Storage News - Page 1

Samsung has announced its custom 980 PRO SSD built specifically to fit into the PlayStation 5's M.2 expansion port.

The new custom 980 PRO M.2 NVMe 1.3c SSD is designed to meet the PlayStation 5's size and speed requirements, featuring a built-in heat sink for proper heat dissipation and cooling under load. The 980 PRO's high-end V-NAND flash memory ensures enthusiast-level performance alongside Samsung's proprietary Elpis memory controller to deliver up to 7GB/sec read speeds and 5.1GB/sec write speeds over PCIe Gen4 x4.

The Samsung 980 PRO is a high-end drive that will ensure ultra-fast loading in PlayStation 5 optimized titles (as well as increased speeds in PS4 games) and speedy data transfers. The 980 PRO received a 98% rating at TweakTown, and was the hailed as best-performing flash-based consumer product as of September 2020.

Western Digital has just launched its new WD Blue SN570 NVMe SSD, which won't break the bank but it will break through some speed barriers.

The new WD Blue SN570 NVMe SSD arrives in an M.2 2280 form factor on the PCIe 3.0 x4 interface and will come in 250GB, 500GB, and 1TB capacities. Western Digital has up to 3.5GB/sec (3500MB/sec) sequential reads, and up to 3GB/sec (3000MB/sec) on the 1TB model, while the 250GB model still has an ultra-fast 3.3GB/sec (3300MB/sec) reads and 1.2GB/sec (1200MB/sec) writes.

I don't know why you'd buy the 250GB model for $54 when the 500GB model costs $60... and includes the faster reads and writes with up to 3.5GB/sec (3500MB/sec) reads and 2.3GB/sec (2300MB/sec) writes for $6 more. For $110 you can have the 1TB model, with up to 3.5GB/sec and 3GB/sec reads and writes, respectively.

As we lead up into the Battlefield 2042 open beta that takes place October 5-9, 2021 -- just days from now, the WD_BLACK SN750 SE NVMe SSD Battlefield 2042 PC Game Code Bundle is discounted.

You can get the 500GB version of the WD_BLACK SN750 SE NVMe SSD Battlefield 2042 PC Game Code Bundle for just $89.99, down from its regular price of $114.99. Meanwhile, the larger 1TB variant is down to $159.99 from its regular price of $179.99.

Both the 500GB and 1TB SSDs offer 3.6GB/sec (3600MB/sec) of read speeds, so you'll be boosting into Battlefield 2042 in record time. You'll get a Battlefield 2042 PC code, which gives you access to the full game when it launches.

Phison teased its next-gen E26 SSD controller but now we know all about the E26 controller, which will be offered to both high-end consumer and gaming PCs as well as enterprise level systems.

Phison's new E26 controller has Arm Cortex-A5 cores as well as special-purpose accelerators inside of the in-house CoXProcessor 2.0, while Phison will have its E26 as a customizable SSD platform that can be made in different form factors: M.2, U.3, E1.S, and E3.S form factors.

What Phison does special here with the E26 SSD controller is that the company makes more of the critical intellectual property (IP) blocks inside of the controller than any other company, something that Phison says "thereby eliminating dependencies and inconsistencies that competitors have when they source 3rd party IP for their controllers. Second, that the E26 controller IP is developed concurrently with Phison's firmware in a FPGA environment, even before tape out ensuring a fast time to market with the highest reliability at introduction".

Intel will be unlocking the bandwidth floodgates when it launches its next-gen Alder Lake CPU platform and 600-series chipset in the coming weeks, with Phison revealing more details on its next-gen PCIe 5.0 SSD controller.

Phison has enjoyed massive success with its PS5018-E18 controller, which offers up to 7.4GB/sec (7400MB/sec) reads and up to 7GB/sec (7000MB/sec) writes, respectively. But this is limited to PCIe 4.0 bandwidth, with double the bandwidth on offer with PCIe 5.0.

This means Phison's next-gen E26 PCIe 5.0 SSD controller offers up to 16GB/sec (16,000MB/sec) reads which is bonkers. The first next-gen PCIe 5.0-capable SSD controller from Phison is known as the E26 series, but that's about all we know about it right now -- that it's called the Phison E26 SSD controller, and it will have up to 16GB/sec read speeds.

Seagate has teased its huge new next-gen HAMR HDD with up to 30TB capacities now in mass production.

We don't know when the new Seagate HAMR HDDs with 30TB capacities will reach the market, but it shouldn't be too far away with rumors of early 2023 for the 30TB HAMR HDDs. Meanwhile, the 50TB HDDs with HAMR technology from Seagate are expected sometime in 2025.

Seagate CFO Gianluca Romano explains: "We have a 20TB HAMR that we actually started to sell December last year, [...] we are just producing enough quantity that we can sell to our main customers so that they get familiar with the new drive. We are developing our second-generation HAMR drive that will be probably around 30TB. That is the drive that we want to ramp in volume".

KIOXIA has just unveiled an incredible new prototype SSD based on the next-gen PCIe 5.0 standard, which is offering an incredible 14GB/sec (14,000MB/sec) read speeds.

Intel will be launching its new 12th Gen "Alder Lake" CPUs just weeks from now, offering PCIe 5.0 connectivity and DDR5 technologies. On the PCIe 5.0 side of things we now have companies like KIOXIA that will be using its CD7 series SSDs in the 2.5-inch EDSFF E3S form factor and PCIe 5.0 standard for 14,000MB/sec reads.

KIOXIA will be concentrating on the data center 8-channel controller and enterprise 16-channel markets before consumers will get their hands-on these tasty 14GB/sec capable PCIe 5.0 SSDs.

Addlink has just unveiled its new AddGame A95 M.2 PCIe 4.0 SSD with a Premium heat sink, ready for upgrading your next-gen PlayStation 5 console.

The company is offering its new AddGame A95 M.2 PCIe 4.0 SSD is available in 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB capacities with up to 7.4GB/sec (7400MB/sec) reads and up to 7GB/sec (7000MB/sec). The company includes a premium heat sink with high-grade aluminum, and a shark-fin heat sink design with a heat-conducting silica gel pad that keeps the PS5-compatible SSD as cool as possible.

Addlink is using a low-profile heat sink design that measures in at 9.1mm, fitting into the PS5 internal M.2 SSD expansion slot without a problem. You can get the AddGame A95 M.2 PCIe 4.0 SSD in 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB capacities with all of them having a 5-year warrranty.

KIOXIA has just announced its new FL6 SSDs that use the PCIe 4.0 NVMe 1.4 interface, here to take up a battle against Intel's enterprise-focused Optane SSDs.

We don't have any hard numbers yet, but KIOXIA is saying that its new FL6 series SSDs are cheaper, and faster than Intel Optane offerings. KIOXIA is using its own in-house SLC XL-FLASH technology mixed with their BiCS 3D NAND flash memory on their new FL6 series PCIe 4.0 SSDs.

There's native dual-port support, with much faster program times of 7ms and lowered latencies of just 5ms -- a 10x improvement over TLC-based SSDs. KIOXIA is making its new FL6 series in capacities between 800GB and 3.2TB, so you'll be able to get something for any system with up to 3.2TB capacities available.

Sabrent has better detailed, as well as answered some questions from its users regarding their PlayStation 5-optimized SSD heat sink. You can check out Mike from Sabrent cover it all in the video below:

The new PS5-optimized SSD heat sink from Sabrent won't just keep the wicked-fast Rocket 4 Plus SSD cool, but any PS5-optimized M.2 NVMe SSD. Sabrent didn't just make any ol' M.2 heat sink for the PlayStation 5, but a custom PS5-optimized heat sink that was engineered to keep the fast speeds and high temps of an NVMe SSD as cool as possible.

This is centered around the fact that Sony cools the M.2 slot inside of the PS5 with negative pressure, where Sony recommends gamers use their M.2 cover slot over their M.2 slot, because if you don't you will lose the negative pressure and the temperature will skyrocket. Sabrent notes that this spot is around 10C hotter than ambient temperatures -- if the M.2 slot is empty -- meaning that it really does need some good cooling to keep things under control when a super-fast 1TB, 2TB, or 4TB M.2 NVMe SSD is installed into the PS5.