-512 GB variants.

The Silicon Motion SM2258 controller under the hood of the M8V Plus, has been updated to its latest revision, and supports Plextor-innovated Plex Compress technology. This feature uses the controller's idle time to compress files that haven't been accessed for over 30 days. The Plex Turbo feature, which is essentially variable-size SLC cache, has also been improved to be larger in size. On-paper performance hasn't changed, with the company claiming up to 560 MB/s sequential reads, up to 520 MB/s sequential writes, up to 90,000 IOPS 4K random access for the 256 GB and 512 GB variants; and up to 88,000 IOPS random access for the 1 TB variant. The company rates write endurance for the 256 GB variant at 140 TBW, 512 GB variant at 280 TBW, and 560 TBW for the 1 TB variant. All three variants are backed by 3-year warranties. The company didn't reveal pricing.

CORSAIR, a world leader in high-performance gaming peripherals and enthusiast components, today announced the launch of the new CORSAIR MP400 Gen3 PCIe x4 NVMe M.2 Solid State Drive, taking advantage of 3D QLC NAND technology to store massive amounts of data with lightning-fast transfer speeds of up to 3,400 MB/sec sequential read and 3,000 MB/sec sequential write. The MP400 is available now in 1 TB, 2 TB, or 4 TB capacities, with an 8 TB model coming soon.

Conveniently slotting directly into a motherboard thanks to its M.2 2280 industry-standard NVMe form-factor, the MP400 boasts wide-ranging compatibility and high-bandwidth performance, while its high-density 3D QLC NAND memory ensures better value than previous generation TLC NAND, able to store more data in the same amount of physical space.

Yangtze Memory Technology Company (YMTC), China's ambitious new memory manufacturer specializing in NAND flash, launched the first client-segment SSDs under its own brand, the PC005 Active series and the SC001 Active series. Rumors of YMTC developing its own brand SSDs surfaced first in June. Prior to that in May, it was reported that Phison could add support for YMTC NAND flash chips to variants of its existing SSD controllers, and so it's highly likely that the new YMTC SSDs use Phison-sourced controllers. Interestingly, the company deployed its first-generation Xtracking 64-layer 3D TLC NAND flash chips instead of its 2nd generation 128-layer QLC chips.

The PC005 Active comes in the M.2-2280 form-factor with PCI-Express 3.0 x4 host interface, leveraging the NVMe 1.3 protocol. The drive is available in 1 TB. 512 GB, and 256 GB capacities. All three variants read sequentially at speeds of up to 3,500 MB/s, wiring at up to 2,900 MB/s, up to 2,500 MB/s, and up to 1,200 MB/s, respectively. Their endurance is rated at 640 TBW for the 1 TB version, 320 TBW for the 512 GB, and 200 TBW for the 256 GB variant. All three are backed by 5-year warranties.

GALAX have recently unveiled the Hall Of Fame (HOF) Extreme PCIe 4.0 SSD. This is a second-generation PCIe 4.0 SSD featuring the Phison PS5018-E18 controller which allows for speeds which near the limits of PCIe 4.0. The GALAX Hall Of Fame Extreme SSD promises sequential read and write speeds of 7000 MB/s and 6850 MB/s respectively. These claimed speeds are in line with other SSD's utilizing the PS5018-E18 controller such as the Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus which also uses TLC NAND flash. The GALAX HOF Extreme will be offered in 1 TB, 2 TB, and 4 TB versions, and all feature premium designs with mirrored heatsink, pricing and availability were not announced.

TechPowerUp and Team Group bring you a chance to win a Team T-Force Cardea Ceramic C440 1 TB M.2 PCIe Gen 4 NVMe SSD. Announced this June, the T-Force Cardea Ceramic C440 is an M.2 NVMe SSD that takes advantage of PCI-Express 4.0 x4 host interface - perfect for a cutting edge build based on 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen or upcoming Intel processors. This isn't just another Phison E16 + 3D TLC NAND based drive, Team Group innovated a patented new heatspreader which uses ceramic composite materials that more effectively pull heat from the drive's controller and NAND flash components. The 1 TB variant offers blistering speeds of up to 5,000 MB/s reads, with up to 4,400 MB/s writes. Open worldwide (wherever legal), the Giveaway accepts entries until September 17, 2020. To enter, all you have to do is fill us a short form that helps us get back to you if you've won. Good Luck!

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Samsung's hotly anticipated 980 PRO M.2 NVMe flagship client-segment SSD is the company's first "PRO" branded SSD to feature TLC NAND flash memory, breaking from a unique tradition of using MLC (2 bits per cell) NAND flash. Product pages of the drive went live, and its specifications clearly state the use of "Samsung V-NAND 3-bit MLC," which is another way of saying TLC. "MLC" generally referred to as NAND flash memory that stores 2 bits per cell, even through the term "Multi-level" is amorphous.

The product page lists other juicy specs of Samsung's first M.2 NVMe client SSD that takes advantage of PCI-Express gen 4. The drive uses Samsung's in-house design "Elpis" controller, which uses NVMe 1.3 protocol over PCI-Express 4.0 x4, and an LPDDR4 DRAM cache. The 980 PRO comes in capacities of up to 1 TB, with up to 1 GB of DRAM cache. Samsung rates the 1 TB version as capable of up to 7000 MB/s sequential reads, up to 5000 MB/s sequential writes, and up to 1 million IOPS 4K random reads/writes at QD32. The use of TLC impacts endurance adversely in comparison to that of the drive's immediate predecessor, the 970 PRO, with the 1 TB 980 PRO warranty covering only up to 600 TBW, in comparison to 1200 TBW of the 970 PRO 1 TB, and the 500 GB 980 PRO offering just 300 TBW warranty coverage in comparison to 600 TBW of the 970 PRO 512 GB.

GIGABYTE was among the first to the market with a PCI-Express gen 4.0 M.2 NVMe SSD, with its AORUS NVMe Gen4 SSD series from June 2019. Those drives are characterized by bulky copper heatsinks. The company decided to launch variants of the drive that lack this heatsink, and instead using only a thin copper peel that works both as a heatspreader and as a product label. The rationale behind this product is to let people use the M.2 heatsink that came with their motherboards. The lineup consists of 1 TB (GP-AG41TB) and 2 TB (GP-AG42TB) variants, and introduces a new 500 GB variant (GP-AG4500G) that's not available in the original lineup.

The underlying drive is identical. It combines a Phison PS5016-E16 controller with 96-layer 3D TLC NAND flash memory over 8 channels, and a DDR4 DRAM cache (512 MB for the 500 GB variant, 1 GB for the 1 TB variant, and 2 GB for the 2 TB variant). All three variants offer sequential read speeds of up to 5000 MB/s. The 1 TB and 2 TB variants offer up to 4400 MB/s sequential writes, while the 500 GB variant offers up to 2500 MB/s. The 1 TB and 2 TB variants further offer the same 4K random-access performance numbers of 750k/700k IOPS (reads/writes), while the 500 GB variant offers up to 400k/550k IOPS. GIGABYTE is backing the drives with 5-year product warranties. The company didn't reveal pricing.

Kioxia Corporation has developed and started shipment of engineering samples of next generation Enterprise & Datacenter SSD Form Factor (EDSFF) E3.S which is being standardized by the SNIA SFF TA Technical Work Group. E3.S is a new form factor standard for NVMe SSDs in Cloud and enterprise data centers, especially targeting PCIe 5.0 and beyond. The E3.S will contribute to the design and development of next generation systems, such as cloud, hyper-converged and general-purpose servers and All Flash Array (AFA) systems in cloud and enterprise data centers.

The E3.S specification allows for size, power and capacity options, all with a common connector. Designed for future PCIe generations that offer higher power budgets, EDSFF E3.S delivers improved performance, cooling and flexibility over other form factors. Kioxia's E3.S engineering samples, based on Kioxia's CM6 Series PCIe 4.0 NVMe 1.4 SSD in a 2.5-inch form factor, demonstrated approximately 35% greater performance with the same controller and BiCS FLASH 3D TLC flash memory in the EDSFF E3.S form factor with x4 lanes and 28 W (+40%) of power.

Western Digital today announced new solutions that provide the foundation for next-generation data infrastructures designed around Ultrastar NVMe SSDs and supercharged by NVMe-oF. Building upon the company's innovative design and integration capabilities - from NAND Flash to storage platforms - the new dual-port, performance Ultrastar DC SN840 NVMe SSDs and in-house RapidFlex NVMe-oF controllers are standalone solutions that combine to create the new OpenFlex Data24 NVMe-oF Storage Platform, a new shared storage JBOF (Just a Bunch of Flash) enclosure that extends the value of NVMe to multiple hosts over a low-latency Ethernet fabric network. These new solutions further expand Western Digital's data center portfolio to help customers transition to higher efficiency NVMe SSDs and more advanced shared storage architectures to meet the evolving demands of performance-driven applications and workloads.

In today's global digital economy, microseconds count. As hyperscale cloud and enterprise data centers constantly work to remove bottlenecks to ensure uncompromised performance and availability of essential applications, while also keeping pace with unprecedented data growth, customer adoption of NVMe and NVMe-oF solutions continues to accelerate. Industry analyst firm IDC expects hyperscalers, OEMs and end-user IT organizations to continue to transition away from legacy SATA and SAS interfaces, with NVMe on track to reach more than 55 percent of total enterprise SSD units shipped in 2020 and grow at a 2018-2023 CAGR of 38 percent.

Intel today introduced its 3rd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors and additions to its hardware and software AI portfolio, enabling customers to accelerate the development and use of AI and analytics workloads running in data center, network and intelligent-edge environments. As the industry's first mainstream server processor with built-in bfloat16 support, Intel's new 3rd Gen Xeon Scalable processors makes artificial intelligence (AI) inference and training more widely deployable on general-purpose CPUs for applications that include image classification, recommendation engines, speech recognition and language modeling.

"The ability to rapidly deploy AI and data analytics is essential for today's businesses. We remain committed to enhancing built-in AI acceleration and software optimizations within the processor that powers the world's data center and edge solutions, as well as delivering an unmatched silicon foundation to unleash insight from data," said Lisa Spelman, Intel corporate vice president and general manager, Xeon and Memory Group.

The next generation of SAS has arrived, bringing improved performance, reliability and data protection along with it. Today, KIOXIA America, Inc. (formerly Toshiba Memory America, Inc.) became the first 1 company to bring 24G SAS to server and storage applications with the introduction of its 6 th generation enterprise SAS SSD family. First demonstrated at Flash Memory Summit 2019, KIOXIA's new PM6 Series of enterprise SAS SSDs is built on 24G SAS technology.

Designed for modern IT infrastructures, 24G SAS doubles the data throughput of its predecessor, while implementing new features and enhancements to reach new application performance levels. An established leader in developing SAS SSDs, KIOXIA delivers never before seen SAS SSD performance and is the only SSD supplier to offer protection and recovery from two simultaneous die failure s in an SSD. The PM6 Series builds upon this history of best in cl ass performance and reliability over six generations of SAS drives.

Kingston Digital, Inc., the Flash memory affiliate of Kingston Technology Company, Inc., a world leader in memory products and technology solutions, today began shipping the 2 TB KC2500 M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD for desktop, workstations and high-performance computing (HPC) systems. The new, higher capacity gives customers the flexibility to keep up with increasing storage needs and improves workflow.

KC2500 combines outstanding performance with endurance using the latest Gen 3.0 x 4 controller and 96-layer 3D TLC NAND, with speeds up to 3,500 MB/s read and up to 2,900 MB/s write. The self-encrypting SSD supports a full-security suite for end-to-end data protection using AES-XTS 256-bit hardware-based encryption and allows the usage of independent software vendors with TCG Opal 2.0 security management solutions such as Symantec, McAfee, WinMagic and others. KC2500 also has built-in Microsoft eDrive support, a security storage specification for use with BitLocker.

Corsair unveiled a new high-capacity 4 TB variant of its MP510 M.2 SSDs that take advantage of the PCI-Express 3.0 x4 host interface, and NVMe protocol (model: CSSD-F4000GBMP510). The drive retains its Phison PS5012-E12 controller, but paired with 96-layer 3D TLC NAND flash. The drive retains the manufacturer-rated performance numbers for the 2 TB variant: up to 3,480 MB/s sequential reads, up to 3,000 MB/s sequential writes, up to 580,000 IOPS 4K random reads, and up to 680,000 IOPS 4K random writes. Thanks to its high capacity, the drive enjoys a stellar endurance rating of 6,820 TBW. When it goes on sale, on June 4, the drive is expected to be priced close to the USD $800-mark.

Addlink today debuted its S68 line of mainstream M.2 NVMe SSDs. Built in the M.2-2280 form-factor and taking advantage of the PCI-Express 3.0 x4 host interface, the S68 comes in 512 GB and 1 TB capacities. The drives combine a Phison E13T-series controller with 3D TLC NAND flash memory. The 1 TB variant offers sequential read speeds of up to 2,500 MB/s with up to 2,100 MB/s sequential writes; while the 512 GB model offers up to 2,100 MB/s reads with up to 1,700 MB/s writes. 4K random access for both drives are vaguely stated as up to 295,000 IOPS reads, and up to 430,000 IOPS writes. Write endurance of the two are rated at 400 TBW for the 512 GB model, and 800 TBW for the 1 TB model. The company is backing these drives with 5-year warranties. It didn't reveal pricing or availability information.

KLEVV today introduced the CRAS C710 line of mainstream M.2 NVMe SSDs, in 256 GB, 512 GB, and 1 TB capacities. Built in the M.2-2280 form-factor with PCI-Express 3.0 x4 host interface, the drives combine a Silicon Motion SM2263XT DRAMless controller with 3D TLC NAND flash memory, offering intelligent SLC caching. Performance figures put out by the company read as up to 2,100 MB/s sequential reads, up to 1,650 MB/s sequential writes for the 1 TB variant. The 512 GB variant offers up to 2,050 MB/s reads, with up to 1,650 MB/s writes. The 256 GB model does up to 1,950 MB/s reads, with up to 1,250 MB/s writes. The company didn't reveal pricing information.

Addlink today refreshed its S20 line of SATA SSDs with the new S20M series. The refreshed lineup uses 96-layer 3D TLC NAND flash memory, and a Maxiotek MAS080X controller replacing the Phison S11-series controller on the original S20. The 2.5-inch, SATA 6 Gbps drive comes in 256 GB, 512 GB, and 1 TB capacities, which offer varying performance. There is no 120-128 GB variant in the series. The 1 TB variant offers sequential reads of up to 560 MB/s, and up to 500 MB/s sequential writes. The 512 GB variant offers up to 550 MB/s reads, with up to 500 MB/s writes. The 256 GB variant does up to 510 MB/s reads, and up to 400 MB/s writes. Addlink claims increased endurance and MTBF over the S20, although it didn't specify numbers. The company didn't mention pricing, although availability is expected by late-May.

ADATA today announced the Falcon line of SSDs in the M.2-2280 form-factor, with NVMe 1.3 protocol support, leveraging PCI-Express 3.0 x4 host interface. The drives are characterized by an aluminium heatspreader on top of the NAND flash chips and controller, which isn't just an adhesive metal peal, but a 1 mm-thick metal plate. The Falcon comes in capacities of 256 GB, 512 GB, 1 TB, and 2 TB; and uses 3D NAND flash memory (likely QLC).

The ADATA Falcon offers sequential speeds of up to 3,100 MB/s reads, with up to 1,500 MB/s writes; and up to 180,000 IOPS 4K random access. The 2 TB variant offers 1,200 TBW endurance, the 1 TB variant offers 600 TBW, the 512 GB variant 300 TBW, and the 256 GB variant 150 TBW. ADATA is backing the drives with a 5-year warranty. The company didn't reveal pricing.

China's plans for world domination include the country slowly retracting itself from its dependency on western companies' technologies, via heavy acceleration of plans for and production of a myriad of semiconductor technologies. One of the more important technologies amongst those due to its relative ease of manufacture and overall market value is, of course, NAND technology. And the days of China being undoubtedly behind other manufacturers' technologies seems to be coming to an end, with the countries' Yangtze Memory Technologies (YMTC) 64-layer Xtacking TLC NAND design already achieving pretty impressive results compared to its mainstream counterparts.

Xtacking technology is expected to disrupt the $52 billion NAND memory market and its big players such as Micron, Samsung, SK Hynix, Kioxia, Western Digital, and Intel. The technology separates periphery circuits and memory cell operations towards a separate wafer, which allows for increased performance and throughput compared to other designs. Senior technical fellow Jeongdong Choe at Ottawa, Canada-based TechInsights (a company specializing in reverse-engineering semiconductor technology) has told EE Times YMTC's 64-layer, 256 Gb die bit density is 4.41 Gb/mm, which is higher than the Samsung equivalent 256 Gb die at 3.42 Gb/mm.

Western Digital on Tuesday (27/04) announced availability of its WD Purple QD101 line of ultra-endurance microSDXC cards for use as internal storage in surveillance devices, such as smart security cameras. The card implements 96-layer 3D TLC NAND flash memory, is capable of 500 P/E cycles, and 256 TBW for its top of the line 512 GB variant. The card is particularly useful as a failsafe storage device for cameras in case their link to the NVR server is severed, and is rated for 24x7 operation. The card comes in capacities of 32 GB, 64 GB, 128 GB, 256 GB, and 512 GB. The card is now shipping to NVR and smart camera manufacturers.

Kingston Digital, Inc., the Flash memory affiliate of Kingston Technology Company, Inc., a world leader in memory products and technology solutions, today announced KC2500, its next generation M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD for desktop, workstations and high-performance computing (HPC) systems. KC2500 NVMe PCIe SSD delivers powerful performance using the latest Gen 3.0 x 4 controller and 96-layer 3D TLC NAND. With speeds up to 3,500 MB/s read and up to 2,900 MB/s write, KC2500 combines outstanding performance and endurance that improves workflow for desktop, workstation and power users.

KC2500 is available in capacities up to 2 TB housed in a compact M.2 2280 form factor that saves space for other components while allowing users to take advantage of PCIe speeds. The self-encrypting SSD supports a full-security suite for end-to-end data protection using AES-XTS 256-bit hardware-based encryption. It allows the usage of independent software vendors with TCG Opal 2.0 security management solutions such as Symantec, McAfee, WinMagic and others. KC2500 has built-in Microsoft eDrive support, a security storage specification for use with BitLocker.