Storage News - Page 1

Microsoft's new DirectStorage API was previously touted as exclusive to Windows 11, but not anymore -- Microsoft has announced that the DirectStorage preview will be compatible with Windows 10 version 1909 and above.

The new DirectStorage API debuted with Microsoft's next-gen Xbox Series X/S consoles, with the company promising it would debut in developer preview form on the PC in the summer. At the time, it was thought DirectStorage would be a Windows 11 exclusive, but nope.

Program Manager Hassan Uraizee explains: "Microsoft is committed to ensuring that when game developers adopt a new API, they can reach as many gamers as possible. As such, games built against the DirectStorage SDK will be compatible with Windows 10, version 1909 and up; the same as the DirectX 12 Agility SDK".

Sabrent is nearly ready to unleash its insanely huge and equally as insanely fast Rocket 4 Plus Destrroyer SSD into the world, which will wink all other SSD battleships -- with 32TB of PCIe 4.0 storage offering a bandwidth-explosive 28GB/sec.

Yeah, that's 28GB/sec (or 28,000MB/sec) run by our own in-house Storage God, Jon Coulter, who has hands-on with Sabrent's wicked-fast Rocket 4 Plus Destroyer SSD. What we have here are 8 x Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus SSDs on Highpoint's new FnL AIC NVMe RAID card.

Each Sabrent 4TB Rocket 4 Plus NVMe 4.0 Gen4 PCIe M.2 Internal SSD costs $1000, so 8 of them on-board the Rocket 4 Plus Destroyer means $8000 in SSDs and an even $10,000 or so I'd say with the Highpoint FnL AIC NVMe RAID card... but you're getting 32TB of storage at up to 28GB/sec... damn.

Seagate Japan is giving away one of its super-fast and super-stylish FireCuda 520 Cyberpunk 2077 SSD.

You're getting 1TB of capacity with PCIe 4.0 speeds, with the Seagate FireCuda 520 Cyberpunk 2077 PCIe 4.0 SSDs offering up to 5GB/sec (5000MB/sec) reads and up to 4.4GB/sec (4400MB/sec) writes. There's some customizable RGB lighting on the Seagate FireCuda 520 Cyberpunk 2077 PCIe 4.0 SSD, too.

Seagate only made 2077 of its Seagate FireCuda 520 Cyberpunk 2077 PCIe 4.0 SSDs -- 2077 of them... geddit? If you're a huge Cyberpunk 2077 fan then I hope you're got yourself some Cyberpunk 2077 peripherals, and especially Secretlab TITAN 2020 Cyberpunk 2077 Edition gaming chair.

GIGABYTE has just unveiled its new AORUS XTREME Gen4 AIC SSD which has a gigantic amount of flash storage -- up to 32TB at up to a blistering 28GB/sec of read speeds.

The new AORUS XTREME Gen4 AIC SSD is powered by 8 x 4TB second-gen PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSDs powered by Phison's new PS5018-E18 controller. With the 8 x 4TB SSDs in RAID we're looking at up to an insane 28GB/sec of read speeds -- close to maxing out the 32GB/sec offered by the PCIe 4.0 standard.

The 8 x 4TB AORUS Gen4 7000s level SSDs with Phison PS5018-E18 controllers pushes things up to 28GB/sec making it the fastest consumer SSD in the world -- but all of that bandwidth creates serious heat, too. AORUS keeps things cool, and from throttling -- you don't want to drop to 27GB/sec for example -- GIGABYTE deployed a huge aluminum finned heat sink, M.2 baseplate, and a huge thermal back plate to dissipate heat from the SSDs.

Intel has teamed with storage champion Sabrent on a super-fast new NUC 11 Pro, which packs a PCIe 4.0-based NVMe M.2 SSD from Sabrent that pushes 5GB/sec reads.

Inside of the new Intel NUC 11 Pro Mini PC NUC11TNKv7 you'll find an Intel Core i7-1185G7 processor, which offers 4 cores and 8 threads at up to 4.8GHz. There's 16GB of DDR4-3200 SO-DIMM memory, which is upgradeable to 64GB -- while there's integrated graphics on the GPU side of things.

Sabrent has provided their world-leading Rocket NVMe PCIe 4.0 M.2 SSD inside of the new Intel NUC 11 Pro, which is capable of 5GB/sec (5000MB/sec) reads and up to 4.4GB/sec (4400MB/sec) writes. The stock NUC 11 Pro packs a 512GB M.2 SSD based on the SATA III standard -- the TS512GMTS430S -- which offers up to 560MB/sec reads and up to 500MB/sec writes.

WD has just found itself in a dangerous spot: the WD My Book Live NAS is destroying users' data because of "malicious software". So if you own a WD My Book Live NAS or My Book Live Duo, disconnect it from your network right now.

Why? In a new post on Western Digital's own community forum, the storage giant explains that some of their My Book Live NAS drives have been "compromised by malicious software". What happens because of that? Well, some users are seeing their WD My Book Live NAS factory resetting... erasing all of their data.

The last firmware update for the WD My Book Live NAS was a considerable time ago: back in 2015, but now users are losing their data in one of the worst ways possible.

Seagate has just announced its new FireCuda 530 SSD which rocks some ridiculous read and write speeds, all thanks to the very latest 3D TLC NAND flash and Phison's kick-ass 8-channel PS5018-E18 controller.

The new Seagate FireCuda 530 SSD is capable of pumping up to 7.3GB/sec (7300MB/sec) sequential reads and up to 6.9GB/sec (6900MB/sec) sequential writes. Seagate will be making its new range of FireCuda 530 SSDs in 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB capacities with prices starting at $140 through to $950.

Seagate is also offering a variant of the new FireCuda 530 SSD with a heat sink crafted by EKWB in the form of a finely-textured aluminum block, which is also wicked-thin which will allow it to fit into more systems versus taking up oh-so-so much space on your motherboard.

KIOXIA has been working closely with Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) on the best-in-class storage solutions for the last few years, but during the new virtual event, HPE Discover 2021, we have some new products to look forward to.

First off, KIOXIA unveiled its new series of PCIe 4.0 SSDs, the first-ever 24G enterprise SAS SSDs, and a class of value SAS SSDs that will "drive the transition away from SATA SSDs". The new KIOXIA CM6 and CD6 Series PCIe 4.0 U.3 NVMe SSDs -- which will deliver 2x the performance over their PCIe 3.0 predecessors and are an insane 12x faster than traditional SATA drives.

Alvaro Toledo, vice president of SSD marketing and product planning at KIOXIA America, Inc said: "HPE is one of our long-standing customers, and together we are highly focused on empowering organizations to increase productivity and maximize IT resource utilization. KIOXIA enables HPE ProLiant servers with SSDs for most applications - for today or tomorrow. Together, we are making digital transformation a reality for enterprises."

Sabrent is about to unleash its huge 16TB external SSD, which will arrive to us in the form of the Rocket XTRM-Q 16TB external speeds. Check it out:

The new Sabrent Rocket XTRM-Q 16TB external SSD has dual 8TB SSDs installed, and lets you use the 16TB external SSD as a single huge 16TB SSD... or an external SSD with dual 8TB SSDs inside. The choice is yours, although if you use it as a single 16TB SSD the SSDs will be used in RAID 0 for some serious speeds.

In RAID 0 mode, the new Sabrent Rocket XTRM-Q 16TB external SSD boasts read speeds of up to 2.8GB/sec (2800MB/sec) and up to 1.4GB/sec (1400MB/sec) reads. This is more than enough for most people, and it's all driven through Intel's super-fast Thunderbolt 3 connectivity.

Sabrent unleashed their performance-dominating Rocket 4 Plus 1TB + 2TB SSDs last year, offering an insane 7GB/sec (7000MB/sec) reads, and now those drives have some new firmware up for grabs.

The original version 1.1 firmware on the Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus has been updated, with a new version 1.2 firmware available for download on the official Sabrent website. There are a few issues with the new firmware, with early Sabrent Rocke 4 Plus SSDs now receiving some upgrades.

If you picked up one of Sabrent's super-fast Rocket 4 Plus SSDs closer to their release, you might have a drive with v1.1 firmware -- but most purchases after the initial waves should be v1.2 firmware and not needing the firmware update. For those who purchased early, that firmware update is now ready.