Storage - Page 2

A microSD card with read speeds of up to 820 MB/s is impressive because it is faster than a standard SATA SSD (which tops out at around 560 MB/s) and more than eight times faster than the UHS-I microSD cards that people slap into tablets, cameras, and gaming devices like the Nintendo Switch. Silicon Power's new 256GB SET320 microSD card can reach read speeds of up to 820 MB/s. However, there's a catch.

The SET320 is the company's first microSD 'SD Express' memory card, which utilizes a new interface (PCIe Gen 3x1 and NVMe via SD 7.0) to achieve its impressive speed. Still, it is fantastic to see a microSD card deliver SSD-like speeds in such a tiny form factor.

Silicon Power notes that its new high-speed microSD cards are an "industrial-grade solution designed to meet the growing demands of AI-driven applications." Based on their footprint alone, you could fit any number of these in a data center.

Sabrent has been teasing its new Thunderbolt 5 external SSD for a few weeks now, but the company has it in-house and has tested it on an ultra-spec Razer Blade 18 laptop at over 6GB/sec reads.

In CrystalDiskMark, the new Sabrent Thunderbolt 5 external SSD was pumping away at over 6GB/sec reads, and around 3.8GB/sec writes (this is from the Razer Blade 18 laptop, the only Thunderbolt 5-capable laptop on the market right now, and into the Sabrent Thunderbolt 5 as an external SSD... 6000MB/sec is insanity).

Sabrent transferred 1TB file from a Rocket 4 Plus inside of the Razer Blade 18 laptop at 2.8-2.9GB/sec when it was filling the cache on the SSD, and was transferring at 1.4GB/sec sustained over the Thunderbolt 5 connection to Sabrent's new Thunderbolt 5 external SSD.

Exascend might be a company you've never heard of, but they're a server-focused company that makes innovative storage and memory products, and have just announced a huge 15.36TB 2.5-inch SSD.

The company has announced the expansion of its 2.5-inch SATA SSD series -- the SA4, SI4, and SE4 -- to an unprecedented 15.36TB capacity. Exascend says that this advancement redefines the limits of SATA SSD storage, catering to demanding applications like digital and network video recorders, media post-production, and more.

Exascend's monster new 15.36TB SSD uses 3D TLC NAND flash technology, with the new Exascend SATA SSDs use direct write-to-TLC to maintain stable read and write performance, effectively mitigating performance drop-off when the SLC cache is exhausted. Exascend's new 15.36TB SSDs use high-density integration with 16 NAND Flash ICs, each with 1TB capacity, on a single PCB within a slim 7mm housing.

The surge in enterprise SSD prices by over 80% is being driven by a spike in orders for AI servers, with SK hynix and its subsidiary Solidigm, ramping up NAND flash production.

The AI boom has been here for a while now, which started being fueled by HBM memory chip demand, and is now pushing the enterprise SSD market upwards, too. The volume of data stored on AI servers is rising exponentially, with companies scrambling to secure high-capacity SSDs, with Chosun reporting that "some even paying above-average prices to ensure supply".

SK hynix and Solidigm are responding to the market demand of enterprise-class SSDs by prioritizing scaling up production of high-capacity SSDs using quad-level-call (QLC) technology, which is tailored specifically for enterprise use.

Microsoft will soon remove the 32GB size limit for FAT32 partitions in Windows 1, upgrading to volumes of up to 2TB... something that has plagued Windows for close to 30 years now.

The Windows team said in a blog post on Thursday: "When formatting disks from the command line using the format command, we've increased the FAT32 size limit from 32GB to 2TB". The limit is only being removed from the format command line right now, so we'll still see the existing format dialog box that will have the 32GB limit for FAT32 partitions, unless Microsoft updates this Windows feature in the future.

Microsoft first put the 32GB limit on FAT32 partitions during the development of Windows 95, which was over 30 years ago now. Dave Plummer is a former Windows developer said earlier this year that he was the man responsible for the format dialog box that hasn't been updated in 30 years now, and that he was the person who picked the 32GB limit for FAT32.

Sabrent has its Multi-Port USB Type-C Hub with 4K HDMI is on special right now on Amazon, bringing its original price of $13.95 down to $9.90 with this promo code (29NDOCO7).

The Sabrent Multi-Port USB Type-C hub is the perfect companion for your port and adapter needs, whether it's a PlayStation 5 console, a laptop, or a desktop PC. It's compatible with laptops and desktops that have an available USB Type-C port, so if you've got old adapters (and use multiple of them) you can replace it with the Sabrent Multi-Port USB Type-C hub.

HighPoint has just unveiled the industry's first 16 x M.2 Ports NVMe RAID AIC: its new SSD7749M2.

The new HighPoint SSD7749M2 features 16 independent M.2 device channels, powered with its in-house PCIe Gen4 Switch Architecture and NVMe cooling technology, the new SSD7749M2 RAID AICs are capable of pushing an incredible 28GB/sec of read speeds, and up to 128TB of client-class NVMe M.2 SSD storage.

The beauty of this new AIC card is that its innovative, dual-sided, vertically-aligned M.2 loading trays can host up to 16 x 2280 form factor M.2 SSDs onto just a single side of the PCB. With its dual-slot design, it's not much bigger than a high-end, dual-slot graphics card.

Western Digital showed off its next-gen storage solutions at FMS 2024 last week, including a new Gen5 SSD using its in-house Gen5 SSD controller pushing 15GB/sec with just 7W power consumption.

The company has been pushing out Gen4 SSDs with great speeds, but Western Digital has yet to enter the Gen5 SSD space, but we're getting close. Western Digital will use its in-house Gen5 SSD controller which uses BiCS8 218-layer 3D TLC NAND and features up to 8-channel DRAM and 4-channel non-DRAM.

Western Digital says its new Gen5 SSD will have up to 2TB capacity and twice the performance of its Gen4 SSDs, with a 55% efficiency uplift over Gen4 SSDs. The company also showed off its new Gen5 SSDs inside of laptops (mobile workstations) which marks the first time we've seen Gen5 SSDs inside of a laptop (which is so good to see).

Western Digital unveiled the world's first 8TB SD card and a 16TB external SSD at the 2024 Future of Memory and Storage Conference.

The new 8TB SD card features the Secure Digital Ultra Capacity (SDUC) and will enable transfer speeds of up to 100Mbps. The new SD card is aimed at consumers who are struggling with the 4TB variant, which, for those wondering, is mostly purchased by professional photographers and videographers who are shooting in extremely high resolutions and bitrates.

However, casual photographers who don't mind paying a premium can also take advantage of such storage as they will simply never have to worry about reaching capacity. At the moment, neither the 8TB SD card nor the 16TB external SSD has a pricing or release date, but reports indicate we can expect Western Digital will soon reveal more details about the upcoming storage solutions.

Regular PC users don't worry about RAID or data redundancy unless they are running a home server or NAS. However, its importance must be recognized in the enterprise space. Mitigating the risk of losing data - yeah, it's a must.

And for those with a RAID setup, the downside for enterprise isn't merely sacrificing capacity for storing data - the compute costs and DRAM bandwidth requirements are very real. With the rise of NVMe SSDs and increased read and write performance, RAID configuration and compute requirements can be the bottleneck in slowing down an entire system.

KIOXIA's RAID Offload data protection technology ensures that performance scales as the number of SSDs increases and more advanced storage solutions are added. Described as a "standards-based, host-orchestrated scale out and sustainable solution to offload RAID parity compute," it frees up CPU, memory, and cache resources.