Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. (TAEC), a committed technology leader, today unveiled the development of two new flagship enterprise solid state drive (SSD) solutions, the TMC PM5 12 Gbit/s SAS series and the CM5 NVM Express (NVMe) series. Development is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter. Both product lines are built with TMC's latest 64 layer, 3-bit-per-cell enterprise-class TLC (triple-level cell) BiCS FLASH2, making it possible for today's demanding storage environments to expand the use of flash with cost-optimized 3D flash memory. With all-new, advanced features, the innovative CM5 and PM5 series raise the bar in performance capabilities and create new opportunities for businesses to leverage the power of flash storage.

Offering up to 30.72TB in a 2.5-inch form factor, the TMC PM5 series introduces a full range of endurance and capacity SAS SSDs enabling data centers to effectively address big data demands while streamlining storage deployments. With the industry's first MultiLink SAS architecture, the PM5 series is able to deliver the fastest performance the market has seen from a SAS-based SSD with up to 3,350 MB/s of sequential read and 2,720 MB/s of sequential write6 in MultiLink mode and up to 400,000 random read IOPS in narrow or MultiLink mode. The PM5 series' 4-port MultiLink design is an additional technology to achieve high performance, close to PCI EXPRESS (PCIe)8 SSDs, enabling legacy infrastructures to increase productivity without having to be re-architected from the ground up. Furthermore, PM5 SSDs support multi-stream write technology, a feature that intelligently manages and groups data types to minimize write amplification and minimize garbage collection, translating into reduced latency, improved endurance, increased performance and Quality of Service (QoS).

Toshiba's first retail SSDs to use the company's 64-layer BiCS3 3D NAND technology have been announced by Toshiba. The successors to the company's Trion 100 and Trion 150 SSDs still carry some vestiges of OCZ branding in the product logo and TR (short for Trion) moniker. This is Toshiba's first generation of mainstream, mass-market-suitable 3D NAND flash.

These drives make use of a DRAM-less controller design, and will be available in capacities ranging from 240 GB up to 960 GB. Toshiba advertises 550 MB/s read and 525 MB/s write speeds. 4K Random Read IOPS stand at 87K, while 4K Random Write IOPS go up to 87K. The endurance on the models will range from 60 to 240 TB according to capacity, and these carry the same three-year warranty as previous Trion SSDs. Pricing has not yet been announced, although the TR200 series will start shipping to retailers this fall.

Toshiba Memory Corporation, the world leader in memory solutions, today announced development of the world's first BiCS FLASH three-dimensional (3D) flash memory utilizing Through Silicon Via (TSV) technology with 3-bit-per-cell (triple-level cell, TLC) technology. Shipments of prototypes for development purposes started in June, and product samples are scheduled for release in the second half of 2017. The prototype of this groundbreaking device will be showcased at the 2017 Flash Memory Summit in Santa Clara, California, United States, from August 7-10.

Devices fabricated with TSV technology have vertical electrodes and vias that pass through silicon dies to provide connections, an architecture that realizes high speed data input and output while reducing power consumption. Real-world performance has been proven previously, with the introduction of Toshiba's 2D NAND Flash memory.

Not all news coming out of Toshiba is bad or somewhat bad. The Japanese giant still is one of the biggest players in the NAND semiconductor business, no matter the recent woes. Even more recently, though, Toshiba announced they had developed quadruple level cell NAND memory, which should improve density and, therefore, reduce the price/GB ratio on future consumer products, such as SSDs. However, each increase in the number of cell levels bring concerns regarding not only performance, but especially durability, since a higher number of states per cell increases the voltage steps that are applied to it (SLC NAND dealt with two voltage states, MLC with four, TLC with eight voltage states, and QLC will handle 16 of these.) This tends to make errors more common, and the cell's longevity to be compromised due to the amount of variation in its states, which means more powerful error correction techniques must be employed.According to Toshiba, its 3D QLC NAND targets around ~1000 program/erase cycles, which is close to TLC NAND flash. This is considerably higher than the amount of P/E cycles (100 - 150) expected for QLC by the industry, which means the company has achieved what many thought difficult. Toshiba has begun sampling of its 3D QLC NAND memory devices earlier this month. everything points to mass production on late 2018, early 2019, though, which means we still have a long way to go until we see this technology implemented. This won't be the one to save us from escalating NAND prices; we'll have to look to other, more market and supply-and-demand based factors instead.

Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. (TAEC) today announced the latest generation of its BiCS FLASH three-dimensional (3D) flash memory. The newest BiCS FLASH device features 4-bit-per-cell, quadruple-level cell (QLC) technology and is the first 3D flash memory device to do so. Toshiba's QLC technology enables larger (768 gigabit) die capacity than the company's third-generation 512Gb 3-bit-per-cell, triple-level cell (TLC), and pushes the boundaries of flash memory technology.

Toshiba's new QLC BiCS FLASH device features a 64-layer stacked cell structure and achieves the world's largest die capacity (768Gb/96GB). QLC flash memory also enables a 1.5-terabyte (TB) device with a 16-die stacked architecture in a single package - featuring the industry's largest capacity. This is a fifty percent increase in capacity per package when compared to Toshiba's earlier announcement of a 1TB device with a 16-die stacked architecture in a single package - which also offered the largest capacity in the industry at the time.

The Japanese Toshiba have been in a sort of bad run lately, following disastrous investments into nuclear plants and a $1.2 billion "mistake" in their earnings reports, which gave the company a hard time in refinancing itself in the Tokyo Exchange. Now, in a bid to sell a 20% stake of their highly successful memory business, the company has elected a preferred buyer. And in what might not come as a surprise, they elected a US-Japan consortium led by the Japanese government itself.

Toshiba said it selected the consortium, consisting of Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (a 26-strong network which includes Sony, Canon and Toyota, among others), Bain Capital Private Equity LP (based in Boston) and the Development Bank of Japan, because it presented "the best proposal in terms of valuation and respect" to "certainty of closing, retention of employees" and I quote again, "maintenance of sensitive technology within Japan". Terms of the deal were not disclosed although analysts have previously estimated Toshiba Memory Corporation to be worth around $20 billion. In its announcement, Toshiba said it intends to reach an agreement for purchase with the consortium before its annual shareholders meeting on June 28. If all goes well, the Japanese tech giant is looking to close on the transaction by March 2018, pending regulatory approval and so forth.

Toshiba's Client Solutions Division (CSD), a division of Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc., today announced the availability of the Tecra X40 laptop with a starting price point of $1,329.99 (MSRP). The company also announced the addition of several accessories, the Thunderbolt 3 Dock ($299.99 MSRP) and multiple USB-C Adapters ($44.99 to $89.99 MSRP). These products are available for purchase via CDW and Toshiba's network of resellers.

The 14-inch Tecra X40 checks in at 16.9 mm thin and 2.76 pounds and rivals the dimensions of many 13-inch laptops. Toshiba designed the Tecra X40 to meet the performance demands of the modern workplace through the adoption of 7th Generation Intel Core Processors and Windows 10 Pro to give users the most powerful processing technology and full-featured operating system technologies on the market. Users will also find features such as Full HD (1920 x 1080) multi-touch wide viewing angle displays, Intel 802.11ac Wi-Fi, solid state drives and batteries with extended life ratings of up to 13 hours. In addition to standard configurations, Toshiba will offer the Tecra X40 with a wide variety of Build-to-Order (BTO) options to enable organizations to select the right CPU, memory, storage, display and security capabilities.

Toshiba Corporation's Storage & Electronic Devices Solutions Company today announced the launch of AL14SX Series, new additions to its line-up of enterprise performance hard disk drives (HDD) for mission critical server and storage applications. Sample shipments start today.

The AL14SX Series of 15,000RPM 2.5-inch drives features a 12 Gbit/s SAS interface. Available models are 4K native (4Kn) model and 512 emulation (512e) model that feature Advanced Format Sector Technologies, and 512 native (512n) model optimized for legacy applications and hypervisor environments. The AL14SX Series delivers a suitable choice for customers' diverse applications.

At Computex 2017, Patriot put on a scorching show with their high-speed M.2 2280 NVMe SSDs, the Patriot Scorch. These leverage a Phison 5008-E8 controller to deliver up to 1200 MB/s reads and 800 MB/s writes at a 240 GB capacity. This controller is one of the only budget solutions to include a multi-core processor at its heart, which bodes well to the Scorch's rated speeds. MTBF operation is rated at over 2,000,000 hours, which is more than you'll ever need in your lifetime (and if it isn't, you really have to tell me your secret.) The Scorch will utilize Toshiba's 64-layer BiCS FLASH with 3-bits per cell (TLC) memory, which should decrease their cost, which should help Patriot release these Scorch SSDs on Q3 of this year, with a touted "attractive, budget" pricing.

Toshiba today unveiled the XG 5 series performance-segment SSDs in the M.2-2280 form-factor. These drives take advantage of the PCI-Express 3.0 x4 interface, and the NVMe 1.2 protocol. At the heart of these drives is Toshiba's 64-layer BiCS Flash (3D TLC NAND flash) memory. Available in capacities of 256 GB, 512 GB, and 1 TB, the drive offers sequential transfer speeds of up to 3,000 MB/s reads, with up to 2,100 MB/s writes. The drive features an SLC-cache feature, in which the drive treats a small portion of the TLC NAND flash as SLC NAND, by storing just 1 bit per cell, hot data is juggled in and out of this portion. The drives will go on sale in the first week of June.

Plextor today announced retail availability of its M8Se series of PCI-Express solid-state drives (SSDs). Designed to compete with Samsung 960 EVO series, the drives use Toshiba-made TLC NAND flash memory, mated to a Marvell 88SS1093 controller. Available in M.2-2280 and half-height PCI-Express 3.0 x4 add-on card form-factors, the drives take advantage of PCI-Express gen 3.0 x4 interface, and the NVMe protocol.

The M8Se lineup are available in three distinct variants based on form-factor, M8Se-Y (PCIe add-on card), M8Se-G (M.2-2280 with heatsink), and M8Se-GN (M.2-2280 without heatsink, ideal for notebooks); the three further consist of variants based on capacity - 128 GB, 256 GB, 512 GB, and 1 TB. Performance ratings are the same on all variants - up to 2,450 MB/s sequential reads, up to 1,000 MB/s sequential writes, up to 210,000 IOPS 4K random reads, and up to 175,000 IOPS 4K random writes. The M8Se-Y and M8Se-G series drives feature chunky aluminium heatsinks which make contact with the NAND flash, DRAM, and main controller. Prices start at 83€ for the 128 GB variant, and go all the way up to 494€ for the 1 TB variant.

Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ:WDC) today announced that several of its SanDisk subsidiaries have filed a Request for Arbitration with the ICC International Court of Arbitration related to three NAND flash-memory joint ventures ("the Flash JVs") operated with Toshiba Corporation ("Toshiba

The arbitration demand seeks among other things an order requiring Toshiba to unwind the transfer to Toshiba Memory, and injunctive relief preventing Toshiba from further breaching the Flash JV agreements by transferring its Flash JV interests, or any interest in an affiliate that holds its Flash JV interests, without SanDisk's consent. Per the provisions of the joint venture agreements, the arbitration will take place in San Francisco, California.

Western Digital chief executive officer Steve Milligan stated, "The Flash JVs have been operated with Toshiba for the past 17 years and have been highly successful for the JV partners and for Japan. We continue to be actively engaged in discussions with Toshiba's stakeholders to ensure that they are fully aware of our joint venture rights and of our desire to work with Toshiba to achieve a favorable outcome for all parties. We firmly believe that we provide Toshiba with the optimal solution to address its challenges, and that we are the best partner to advance its legacy of technology innovation in Japan."

Toshiba Corporation's Storage & Electronic Devices Solutions Company today announced the addition of an 8 TB SATA model to its MG05 series of 3.5-inch form-factor, enterprise capacity class of hard disk drives (HDD). Shipments start from today. Alongside the expansion of IoT (Internet of Things) and the spread of cloud services, the volume of data generated and accumulated continues to increase, and higher-capacity, higher-performance HDDs are constantly required in cloud data centers and their storage systems.

To meet these requirements, the new 8 TB model offers an approximately 33% increase in maximum capacity from the 6 TB of the prior MG04 series. It also delivers an approximately 12% increase in sustained data rate to 230 MB/s and an approximately 42% improvement in MTTF to 2,000,000 hours. These improvements in capacity, speed and reliability can contribute to the reduction of TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) of the system.

Toshiba Corporation has today unveiled the latest addition in its industry-leading line-up of BiCS FLASH three-dimensional flash memory with a stacked cell structure, a 64-layer device that achieves a 512-gigabit (64-gigabytes) capacity with 3-bit-per-cell (triple-level cell, TLC) technology. The new device will be used in applications that include enterprise and consumer SSD. Sample shipments of the chip started this month, and mass production is scheduled for the second half of this calendar year.

Toshiba continues to refine BiCS FLASH, and the next milestone on its development roadmap is the industry's largest capacity, a 1-terabyte product with a 16-die stacked architecture in a single package. Plans call for the start of sample shipments in April 2017. For the new 512-gigabit device, Toshiba deployed leading-edge 64-layer stacking process to realize a 65% larger capacity per unit chip size than the 48-layer 256-gigabit (32-gigabytes) device, and has increased memory capacity per silicon wafer, reducing the cost per bit.

Toshiba may not be dead in the water just yet, but news are dire for the company. After the companyconfirmed it was looking to spin-off its NAND production business so as to sell a minority, 20% stake for much-needed liquidity in the face of amounting debt and multiple management mistakes, reports now announce a much more aggressive stance from the company. It is now apparently looking to sell a majority stake (60%) on the spin-off, in the face of escalating costs and dwindling prospective chances.

Toshiba Corporation today announced that it has started construction of a new state-of-the-art semiconductor fabrication facility, Fab 6, and a new R&D center, the Memory R&D Center, at Yokkaichi Operations in Mie prefecture, Japan, the company's main memory production base.

Fab 6 will be dedicated to production of BiCS FLASH, Toshiba's innovative 3D Flash memory. Like Fab 5, construction will take place in two phases, allowing the pace of investment to be optimized against market trends, with completion of Phase 1 scheduled for summer 2018. Toshiba will determine installed capacity and output targets and schedules by closely monitoring the market.

Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. (TAEC), a committed technology leader, today announces its first MN Series HDDs, bridging the value gap between top-end enterprise capacity HDDs and entry-level desktop HDDs, while still delivering 7,200RPM rotational latency performance. The MN series delivers up to 8TB capacity in a 3.5-inch form factor for a broad range of file and object storage applications. With a 6 Gbit/s SATA interface, 7,200 rotational speed, 1,000,000 hour MTTF rating, and a rated annual workload of 180TB transferred, the new HDD series delivers the performance and reliability needed for file and object storage workloads that typically utilize sequential data transfer operations. The drives are designed for 24/7 power-on operation and feature rotational vibration compensation technology to help provide consistent performance in tower and low-density style multi-drive enclosures, such as small NAS platforms.

"Many customers with predominantly file-oriented and fixed-content sequential write and read workloads are looking for cost-effective capacity for moderate workload storage applications," said Scott Wright, director of HDD marketing at Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. With our new MN Series HDD models we are providing a workload range within the high workload data center work-horse Enterprise Capacity HDDs and relatively low workloads associated with client HDD models."

Toshiba may be in the ropes for now, but WD, one of its foremost partners (mainly due to its SanDisk acquisition) and most interested party in Toshiba's NAND spin-off efforts, has just announced that it is world first in actually producing a 64-Layer 512 Gb TLC NAND die. WD is developing and producing this 64-layer NAND at its Yokkaichi, Japan fab which it operates alongside - you guessed it - Toshiba, under their joint Flash Forward venture, though there is no indication as to when the new dies will hit full production. The addition of the latest BiCS3 iteration indicates that, despite its recent challenges and snags, Toshiba continues to execute on its semiconductor roadmap, which is certain to be a boon in keeping the value of its NAND production capabilities in the face of the confirmed spin-off and sell-off of a 20% stake on its NAND production business.

There has been some difficulty in achieving any significant ramp-up in 3D NAND production over at the WD-Toshiba venture, with WD having announced a 256 Gb version of the same BiCS 3 technology it employs on the new 512 Gb die last year, to no considerable volume of production. That's one of the reasons for the current NAND shortage and price rises, among other factors, so let's hope all goes well in this ramp up. If all goes well, 1 TB SSD's with 512 Gb TLC NAND dies for $150?

NVM Express, Inc., the organization that developed the NVM Express specification for accessing solid-state drives (SSDs) on a PCI Express (PCIe) bus, today announced the results of its recent board elections. Elected to Promoter positions were Facebook, Micron, Microsoft, Samsung, Seagate, Toshiba, and Western Digital. Facebook and Toshiba are new to the Promoter level, and the others are incumbents. The election winners join existing Promoters Cisco, Dell EMC, Intel, Microsemi, NetApp and Oracle, whose current terms expire at the end of 2017.

Representatives from the 13 Promoter companies form the NVM Express, Inc. Board of Directors, which governs the organization, including setting strategic direction. All Contributor and Promoter member companies are eligible to run for Promoter positions, where there are elections each year for roughly half the positions.

"We're very pleased to welcome Toshiba and Facebook to the NVM Express, Inc. Board, to help shape the future direction of NVM Express technology and the organization," said Amber Huffman, NVM Express President. "In 2016, we marked major milestones, such as publishing the NVM Express over Fabrics specification. We look forward to publishing revision 1.3 in the first half of this year - with much more to come later in 2017."

Backblaze has just revealed their HDD failure rates statistics, with updates regarding 2016's Q4 and full-year analysis. These 2016 results join the company's statistics, which started being collected and collated in April 2013, to shed some light on the most - and least reliable - manufacturers. A total of 1,225 drives failed in 2016, which means the drive failure rate for 2016 was just 1.95 percent, a improving over the 2.47 percent that died in 2015 and miles below the 6.39 percent that hit the garbage bin in 2014.

Organizing 2016's failure rates by drive size, independent of manufacturer, we see that 3 TB hard drives are the most reliable (with 1,40% failure rates), with 5 TB hard drives being the least reliable (at a 2,22% failure rate). When we organize the drives by manufacturer, HGST, which powers 34% (24,545) of the total drives (71,939), claims the reliability crown, with a measly 0,60% failure rate, and WDC bringing up the rear on reliability terms, with an average 3,88% failure rate, while simultaneously being one of the least represented manufacturers, with only 1,626 HDDs being used from the manufacturer.

After some reports pegged this event has likely and upcoming, Toshiba has now confirmed that they will be spinning off their NAND production business, whilst simultaneously parting with a 20% minority stake on the resulting business. This would inject Toshiba's coffers with enough liquidity to keep the company afloat, whilst letting them keep a hold of their most profitable business.

While details are still scarce (namely regarding the structuring of this spin off and who will be the investor to buy the reported 20% stake that Toshiba is willing to part with (with it most likely being Western Digital, as we've mentioned in our previous piece), the company has announced that they want to complete the transaction by the end of this quarter, March 31st.

In an AMD-like move to generate more short-term liquidity so as to strengthen its somewhat precarious position, Toshiba may be moving towards one of the most interesting shakeups in the NAND production field: a possible spin-off of its NAND production business into a separate company.

This move to restructure comes in the wake of recent snags and strategic mistakes for the company - such as the $1.2 billion dollar accounting "misstated" earnings, which created difficulties for the company to refinance itself in the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Also not negligible was a gross miscalculation on the amount of debt of the CB&I Stone and Webster company that Toshiba acquired so as to facilitate its U.S.-based Westinghouse Electric nuclear plant subsidiary investment. This "miscalculation", where Toshiba considered the "goodwill" booking charges at $87 million, where recently restated as a roughly-defined "several billion U.S. dollars."

At CES 2017, Plextor announced their next SSD product line. Dubbed the M8Se, these will be restricted to NVMe SSDs with 15nm 3-bit-per-cell TLC of Toshiba manufacture, ranging from 128 GB, 256 GB, 512 GB and 1TB capacities leveraged by Marvell's Eldora controller.

The new mid-range NVMe SSD uses a new heatsink design (slight cost-reduction when compared with the one the M8Pe carries), that Plextor says will improve cooling by up to 20% - convenient, since throttling does happen with NVMe based SSDs - and particularly with Marvell's Eldora controller - as it did with Plextor's M8Pe line of SSDs. The card also features blue accent lighting. Plextor will also sell a heatsink-less M8PeGN model in the M.2 form factor.

Toshiba showed off its new BG Series M.2 SSDs, which will grab your attention for being quite small. Measuring 16 mm x 20 mm, these drives are shorter than the shortest (30 mm) M.2 length standard. They still take advantage of the PCI-Express 3.0 x2 interface, and the NVMe protocol. At the heart of this drive is Toshiba's BiCS Flash, a multi-chip module that combines stacked TLC NAND flash memory with an SSD controller into one package. The drives come in capacities of 128 GB, 256 GB, and 512 GB. Toshiba is also separately selling these drives as chip-only, to notebook manufacturers, so they can solder them directly onto the mainboards of their low-cost ultra-portable notebooks.

Business. Business never changes. Whether you're for Keynes or Hayek, some truths just can't be escaped: and the one based on the market tending to equilibrium between the forces of supply and demand is oft times almost akin to a law of physics - other times, not so much. This time, it appears as if the market forces are steering NAND prices through the roof. The causes? Varied, though you probably carry one of them in your pocket most of the time. We earlier reported surging prices in the DRAM market, spurred by the Note 7 fiasco and increased production of that smartphone's competitors (and Samsung's own products) to fill the gaping hole left by its forcible market removal. But not only by DRAM are smartphones powered - they also make use of NAND flash.