Storage News - Page 2

Micron has just unveiled the first client SSD shipping with over 200 layers of NAND flash, with the introduction of the new Micron 2550 SSD that delivers an injection of performance in PCIe 4.0 SSDs.

The new Micron 2550 SSD packs 232-layer NAND flash and falls on the current-gen PCIe 4.0 standard, but the PCIe Gen4 SSD standard will be here in PCs and devices through to 2026. Praveen Vaidyanathan, vice president and general manager of the Client Storage Group at Micron said: "We focused on delivering a superior user experience for PC users with this SSD".

"The new 2550 SSD builds on our established and broadly adopted PCIe Gen4 architecture. It also incorporates Micron's industry-leading 232-layer NAND and focuses on thermal architecture and power design. These capabilities deliver impressive application performance and phenomenal power savings".

CFD Gaming teased its next-gen PCIe 5.0 SSDs earlier this year, but now Japanese retailer Kakaku has listed the 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB models on their website, with some deliciously expensive pricing.

CFD Gaming's next-gen PCIe Gen5 SSDs

The next-gen CFD Gaming Gen5 NVMe SSDs will cost a pretty penny, but they'll be offering some truly next-gen storage speeds of up to 10GB/sec reads and up to 9.5GB/sec writes, 1500K IOPs, and a 3-year warranty. There will be a high-end active cooler to keep it nice and chill while being offered in 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB capacities.

As for pricing, we're looking at the 1TB model costing 57420 Yen or 2830 RMB (which converts to around $400 USD), while the 2TB variant costs 114840 Yen or 5650 RMB (which converts to around $800 USD), but the monster 4TB model will cost a whopping 229680 Yen or 11300 RMB (which converts to a huge $1600 USD).

ICY DOCK has teased not one, but two new add-in cards for your PC that support both PCIe Gen5 M.2 + E1.S SSDs, with both add-in cards rocking active cooling to keep those super-fast PCIe 5.0 SSDs nice and cool.

ICY DOCK's new CP073-1 PCIe Gen5 add-in card

The first one we're looking at today is the ICY DOCK CP073-1 which supports two regular PCIe Gen5 M.2 SSDs that get mounted through the sides of the shroud, with a fully tool-less design that makes them easy to get up and running.

ICY DOCK supports up to 2280/2580 form factor M.2 SSDs, with the design of the ICY DOCK CP073-1 including an active fan -- a 50mm blower fan -- with exhaust vents on the front and an aluminum heatsink on the shroud. There are some LED indicators on the front of the PCIe 5.0 SSD add-in card, too.

Phison originally teased its next-gen E26 PCIe Gen5 NVMe M.2 SSD controller in September, alongside AMD and its tease of Ryzen 7000 series "Zen 4" processors... but now the next-gen PCIe 5.0 SSD controller has been delayed.

Phison's next-gen E26 PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSD controller... now delayed

Phison was originally meant to have its next-gen PCIe 5.0 SSD controller out by now, but there are no Phison E26-powered SSDs on the market, reviewed, or ready to go at all. During the Flash Memory Summit 2022 a couple of months back, Phison and AMD teased the E26 PCIe 5.0 SSD controller running at a huge 12.5GB/sec reads.

The new Phison E26 controller will have 3D TLC memory, offering a bandwidth of up to 2400MT/s alongside those huge 12.5GB/sec+ read speeds in PCIe 5.0-enabled motherboards. Back in May 2022, Phison announced in a blog post that it would be expecting mass production of PCIe 5.0 SSDs in Q3 2022, but the third quarter is finished, and we're now in the final month of 2022 and yet no Phison E26-powered SSDs are here.

We've been hearing a lot of news about PCIe 5.0 SSDs and their wicked 10GB/sec and beyond reads, but now we have Nextorage with their new PCIe Gen 5.0 NVMe M.2 SSD pumping 10GB/sec reads.

Nextorage PCIe Gen5 NVMe M.2 SSD with the heatsink (source: Shimizu_OC)

The new Nextorage PCIe Gen 5.0 NVMe M.2 SSD rocks sequential read speeds of up to 10GB/sec, and sequential writes of up to 9.5GB/sec. We should see Nextorage unleash 1TB and 2TB variants of their new PCIe 5.0-enabled SSD at first, with the 1TB model seeing barely reduced read and write speeds of 9.5GB/sec and 8.5GB/sec.

Nextorage is using 176-layer NAND flash inside of their new PCIe Gen 5.0 NVMe M.2 SSDs, and when compared against the likes of current-gen PCIe 4.0-powered SSDs that reach 7.4GB/sec reads and 6.9GB/sec writes, we can expect some great performance upgrades out of the Nextorage PCIe Gen 5.0 NVMe M.2 SSDs of up to 35% faster reads, and up to 48% faster writes (and that's without using the fastest SSD using the PCIe Gen5 standard just yet).

Sabrent has just kicked off its huge Black Friday sales with some discounts across its range of storage products, from their flagship Rocket 4 Plus-G SSDs down to a new SD card if you need it.

The wicked-fast and super-styled Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus-G SSDs are discounted: the 500GB variant is down from $170 to $130, the 1TB variant is down from $300 to $230, while the 2TB variant is down from $700 to $600. Under the G models, the Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus SSDs are also discounted: the 1TB variant is down from $90 to $72, the 2TB variant down from $150 to $100, and the 4TB variant drops from $300 to $200.

If you've just built yourself a new Intel 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" or AMD Ryzen 7000 series "Zen 4" system, then Sabrent has its Rocket DDR5 memory also on special: the Sabrent Rocket DDR5-4800 in single 16GB DIMM form is down from $180 to $100, while the 32GB DIMM drops from $300 to $150 (50% off!).

Sabrent has just unleashed its new Rocket nano v2 portable SSD, its smallest portable SSD ever... and man, it packs quite the punch in its tiny footprint.

Sabrent's new Rocket nano V2 portable SSD (source: Sabrent)

The new Sabrent Rocket nano v2 portable SSD is a sleek new portable SSD that the company is offering in 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB capacities. The portable SSD can drive up to 1.5GB/sec (1500MB/sec) reads which is for all capacities, while the company has used high-grade aerospace aluminum alloy through CNC machining.

Not only does this make the Sabrent Rocket nano V2 portable SSD look good, but the material is durable and perfect for dissipating heat away from the internal components, prolonging the life of the drive. Sabrent also provides a removable silicone sleeve that offers even more protection against drops and debris... perfect considering it's a portable storage powerhouse.

KIOXIA has just showcased its next-gen CM7 Series SSDs with their brute-force PCIe 5.0 SSD speeds, alongside AMD's new EPYC 9004 series processors.

The new KIOXIA CM7 Series SSDs support EDSFF E3.S and 2.5-inch1 (15mm, z-height) form factors and are designed to the NVMe 2.0 and PCIe 5.0 specifications, and are available in two configurations: Read-intensive 1 DWPD2 with capacities up to 30.72TB, and mixed-use 3 DWPD with capacities up to 12.80TB.

Not only that, but KIOXIA includes features like a dual-port design for High Availability (HA) applications, flash die failure protection that maintains reliability in the cases of die failure, and a Self-Encrypting Drive (SED) that supports TCG Opal and TCG Ruby, as well as a SED option of FIPS 140-35.

KIOXIA has announced that it has worked with Ampere to quality its fleet of CD6, CM6, and XD6 Series SSDs with platforms that are based on Ampere's Altra, and Ampere Altra Max Cloud Native Processors.

The certification testing itself was conducted by Ampere, to make sure that KIOXIA's SSDs were totally compatible, and were hitting max performance. Inside of the world's biggest and most demanding data center workloads are powered by Arm-based servers, which make it imperative (in the words of KIOXIA, but I do agree) that the SSDs inside of them are ready, more than ready.

KIOXIA has a gigantic fleet of SSDs for the data center market, with the company reiterating that the performance demands and latency sensitivities aren't an issue, but also for future enterprise infrastructure requirements. In order to meet the demands of the modern cloud ecosystem, Ampere designed a server microprocessor architecture from the ground up, with its AArch64-based processor pushing performance, scalability, security, and power efficiency that KIOXIA says is uniquely focused on today's hyperscale cloud and edge computing workloads and applications.

Silicon Motion bought a bag of next-gen goodies to show off at the 2022 OCP Global Summit event, where KIOXIA showed off its next-gen hardware on show, but Silicon Motion had some real delicious storage products being teased.

The new Silicon Motion SM8366 SSD controller in multiple different form factors

The next-gen Silicon Motion SM8366 SSD controller was there, with the PCIe Gen5 x4 SSD being NVMe 2.0 and OCP Data Center NVMe SSD 2.0 compatible, and programmable standard NVMe, HB-FTL, ZNS FW. But man, those reads are tasty AF... with the SM8366 pushing a huge 14GB/sec sequential I/O, we had some on-the-floor pics showing real-world 13.6GB/sec sequential reads... impressive.

During the show, Silicon Motion showed off an incredible 4K random read of 3.4M IOPS on its new SM8366 SSD controller... yeah, you read that right. 3.4M IOPS!

Silicon Motion was showing off its new SM8366 SSD controller in multiple form factors: U.2, E3.S, E1.S, E1.S 15mm, and E1.S 25mm. The final two in E1.S 15mm and E1.S 25mm have heat sinks, with Silicon Motion reaching out to me and ensuring their 15mm and 25mm offerings with their heat sinks help them provide the correct level fo performance and power scaling, and are compliant with the E1.S form factor specification.