SSDs
Rounding out our Computex 2024 SSD controller news, let's talk about the final major controller vendor at the show: Silicon Motion. Silicon Motion has been somewhat late to the PCIe Gen5 SSD party, as its rival Phison has been offering their high-end PS5026-E26 controller for almost 18 months now. But as Silicon Motion gets ready to make the transition to PCIe 5.0, the company has a trump card up its sleeve: the SM2508 controller, an energy-efficient high-end SSD controller that is intended for lower-power drives. A PCIe Gen5 x4 controller, SMI's SM2508 boasts a very low active power consumption of 3.5W. Which, installed in an M.2 SSD, is intended to allow drive manufacturers to built 7 Watt (or lower) SSDs, according to the company. The...
SanDisk Professional G-DRIVE SSD and ArmorLock SSD Review
Western Digital introduced the SanDisk Professional branding in May 2021 for its G-Technology products targeting the content-capture market. The company has taken the opportunity to update some of the...
6 by Ganesh T S on 10/12/2021Seagate Updates Game Drive SSD for Xbox with New Look and Internals
Seagate has been maintaining a line of Xbox-certified external SSDs since late 2016. The current Game Drive for Xbox SSD is based on the Seagate Fast SSD's internals and...
19 by Ganesh T S on 10/7/2021Western Digital Updates WD Blue Series with SN570 DRAM-less NVMe SSD
Western Digital is unveiling its latest addition to the WD Blue family today - the SN570 NVMe SSD. A DRAM-less PCIe 3.0 x4 drive, it brings in performance improvements...
21 by Ganesh T S on 10/4/2021Kingston DataTraveler Max UFD Review: NVMe Performance in a USB Thumb Drive
Rapid advancements in flash technology and continued improvements in high-speed interfaces have driven the growth of small, bus-powered portable SSDs. Kingston introduced the DataTraveler Max in August 2021 as...
12 by Ganesh T S on 9/30/2021Western Digital Introduces WD Red SN700: PCIe 3.0 M.2 NVMe SSDs for NAS Systems
Western Digital's Red series of drives for network-attached storage systems has a significant share in various NAS market segments. The series started off with a focus on hard drives...
24 by Ganesh T S on 9/28/2021Akasa M.2 SSD Enclosures Reviewed: Giving Spare Drives a New Lease of Life
The internal storage device market segment has seen rapid evolution over the last decade after the introduction of flash-based disk drives. Beginning with 2.5-inch SSDs in early 2010s, the...
15 by Ganesh T S on 9/22/2021Seagate Introduces IronWolf 525 PCIe 4.0 M.2 NVMe SSDs for NAS Systems
Seagate's IronWolf series of drives for network-attached storage systems has gained significant traction in its market segments. One of the primary reasons has been the breadth of offerings -...
9 by Ganesh T S on 9/21/2021USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 Portable SSDs Go Native: The Silicon Motion SM2320 UFD Controller Preview
The external storage market has experienced rapid growth over the last few years, particularly in the retail consumer segment. It has been fueled in part by advancements in bus-powered...
18 by Ganesh T S on 9/16/2021Seagate FireCuda Gaming SSD Review: RGB-Infused USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 Storage
The gaming market has experienced significant growth over the last decade. In addition to boosting PC sales, the peripherals market associated with the segment has also expanded. Installed sizes...
17 by Ganesh T S on 8/27/2021SanDisk Extreme PRO and Crucial X6 4TB Portable SSDs Review: Contrasting High-Capacity Storage Options
The portable SSD market has been steadily expanding thanks to the increasing digital footprint of consumers. Technological advancements such as 3D NAND with high layer counts and the emergence...
20 by Ganesh T S on 8/18/2021SK Hynix Releases 2TB Version of Gold P31 NVMe SSD
Coming off of the popular reception of their first family of retail NVMe SSDs, SK hynix this morning is adding another model to the Gold P31 family: the long-awaited...
32 by Ryan Smith on 8/17/2021Seagate Announces FireCuda 530 PCIe 4.0 SSD at SG21
The gaming segment continues to experience rapid growth in the PC market, and we have seen PC component vendors come up with launch events specifically targeting gamers. Seagate's...
23 by Ganesh T S on 6/23/2021NVMe 2.0 Specification Released: Major Reorganization
Version 2.0 of the NVM Express specification has been released, keeping up the roughly two year cadence for the storage interface that is now a decade old. Like other...
24 by Billy Tallis on 6/3/2021Micron Announces PCIe 4.0 Client SSDs
In Micron's keynote today at (virtual) Computex, the memory manufacturer announced they have started shipping the companies first PCIe 4.0 SSDs, using their latest 176-layer 3D TLC NAND flash...
30 by Billy Tallis on 6/1/2021Marvell Announces First PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSD Controllers: Up To 14 GB/s
Today Marvell is announcing the first NVMe SSD controllers to support PCIe 5.0, and a new branding strategy for Marvell's storage controllers. The new SSD controllers are the first...
47 by Billy Tallis on 5/27/2021Western Digital Introduces WD Black SN750 SE SSD: Entry-Level PCIe Gen4
Among several announcements today, Western Digital is introducing a new more affordable PCIe Gen4 SSD under their gaming-oriented WD Black brand (styled WD_BLACK). The new WD Black SN750 SE...
14 by Billy Tallis on 5/26/2021Western Digital Introduces WD Black D30 Game Drive External SSDs
Western Digital is adding a new external SSD to their WD_BLACK product line: the WD Black D30 Game Drive SSD. The D30 is a bus-powered USB SSD offering up...
5 by Billy Tallis on 5/26/2021Caching And Tiering: Intel Optane Memory H20 and Enmotus FuzeDrive SSD Reviewed
Two competing products break out of the mold of typical consumer SSDs and combine two kinds of storage on one drive, with extra software to use that storage intelligently...
45 by Billy Tallis on 5/18/2021Best SSDs: May 2021
A solid state drive is often the most important component for making a PC feel fast and responsive; any PC still using a mechanical hard drive as its primary...
21 by Billy Tallis on 5/14/2021The Inland Performance Plus 2TB SSD Review: Phison's E18 NVMe Controller Tested
Phison's E18 is their second-generation PCIe 4.0 SSD controller, and it keeps them in the running for the fastest consumer SSDs. Micro Center's Inland Performance Plus is the cheapest...
118 by Billy Tallis on 5/13/2021