Storage News - Page 45

Micron has just announced a slew of new microSD cards that have been designed for the video surveillance, with the new industrial microSD cards coming in 32GB, 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB capacities.

The new industrial microSD cards are designed for both commercial and enterprise surveillance, with Micron working with Shenzhen Security and Protection Industry Association (SSPIA) and China channel partner, Jinyu Global. Most of the microSD cards on the market aren't built to be used 24/7, but Micron's new industrial microSD cards have been designed for higher endurance and reliability with claims of mean time between failure of 3 million hours.

Micron has tapped their impressive 64-tier 3D-NAND technology, with storage densities of 32GB/64GB/128GB/256GB, with the 32GB and 64GB models available now, and the 128GB and 256GB models to begin being shipped in volume amounts in Q2 2018.

Today Intel is launching their first retail 3D XPoint based SSD - the Intel Optane SSD 900P Series. Unlike Optane Memory, which is a cache SSD, the Intel Optane 900P Series are full blown SSDs and will function as such. Initially, the 900P series will be offered in two capacities and two form factors - U.2 and Add-In-Card (AIC).

At this time, the U.2 form factor is only available at 280GB. The AIC form factor is available at both 280GB and 480GB capacity points. It is important to note that unlike flash based SSDs, Optane SSDs don't rely on capacity for higher performance. The 280GB 900P is just as fast as the 480GB 900P.

3D XPoint (Intel Optane) memory media has many advantages over NAND flash memory media. Random performance at low queue depths can be as much as 7X better than the fastest flash-based NVMe SSDs. What this means in the real-world is very well illustrated by the following:

Seagate has introduced their newly branded Enterprise Datasphere Fleet, precision-engineered enterprise storage solutions aimed to provide the highest levels of security technology. The Datasphere Fleet includes the cornerstone of Seagate's hard drive lineup, the Exos family, and the world's fastest and highest capacity hard drive, the Nytro SSD range.

Seagate's Enterprise Datasphere Fleet includes the recently announced Seagate Secure, ironclad security features that are integrated into the hard drive to provide un-paralleled levels of protection of your data.

The Exos family are purpose-built for a multitude of applications, workloads and storage tiers to maximize your storage efficiency. Exos are able to deliver top performance and high capacity for enterprise data centers that provides efficient and cost-effective solution for data centers.

Seagate have announced Seagate Secure, a collection of security features that have been integrated with the entirety of Seagate's Enterprise Datasphere Fleet, including Exos hard drives and Nytro SSDs. Seagate Secure ensures ironclad security without comprising performance in a time where cyber-vulnerabilities are rapidly increasing.

Seagate Secure includes premium feature such as instant secure erase, self-encryption technology and tamper-resistant protection, providing ultimate protection for your valuable data .Seagate Secure ensures every drive is compliant with top industry standards for security- Essential and Certified.

Essential standard represents protection that suits most needs, including secure data locking using AES 256 standards, drive locks on power-down, digitally signed firmware with rogue firmware detection and secure boot process.

Western Digital is planning a new range of HDDs based on MAMR technology, with 14TB, 16GB, 20TB and beyond HDDs to surely arrive between now and then. But, WD has promised 40TB by 2025 thanks to microwave-assisted magnetic recording (MAMR).

The company explained the news with an announcement from President and COO of Western Digital, Mike Cordano, saying: "Our ground-breaking advancement in MAMR technology will enable Western Digital to address the future of high capacity storage by redefining the density potential of HDDs and introduce a new class of highly reliable, 'ultra-high capacity' drives".

What is MAMR? MAMR, or microwave-assisted magnetic recording is a new storage technology that WD has been working on for years now, with the other being HAMR, or heat-assisted magnetic recording. This new breakthrough in MAMR technology that WD has reached is the new "spin torque oscillator" that is used to generate a microwave field that increases the reliability to record data at ultra-high density. WD can use this new breakthrough in MAMR tech to record over 4 terabits-per-square-inch over time.

Silicon Power have unleashed their first external SSD, the Bolt B80. Featuring an innovative and futuristic design, the B80 is not only stylish and compact, but also able to deliver impressive performance for an external hard drive.

Equipped with a Type-C port and USB 3.1 Gen 2 interface, the B80 is able to provide read/write speeds of up to 500/450MB/s that allow for exceptional performance. Equally impressive is the B80's design, the UFO-shaped aluminum housing measures only 11.9mm thick and 75mm in diameter, while only weighing 53 grams. Silicon Power have included IP68 rating, meaning this portable SSD is not only waterproof, but also dustproof.

The Bolt B80 will be available in 120GB, 240GB and 480GB, SP are yet to release a price or release date.

SilverStone have released an innovating product, an external enclosure that coverts a M.2 SATA SSD into a USB 3.1 flash-drive, the SST-MS09C. The perfect solution for those spare M.2 SSD drives or for users wanting to more external storage options.

The SilverStone SST-MS09C features an all-aluminum external enclosure that houses a PCB with a M.2 B-key slot. The SST-MS09C allows you to install a M.2-2260 or 2280 SATA SSD that utilizes a VIA Labs VL715 controller to connect your SATA 6Gb/s drive to USB 3.1 10Gb/s. The SST-MS09C is designed to work without any additional driver installation, this means plug in and enjoy the instant access.

Silverston have included a retractable USB connector and is on sale now for $36.99 from Newegg.com

Correction: first generation Optane M.2 modules used x2 PCI-E 3.0 lanes, and not x4 PCI-E 2.0 lanes as originally reported.

Leaked slides and inside industry contacts have hinted that Intel's second generation of Optane drives, the Intel 900P series, will launch around the end of this month. The 900P series will replace the Intel 750 series of NVMe drives and will come in the U.2 and AIC (PCI-E card) form factors. While the first generation of consumer Optane drives used a PCI-E 2.0 interface, this new generation will use PCI-E 3.0. The 900P has roughly the same specifications as Intel's enterprise P4800X, which costs almost $2000 for 375GB. The new 900P series drives will come in 280GB, 480GB, 960GB, and 1500GB variants, and will be aimed more at consumers rather than enterprise users, which hopefully means much more affordable prices (enterprise is typically overpriced by a large margin).

Optane offers random read speeds far greater than those of NAND flash, making it an excellent NAND replacement. The current Optane series provides 1.35 GB/s and 290 GB/s sequential (large files) read/write and 240,000 IOPS read/write for random performance (which matters more for OS). The new 900P should boast 2.5GB/s and 2GB/s sequential read/write speeds and up to 550,000 and 500,000 IOPS read/write for random performance, which is a huge increase over its predecessor.

Seagate has just announced a massive new 12TB HDD, with the BarraCuda Pro family of drives joined by a new 12TB model. The 12TB model spins at 7200RPM, with 256MB of cache to improve load times.

The new Seagate BarraCuda Pro family of HDDs were designed for professionals who want massive storage, with the new 12TB model costing $530 and featuring a 5-year limited warranty. If you want something a little different, Seagate has also announced their new IronWolf 12TB HDD, which like their BarraCude range, are part of Seagate's larger Guardian Series of HDDs for high capacity storage.

IronWolf is a feature-laden drive, as it allows multiple users to access it, making it perfect for file sharing and remote access.

Western Digital have announced the world's first 14TB harddrive, the HGST-branded Ultrastar Hs14. Perfect for cloud-storage and hyperscale data centers, the HGST Ultrastar Hs14 combines HelioSeal and host-managed shingled magnetic recording (SMR) technology to offers 40 percent more capacity and more than twice the sequential write performance of its SMR predecessor and features a 2.5million hours MTBF rating.

This 3.5-inch HDD helps address Big Data challenges and the emerging sequential write workload segment in data centers by focusing on total cost of ownership (TCO). Prioritizing key factors including capacity per rack, power consumption, cooling, maintenance, and acquisition cost, the combination of SMR and HelioSeal Technology is able to deliver impressive watt/TB power efficiency, resulting in a low TCO. These mature, field-proven technologies provide the foundation for delivering efficient, quality and reliable performance required by cloud-storage and hyperscale environments.

"Over 70 percent of the exabytes Western Digital ships into the capacity enterprise segment are on helium-based high-capacity drives and continue to support customers with outstanding reliability, performance and value Quality of Service (QoS)," said Mark Grace, senior vice president of devices at Western Digital. "The TCO and reliability benefits of our HelioSeal platform are the foundation of our leadership in high-capacity enterprise storage."