Storage News - Page 8

Although it took a few months to launch, the PlayStation 5's storage expansion is much more open and cost-effective than the closed proprietary storage card system of the Xbox Series X|S. As long as it features a low-profile heatsink (or one is attached), you can slap any PCIe Gen4 NVMe SSD into a PS5 if it meets the minimum speed requirement of 5,500 MB/s.

Very few of these drives existed when the PS5 launched in 2020, but in 2023, there's a massive range to choose from. Of course, the quality of an SSD varies from storage maker to storage maker, so for those not looking to spend hours researching the best SSD storage solutions for PlayStation 5, there's the new Seagate Game Drive PS5 NVMe SSD line-up.

These new SSDs are officially licensed, and with sequential read speeds of up to 7300 MB/s and write speeds of up to 6,900 MB/s, they're more than equipped to handle the dramatically improved loading times you get from gaming on a PlayStation 5 console. As nice as it is to see the ray-traced visuals of Marvel's Spider-Man, the instantaneous loading times are the true 'next-gen feature I cannot live without' for the PS5.

Sabrent has just launched a rocket -- pun intended -- at its previous pricing on its internal M.2 SSD storage, dropping their Rocket NVMe PCIe 4.0 M.2 SSD family of drives... by up to a whopping 60% discount.

Amazon Prime Day sales are delivering some massive price cuts across many different families of products, with Sabrent using the time to discount its Rocket NVMe PCIe 4.0 M.2 SSDs. The 2TB model is enjoying a hefty 60% discount, bringing its price down to just $119.99. This means it's currently $10 cheaper than a competing model in the likes of the Samsung 980 PRO SSD in 2TB, which costs $129.99 right now.

Sabrent has the 1TB Rocket NVMe PCIe 4.0 M.2 SSD discounted by 33% which lowers the price of the 1TB model down to $59.99, while the 500GB model has been slashed by nearly as much as the 2TB, with the 500GB SSD reduced by 56% bringing the price down to only $39.99. $40 for a 500GB drive is damn good, but not enough to get multiple games installed.

ASUS has just outed its new Hyper M.2 x16 Gen5 expansion card, which is capable of taking on 4 x M.2 SSDs that will use the total bandwidth provided by the super-fast Gen5 x16 slot on your compatible motherboard. It boasts a boatload of speed, and it's cheap as chips.

The new ASUS Hyper M.2 x16 Gen5 expansion card can handle up to 512Gbps (64GB/sec) of bandwidth when the 4 x M.2 SSDs are installed into the expansion card, and you've got RAID0 enabled. You can't get this speed with any old drives, as you'll need next-gen M.2 SSDs that are capable of pumping out 16GB/sec through each drive... see, we told you this wasn't going to be easy.

However, ASUS is making its new Hyper M.2 x16 Gen5 expansion card compatible with multiple M.2 form factors including 2242, 2260, 2280, and 22110. It's also backward compatible, meaning you can chuck PCIe 4.0 M.2 SSDs into it, or you can wait for those next-gen PCIe 5.0 M.2 SSDs that crank up to 16GB/sec each so you can meet that juicy maximum bandwidth of 64GB/sec. Not that you'd need that in a gaming system, that is.

About a month ago, as part of Flash Memory Summit 2023 (FMS 2023), we reported on KIOXIA delivering samples of a new and exciting type of flash memory to customers. It was for the Linux Foundation's Software-Enabled Flash Community Project, on which KIOXIA is a key partner.

An exciting project because it's all about open-source SSDs, which are flash storage designed to meet the needs of hyperscale environments like the cloud. Software-Enabled Flash is exactly that: developers are given direct control to maximize flash memory through software-defined storage.

And now, with this week's update, we've got another important step for the Software-Enabled Flash Project, with KIOXIA donating a command set specification to the Linux Foundation - which means products can now hit the market.

The new Kingston IronKey D500S is the latest USB flash drive from the company, offering military-grade security and reliability - but it also adds something into the storage mix that we've mostly seen in movies and espionage-based entertainment. And that is 'Dual Hidden Partitions,' where data can be kept secure and invisible to those who don't have the correct password.

This 'Hidden File Store' is an extra layer of security that sits on top of the military-grade hardware encryption - FIPS 140-3 Level 3 (Pending) certified XTS-AES 256-bit encryption - and other protections put in place to stop unwanted users from accessing your thumb drive. With multiple levels of access and support for complex or passphrase access, it's a USB flash drive perfect for businesses or individuals looking to store sensitive data.

The military-grade protection extends to the device's reliability; it's waterproof, dustproof, crush-resistant, and "vibration-resistant to Military Standards." Which we assume means it will survive an explosion.

Although a lot of the focus in 2023, at least when it comes to SSD performance, reviews, and news, has been on the new PCIe Gen5 technology - where we're seeing some massive speed increases over the previous generation and massive SSD coolers to keep the temperatures down. However, PCIe Gen4 is still the go-to option for many because it's more affordable and can deliver when it comes to speed.

The Samsung 990 PRO Series debuted in 2022 and earned critical acclaim (including a couple of Editor's Choice awards at TweakTown) due to its price, performance, and overall design. So then, why is Samsung 990 PRO back in the headlines? When Samsung first showcased the series, it noted that a 4TB model and variant was on the cards for 2023.

So yeah, the 4TB variant of the Samsung 990 PRO is finally here (with an MSRP of USD 349.99), with a baseline Samsung 990 PRO 4TB model hitting retail this month and a Samsung 990 PRO with Heatsink coming in October 2023.

External SSD storage that is small enough and light enough (under 29 grams) to fit in your pocket is how Kingston describes its new XS1000 External SSD. And that's certainly true, but it's also small and lightweight enough to fit on a keychain with dimensions (69.54 x 32.58 x 13.5mm) that are more in line with a USB thumb drive than a full-on external.

And with the enclosure housing a 3D NAND SSD, you've got up to 2TB of storage delivered over a USB-C (with a USB-C to USB-A cable also included) capable of delivering read speeds of 1,050 MB/s and write speeds of 1,000 MB/s, which is definitely fast for portable storage that is all about convenience and on-the-go productivity.

Perhaps the biggest plus for the tiny Kingston XS1000 External SSD range (available in 1TB and 2TB capacities for USD 79.99 and USD 124.49, respectively) is backed by Kingston's limited 5-year warranty with free support alongside the company's reputation for reliability.

A new report into drives - both hard disks and SSDs (and indeed USB drives) - has been published.

The survey from EaseUS (which makes backup solutions) provides some illuminating statistics, encompassing a wide swathe of 208,000 PC owners and over 750,000 drives (with the survey running over the past three months).

The precise number of drives included was 754,142, of which 346,477 were SSDs, 200,818 were HDDs, and 206,847 were USB drives.

The quality of microSD and full-size SD cards varies wildly, and that comes down to the intended application - if all you're doing is moving images to and from a camera that stays indoors, there's no real need to go all out.

For professional photographers who work in various weather conditions and take full advantage of modern-day drones to capture video and images - you need a storage solution that will deliver speed and reliability. The PRO Ultimate series of Samsung microSD and full-size SD memory cards represent the company's new flagship UHS-I memory cards designed for professionals and content creators.

Available in the two most popular memory card form factors, the Samsung PRO Ultimate series is available in capacities of up to 512GB with a reported sequential read speed of up to 200 megabytes-per-second (MB/s) and write speeds of up to 130 MB/s, which is more than enough to record high-quality 4K and Full HD video.

The transition from PCIe Gen4 to PCIe Gen5 storage has led to an impressive leap in overall read and write speeds - where now sequential read speeds in the region of 10 to 12GB/s are not uncommon. But, with great power (or speed) comes great responsibility (or the need to keep overall temperatures down).

The arrival of high-speed PCIe Gen5 SSDs has also meant that storage devices are not noyl faster than they have ever been but running hotter. With several companies releasing SSD options with all-in-one cooling solutions involving large heatsinks and active fans, the new T-FORCE DARK AirFlow SSD Cooler from TEAMGROUP has been designed to keep PCIe Gen5 SSD temperatures cool during periods of high transfer speeds.

As a custom solution, the T-FORCE DARK AirFlow ensures that a PCIe Gen5 SSD maintains optimal operating temperatures even in high-speed transfer mode over a sustained period. With a graphene-patented dual-layer structure alongside two 5mm pure copper piped with multi-layered aluminum fins, a "high-pressure smart PWM fan" will adjust its speed according to requirements.