Storage News - Page 50

All the latest storage news, with everything related to solid-state drives, hard drives & plenty more - Page 50.

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Interview with Dov Moran, inventor of the USB stick

Lana Jelic | Dec 5, 2016 9:24 AM CST

"I'm not a genius, I wasn't born into a wealthy family nor in a big country. And I don't have a formula for success!", this is how Dov Moran, the inventor of the USB memory stick, described himself to the audience of European Business Angels Network (EBAN) conference.

Moran formed M-Systems in 1989, a pioneer in the flash data storage market. The company invented the USB Flash Drive (DiskOnKey), the FlashDisk (DiskOnChip) as well as several other innovative flash data storage devices. He says he got the idea for the USB stick after a presentation when his laptop shut down and he lost all of his slides.

Under Moran's leadership, M-Systems grew to $1 billion revenue within 18 years, and at the end of 2006, it was acquired by SanDisk Corp for $1.6 billion, which is now part of Western Digital (WD). However, Moran didn't retire. He started numerous other successful companies, and today he's the CEO of the investment fund Grove Ventures. He also holds 40 patents.

Continue reading: Interview with Dov Moran, inventor of the USB stick (full post)

SSD costs expected to rise by 6-10% in early 2017

Derek Strickland | Dec 2, 2016 1:15 PM CST

Supply of 2D NAND (the traditional flash memory used in mainstream SSDs) was essentially put on the back burner as key storage manufacturers like SK Hynix, Toshiba, Micron and Intel ready their respective transitions to high-performance 3D NAND. Demand for planar 2D NAND is still quite strong, however, causing supply and demand complications that will likely lead to higher SSD prices between Q4 2016 and Q1 2017.

SSD costs expected to rise by 6-10% in early 2017

"Most NAND Flash suppliers (with the exception of Samsung) will still have complications in their transition to the 3D-NAND technology," said DRAMeXchange analyst Alan Chen.

"Furthermore, the consensus of leading suppliers will continue to be the maximizing of their profitability. Therefore, contract prices of mainstream SSDs are expected to keep climbing during the period."

Continue reading: SSD costs expected to rise by 6-10% in early 2017 (full post)

Seagate announces 512GB external SSD for Xbox One

Anthony Garreffa | Nov 1, 2016 3:07 AM CDT

Seagate has announced its new 512GB SSD for the Xbox One and Xbox One S, with super-fast load times for console owners at a price of just $200.

The new 512GB SSD plugs into one of the USB 3.0 ports on the Xbox One or Xbox One S consoles, and requires nothing but the single USB 3.0 cable to give your Xbox One a massive increase in game load times. Seagate says: "Slow-loading screens are for newbs. Built for elite gamers, the Seagate Game Drive for Xbox SSD uses flash storage to help you decimate game load times and get into the action quicker. Designed exclusively for Xbox®, it lets you store the hottest titles in one thin and ultra-portable drive".

Seagate continues:

Continue reading: Seagate announces 512GB external SSD for Xbox One (full post)

ZOTAC's new Sonix PCIe 480GB SSD reads at 2.8GB/sec

Anthony Garreffa | Oct 26, 2016 12:35 AM CDT

ZOTAC has unleashed a plethora of new products to celebrate its 10-year anniversary, with a new GeForce GTX 1080 ArcticStorm and Magnus EN1080 mini-PC - but they also announced the ZOTAC 10 Year Anniversary Special Edition Sonix SSD.

The new ZOTAC Sonix PCIe arrives with a 480GB capacity, 512MB of DDR3 used as DRAM cache, and arrives on the NVMe 1.2 PCIe 3.0 x4 interface and rocks some serious read/write speeds. We're talking about sequential reads of up to 2800MB/sec and writes of up to 1500MB/sec, not bad.

ZOTAC has included LED lighting on the back of the Sonix 480GB PCIe SSD, with a slick black heat shroud that will keep the SSD cool.

Continue reading: ZOTAC's new Sonix PCIe 480GB SSD reads at 2.8GB/sec (full post)

Samsung SSD Summit 2016 keynote, watch it here!

Anthony Garreffa | Sep 21, 2016 8:44 PM CDT

Samsung SSD Summit 2016 - Samsung has unveiled a bunch of new SSDs and teased technology at its own SSD Summit 2016 in South Korea, with our storage guru Jon Coulter on the ground in Psy's home country. We have the keynote of that speech here:

During the Samsung SSD Summit 2016, the company unveiled its new 960 Series M.2 NVMe drives that feature 48-layer V-NAND and up to a huge 2TB in capacity.

There was also the world's fastest SSD unveiled with 2.1GB/sec writes in the new 960 PRO and 960 EVO drives from Samsung, as well as the massive 15TB SAS drive, and the new PM1725a which arrives at up to 6.4TB and can churn out an insane 6GB/sec for enterprise environments.

Continue reading: Samsung SSD Summit 2016 keynote, watch it here! (full post)

Samsung goes for gold with its massive 15TB SAS drive

Anthony Garreffa | Sep 21, 2016 3:20 AM CDT

Samsung SSD Summit 2016 - Samsung has been unveiling a bunch of new storage goodies at its SSD Summit 2016, with some new enterprise-class drives, the super-quick EVO 960, and now the PM1633a.

Samsung's impressive PM1633a might not sound so impressive by its name, but it's a new 2.5-inch SAS-based drive for enterprise environments, which utilizes the impressive V-NAND 3bit MLC from Samsung. Not only that, but it rocks the REX controller, and has some decent read/write speeds of up to 1.35GB/sec and 1.3GB/sec, respectively.

It's the capacity that Samsung's PM1633a is available in that blows me away, with 480GB/960GB/1.92TB/3.84TB/7.68TB and finally... a massive 15.36TB. Yeah, 15TB of SAS storage goodness all in a single 2.5-inch drive. Crazy stuff.

Continue reading: Samsung goes for gold with its massive 15TB SAS drive (full post)

Samsung's new PM1725a SSD - up to 6.4TB at 6.4GB/sec

Anthony Garreffa | Sep 21, 2016 1:51 AM CDT

Samsung SSD Summit 2016 - Samsung is hitting some major home runs at its SSD Summit 2016, with our storage god Jon Coulter on the ground sending us back some golden nuggets of storage news - like the new PM1725a, which is a beast NVMe-based SSD.

Samsung's new PM1725a arrives in the 2.5-inch form factor, based on NVMe and uses V-NAND 3bit MLC alongside Samsung's new Epic controller. The PM1725a comes in 800GB/1.6TB/3.2TB/6.4TB capacities, with some pretty impressive read/write speeds of up to 3.3GB/sec and 2.9GB/sec, respectively.

It also arrives in an HHHL version, using a PCIe x8 slot, with the read/write speeds scaling up to an insane 6.4GB/sec and 3GB/sec, respectively.

Continue reading: Samsung's new PM1725a SSD - up to 6.4TB at 6.4GB/sec (full post)

World's fastest Samsung 2TB SSD rocks 2.1GB/sec writes

Derek Strickland | Sep 20, 2016 11:04 PM CDT

Samsung SSD Summit 2016 - Samsung has once again redefined consumer solid state drives with its new 960 EVO and 960 PRO M.2 SSD duo, offering lightning fast transfer rates with high-capacities and optimum reliability.

World's fastest Samsung 2TB SSD rocks 2.1GB/sec writes

Samsung's new 960 PRO is now the world's fastest consumer SSD, hitting peak sequential reads of 3,500 MB/s and write speeds of 2,100 MB/s as well as random read and write IOPS of up to 440,000 and 360,000 respectively. The 960 PRO also packs in an amazing 2TB of data thanks to Samsung's vertically-stacked VNAND memory technique. The 960 PRO SSD is also available in 512GB and 1TB capacities along with the 2TB model.

Armed with Samsung's new Intelligent TurboWrite tech, the 960 EVO SSD blazes with peak read speeds of 3,200 MB/s and 1,900 MB/s write speeds, and comes in more diverse capacities like 250GB, 500GB, and 1TB. The 960 EVO also features random read speeds of 380,000 IOPS and random write speeds of up to 360,000 IOPs, and comes with a three-year limited warranty and up to 400 TBW (whichever occurs first) for the 1TB model.

Continue reading: World's fastest Samsung 2TB SSD rocks 2.1GB/sec writes (full post)

Samsung 960 M.2 SSDs may use 64-layer VNAND at up to 2TB

Jon Coulter | Sep 20, 2016 11:03 AM CDT

Samsung SSD Summit 2016 - They say a picture is worth a thousand words. From this picture floating around at Samsung's SSD Summit 2016 event in Seoul, South Korea, we can speculate a few things about the 960 Series M.2 NVMe SSDs that Samsung will be launching in less than 24 hours. First and most exciting is that the MLC-based 960 Pro will at some point hit the market at a massive 2TB capacity point. This is 4x the current highest selling capacity of the 950 Pro (512GB).

Samsung 960 M.2 SSDs may use 64-layer VNAND at up to 2TB

Based on the information that the photo reveals, we are speculating that the 960 Pro, at least at the 2TB capacity point, will use Samsung's fourth-generation 64-layer VNAND. Additionally, we noticed something else that points to fourth-generation 64-layer VNAND. According to the picture, the 960 Pro has a power draw of only 1 amp. This is a massive reduction in power draw in comparison to the 2.7 amps of power draw on the 950 Pro.

The 1TB 960 EVO, according to the picture, will have a power draw of 2.7 amps. Hence, we believe the 960 EVO will be based on Samsung's current third-generation 48-layer VNAND. We think that the 960 EVO will be first to market, followed sometime shortly by the 960 Pro. Both the 960 EVO and 960 Pro will be based on Samsung's Polaris controller, the same controller that we saw on the SM961 OEM drive that currently reigns supreme in terms of sequential performance of up to 3200/1800 MB/s (sequential read/ write).

Continue reading: Samsung 960 M.2 SSDs may use 64-layer VNAND at up to 2TB (full post)

SanDisk unveils the world's first 1TB SD card

Anthony Garreffa | Sep 20, 2016 6:32 AM CDT

We should be used to SanDisk continuing to push the storage barrier, but their announcement of the world's largest SD card is an impressive one; with the company unveiling their massive new 1TB SD card.

SanDisk's new 1TB SD card is quite the card, perfect for those moving into 4K video production, upcoming 6K and 8K formats, 360-degree and VR video, and more. Sam Nicholson, CEO of Stargate Studios and also a member of the American Society of Cinematographers said that SanDisk really has owned the storage market.

Nicholson said: "Just a few short years ago the idea of a 1TB capacity point in an SD card seemed so futuristic - it's amazing that we're now at the point where it's becoming a reality. With the growing demand for applications like VR, we can certainly use 1TB when we're out shooting continuous high-quality video. High-capacity cards allow us to capture more without interruption, streamlining our workflow, and eliminating the worry that we may miss a moment because we have to stop to swap out cards".

Continue reading: SanDisk unveils the world's first 1TB SD card (full post)