Storage News - Page 11

SSD prices are down by 25% since March, according to a new report from Tom's Hardware, which has been keeping an eye on price tags in the US market (over a range of 60+ popular drives).

Indeed, Tom's Hardware previously observed prices falling between 15% to 30% from January to March, and now with these fresh drops of 25% (on average) midway through the year, SSD pricing really is a whole lot cheaper than the levels we saw at the start of 2023.

Looking at the 1TB SSDs Tom's tracks the prices of, some of the biggest falls come with Samsung drives. Notably the Samsung 990 Pro, which is half the price it was in March (dropping from $170 to $85). Samsung's 980 Pro SSD is also 40% less than it was three months ago (you can now pick it up for $60).

It was only a matter of time before Seagate launched its first PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSD, so this is not unexpected news. But with retail listings over at Amazon UK and B&H Photo (which have been taken down), we've got details on what to expect from the new Seagate FireCuda 540 SSD - the company's first Gen5 storage solution.

First, the company isn't looking to break records in terms of overall speed, with the 2TB variant of the FireCuda 540 listed as offering up to 10,000 MB/s sequential read/write speeds and up to an impressive 1.5 million random IOPS.

Seagate also notes that the FireCuda 540 4TB variant supports up to 3,940 TB of TBW (total bytes written), equivalent to writing and deleting 90% of the capacity every day for five years. This endurance rating is up there, especially compared to competing brands, and is backed by three years of Seagate's 'Rescue' data recovery service.

A few months ago, we reported on the new GALAX HOF Extreme 50 PCIe Gen 5 SSD, which aimed to bring some of that high-end HOF (Hall of Fame) style to its SSD line-up. With sequential read speeds of up to 10 GB/s, the HOF Extreme 50 SSDs, available in 1TB and 2TB variants, also feature a large copper heatsink and active cooling via a tiny fan.

Having chunky cooling on a PCIe Gen 5 SSD is, unfortunately, the norm and not the exception, thanks in part to the impressive speeds you're getting. Keeping the hardware cool and free from throttling is a genuine concern, and GALAX's HOF cooling reportedly keeps temps within the 40 to 45 degree Celsius range.

But GALAX has a new flagship PCIe Gen 5 SSD coming, the GALAX HOF Extreme 50S PCIe 5 SSD. And it looks like it's got the same active cooling setup. If you're wondering what the difference is outside of an 'S' being slapped on at the end of '50', let's dig in.

HPE Discover 2023 is taking place at the Venetian Conference and Expo Center in Las Vegas from June 20 to 22, and with Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) solutions all about data, the inventors of NAND flash memory, KIOXIA, will be on hand to showcase its latest solutions.

Recently we reported on KIOXIA's new line of data center NVMe SSDs, the first EDSFF drives (Enterprise and Datacenter Standard Form Factor), using PCIe Gen5 technology for improved speed and performance. The good news is that the KIOXIA CD7 Series EDSFF E3.S Data Center SSDs will be at HPE Discover 2023, and KIOXIA will demonstrate them running "running real-world applications" on the HPE Alletra 4110 Gen 11.

EDSFF E3.S NVMe SSDs are the next evolution of the standard 2.5-inch form factor, providing more densely layered deployment (1.5 to 2X) in the same rack unit compared to more conventional 2.5-inch drives. KIOXIA notes that the smaller size also improves the cooling and thermal characteristics of the storage setup.

PCI-SIG has published specifications for PCI Express (PCIe) 7.0, and you're looking at some impressive speed increases when it's set to be released and finalized in 2025. But with that, we probably won't see PCIe Gen7 hardware until 2027, and PCIe Gen6 is right around the corner.

From the specifications released this week, PCIe 7.0 will be able to deliver 128 GT/s raw bit rate and up to 512 GB/s bi-directionally via an x16 configuration. This effectively doubles the speed with each new version as PCIe 5.0 tops out at 128 GB/s and PCIe 6.0 at 256 GB/s.

The specifications also mean that members have agreed to key features for the new PCIe 7.0 technology alongside the architecture - which will also support backward compatibility like existing PCIe specifications. Getting all technical, the impressive data transfer rate and bandwidth in PCIe Gen7 will use pulse amplitude modulation with four levels (PAM4) of signaling, 1b/1b flit mode encoding, and forward error correction (FEC).

KIOXIA's PM6 and PM7 Series 24G SAS SSDs and its CD6, CD8, and CM6 Series PCIe 4.0 SSDs offer clients and data centers and servers of all sizes a great range to choose from - delivering both reliability and performance to meet all storage needs.

Today we've got word from KIOXIA America that this range of NVMe PCIe SSDs and SAS SSDs have been successfully tested and compatible with Microchip's Smart Storage Adapters. Microchip has fully tested all of the SSDs mentioned in the introduction for deployment in its Adaptec HBA 1200 Series, SmartHBA 2200 Series host bus adapters (HBAs), and SmartRAID 3200 Series RAID adapters.

On the high-end, you've got KIOXIA's PM7 Series 24G SAS SSDs designed for read-intensive applications, including web services, streaming media, and video on demand, featuring KIOXIA's impressive 112-layer BiCS FLASH 3D flash memory. And then there's the CD8 Series NVMe SSD using a PCIe 4.0 (16 GT/s x4) interface, which delivers the consistent performance of up to 1,250K IOPS (random read) and 200K IOPS (random write).

TEAMGROUP has announced it has a new top-performing memory card available aimed at individuals looking to store high-definition 4K photos and video.

TEAMGROUP has launched its newest edition to its memory card solution line-up, with the company announcing via a press release, the PRO+ TEAMGROUP PRO+ MicroSDXC UHS-I U3 A2 V30, which will arrive in various capacities such as 1TB, 512GB, 256GB, and 128GB. Notably, TEAMGROUP has made sure the PRO+ MicroSDXC meets Application Performance Class A2 standards, along with UHS Speed Class 3, and Video Speed Class V30, as outlined in the aforementioned name of the product.

As for read and write speeds, TEAMGROUP's newest top-performing memory card will be capable of reaching 160 MB/s and 110 MB/s read and write, respectively. TEAMGROUP writes in its press release that the PRO+ MicroSDXC is aimed at creators that are looking to capture 4K videos and high quality images, while also being a solution for mobile users looking to upgrade their storage. If you are interested in reading more about the PRO+ MicroSDXC, check out the website link here.

Seagate is going all-in on the new HAMR technology for traditional drives and is planning to launch its first 32TB capacity model this year, with a 40TB model to follow in 2024. Yeah, that's a lot of storage.

Seagate views HAMR (Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording) as the next step for high-capacity drives built on magnetic recording technology. It's essentially a refinement of what we've seen for decades with magnetic technology by allowing all data bits to become smaller and more densely packed than ever before. The benefit, of course, comes with remaining magnetically and thermally stable.

How it achieves this is very cool, with the data bits heated and cooled in a nanosecond, so they're not adversely affected by the HAMR laser. Seagate notes that the laser doesn't affect the drive's temperature or reliability. It's expected to be one of the key enterprise hard drive technologies for the next decade, and no doubt personal Plex media server storage too.

Netac's NV7000-t is a new PCIe Gen4 M.2 SSD that can deliver read speeds of up to 7300MB/s and write speeds of up to 6700MB/s, and it will remain cool thanks to a metal heat spreader that will be included for self-installation.

With this, Neta is positioning the NV7000-t, available in 512GB, 1TB, and 2TB capacities, as an excellent storage expansion option for both PC and PlayStation 5 gamers.

The single-sided PCB and 3D NAND Flash SSD also support SLC caching for improved efficiency and stability when loading or copying files and "advanced intelligent temperature control technology." The 7300MB/s read speeds, in particular, put this one on the high-end of the PCIe Gen4 list, so it'll be great for tech like DirectStorage on PC while being notably faster than the PS5's already impressive internal M.2 SSD storage.

Back in April, Microsoft updated its DirectStorage API to version 1.2, bringing support to older drives and performance improvements to the technology that is all about leveraging GPU power to improve game load times on NVMe storage.

YouTube channel Compusemble, using the DirectStorage GPU Decompression benchmark and the latest Crucial T700 Gen5 SSD (which we hailed as the "world's best-performing retail SSD" in our full review), showcases the benefits of PCIe Gen5 over PCIe Gen4.

Using NVIDIA's 535.50 GeForce beta driver, we see some pretty impressive results thanks to the Crucial T700's Phison E26 controller and 2000 MT/s Micron 232L NAND. Compusemble notes that the latest official 535.98 driver release features the same GPU decompression optimizations we see here, so hopefully, we get to see the effects in games sooner rather than later.