Storage News - Page 14

Samsung has announced a new range of memory cards with the PRO Plus range designed for professionals and enthusiasts that dabble in photography and content creation. Plus, no doubt those that use SD cards on gaming devices like the Steam Deck.

The big thing here is increased read and write speeds compared to their predecessors. Samsung notes that the 180 MB/s read speed represents a 12 percent increase, with the 130 MB/s write speed representing an 8 percent increase. These figures apply to the Samsung PRO Plus microSD and full-size SD cards.

The increase in speed makes the new PRO Plus range from Samsung an excellent choice for capturing 4K videos and photos, with the cards supporting the V30 standard. The PRO Plus range also uses the SDXC standard for SD storage and the UHS-I interface for device compatibility.

Seagate is bringing the Light and Dark Side of The Force to its FireCuda PCIe Gen4 NVMe SSDs via the cool-looking Lightsaber Collection Special Edition.

The custom heatsinks on these Lightsaber Collection Special Edition FireCuda PCIe Gen4 NVMe SSDs feature swappable RGB-lit lightsabers modeled after the blades wielded by Star Wars characters Obi-Wan Kenobi, Darth Vader, and Luke Skywalker.

The little mini lightsabers on these drives look impressive and highly detailed and will look fantastic in a custom build. Available in 1TB and 2TB variants, they use high-end FireCuda PCIe Gen4 NVMe SSD hardware to deliver up to 7,300 MB/s read speeds. Which is the fastest possible PCIe Gen4 speed you can get.

The new WD_Black C50 Expansion Card for Xbox Series X|S was briefly listed on US-based retail outlet BestBuy before being taken down, marking the potential end of Seagate exclusivity on storage expansion for Microsoft's current-gen consoles.

Unlike the PlayStation 5, which supports a wide range of PCIe Gen4 SSDs for storage expansion, the Xbox Series X|S launched in 2020 with Seagate expansion cards that offered plug-and-play storage expansion with SSD speeds similar to the internal storage.

At the time, this was seen as a positive because capable Gen4 drives for the PS5 were prohibitively expensive, and Sony had not yet made expansion possible in the console's firmware and OS. Cut to 2023, and the story is very different. Expanded storage options for PS5 are plentiful, affordable, and open to all manufacturers that meet the required spec and cooling.

Micron and Phison have collaborated to create the new Crucial T700 Gen5 SSD, which delivers results that make it the "fastest SSD on the planet" thanks to its impressive 12.4 GB/s read speed and 11.8 GB/s write speed.

According to Crucial/Micron, this makes it just about two times faster than the company's fastest Gen4 SSD and 22 times faster than SATA. Though really, we're now at the point where traditional SATA drives are considered entry-level in terms of the speeds they offer.

Like with all modern-day Gen5 SSDs, there's a chunky heatsink to keep temperatures below "melting" levels, though compared to some of the fastest off-the-shelf Gen5 SSDs we've seen, it looks pretty compact. Crucial proudly proclaims that it includes a "premium heatsink for maximum heat dissipation without noisy fans or liquid cooling blocks," adding that a non-heatsink version is also available.

Micron, one of the biggest names in storage technology, has posted its latest financial report for the second quarter of 2023. And it's pretty bleak, with Micron reporting a net loss of USD 2.31 billion.

This figure is based on revenue of USD 3.69 billion for the quarter, which represents a significant drop from the USD 7.79 billion from the same quarter last year. Micron also notes that it had to write down inventory worth over a billion and is cutting expenses to preserve its "technology and product portfolio competitiveness."

It cites a challenging market environment for the losses it's experiencing in the 3D NAND and DRAM markets. And with year-over-year revenues dropping by over 50%, Micron will be letting a number of employees go - cutting its overall headcount by 15% this year. That said, Micron expects demand for memory and storage to improve in the coming years.

GALAX's HOF (Hall of Fame) range is well-known in the GPU space as being blinged-out models built for extreme overclocking, and now the company is looking to add a bit of that HOF style and performance with new HOF Extreme 50 PCIe 5.0 SSDs.

With sequential read speeds of up to 10 GB/s, the new HOF Extreme 50 SSDs will be available in 1TB and 2TB variants, and yes, they will feature chunky cooling. A large copper heatsink sporting the HOF aesthetic with the addition of a cooling fan will reportedly keep the drive's operating temperatures within the 40 to 45-degree range.

The cooling fan will require a standard 4-pin PWM fan connector, making it another PCIe 5.0 SSD with extreme cooling due to the increased speed and heat with the latest generation of PC storage. At least for now, active cooling will be the norm for high-speed PCIe 5.0 SSDs.

ASRock's new Blazing M.2 Gen 5 Fan-Heatsink is an active cooling solution for PCIe Gen 5 SSDs and is compatible with the company's AM5 and LGA1700 motherboards with Gen 5 M.2 slots. There's also a special edition for the XB650E Taichi series.

They come in a few different flavors, and ASRock has released a handy guide to know which version is best suited for which motherboard, but the real story here is that we're entering the age of storage that needs active cooling, and that is something with a heatsink and fan.

The reason for this, of course, comes down to the incredible speeds on offer with PCIe Gen 5 SSDs, where it's looking like read speeds of over 10 GB/s are set to become the norm - a two-fold increase over the already fast PCIe Gen 4 SSDs currently available.

Secure Data Recovery has posted an in-depth report on HDD reliability and durability covering all the major brands. A sample size of over 2,000 hard drives covering six manufacturers - Western Digital, Seagate, Hitachi, Toshiba, Samsung, and Maxtor - shows that, on average hard drives spun for 25,233 hours before failing, which is just under three years.

To borrow a line from a movie, failure is not an option, and these results cover those drives that fail - which also interestingly indicates which HDD brands might be more reliable than others. Of the five brands tested, Maxtor and Toshiba drives offered the most "power-on" hours before failing, with the worst being Hitachi and Samsung.

The number of drives tested was also weighted based on popularity, with 47% of HDDs being Western Digital, followed by 28% of drives being Seagate. These results are for traditional platter-based HDDs, too - and not SSDs. The manufacturer breakdown is interesting because it reflects what most of us are used to seeing when buying a traditional HDD - choosing something from WD or Seagate.

The age of PCIe Gen 5 SSDs is almost upon us, even though it still feels like PCIe Gen 4 SSDs have finally hit their stride in terms of affordability and pushing the tech and speed as far as they can go. But that's the thing, in the world of PC hardware, if you can go faster - you should.

This is why we're seemingly in the midst of a PCIe Gen 5 SSD arms race, where hardware makers are looking to push read and write speeds to levels that would have seemed impossible a few short years ago. Recently, Linus Tech Tips got their hands-on such a device - the Crucial T700 PCIe 5.0 SSD, based around the Phison PS5026-E26 controller and Micron 3D NAND chips.

As expected for high-speed M2 storage, the sample featured a Crucial-branded heatsink - but the real kicker comes with preliminary results via Crystal Disk Mark storage benchmark software. Here the Crucial T700 PCIe 5.0 SSD manages to hit an impressive read speed of 12,422.43 MB/s with a write speed not that far behind at 11,857.50 MB/s.

The new Superior Pro SDXC UHS-II cards from Silicon Power have been designed for professional content creators, with impressive read speeds of up to 280 MB/s and write speeds of up to 170 MB/s.

With that, you can probably conclude that they're more suited for DSLR cameras, drones, and high-end video recorders than a Nintendo Switch for storing all your game downloads. However, you wouldn't be at fault for putting one of these inside a Steam Deck. And with that, the new Superior Pro SDXC UHS-II cards are also waterproof, shockproof, and temperature proof - with operating temps of 0°C to 70°C.

For content creators in the video and cinema space, the UHS-II interface supports the V60 Video Speed Class standard, which guarantees minimum write speeds of 60 MB/s. This ensures that any 360-degree photography, 4K video capture, and continuous, high-quality images are all captured without lag.