Storage - Page 4

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.

At the Future of Memory and Storage (FMS) event this week, the storage experts at Phison showcased their latest cutting-edge technologies. Alongside winning a Best of Show award for its innovative aiDAPTIV+ AI hardware and software solution, there were some exciting SSD advances for controllers, storage, and enterprise.

One was the Phison E31T controller, described as the world's first mainstream Gen5 SSD. It can reach impressive read and write speeds of 10,000 MB/s in a heatsink-free design fully optimized for notebooks. Other impressive performance specs include 1,500K IOPS for both read and write and a capacity of up to 8TB.

Thanks to Phison, we'll finally see PCIe Gen5 storage come to laptops and mobile devices in a big way - with E31T supporting the M.2 2280 and M.2 2230 form factors. And in case you were wondering, Phison isn't entirely done with PCIe Gen4 technology, either.

Sabrent has been enjoying FMS 2024 so far, teasing its array of Rocket SSDs -- in both Gen4 and Gen5 -- and its upcoming Thunderbolt 5-based Rocket XTRM5 external SSD.

The company showed off all of its leading SSDs at FMS 2024 this week, including the Rocket 4 in both 1TB and 2TB capacities (and the larger Rocket 4 4TB teased, which is coming soon) and the Gen5-ready Rocket 5 in 1TB, 2TB, and the larger 4TB capacity. Sabrent also had its Rocket Nano 2242 in 1TB, and the Rocket Q4 (it's so cute) in 2TB on the show floor at FMS 2024.

Our SSD review Jon Coulter said in his review of Sabrent's new Rocket 5 4TB SSD: "Sabrent is back to doing Sabrent things. We love it and can't help but admire their strategic move to wait for a final form E26 14,000 MB/s SSD before jumping into the PCIe Gen5 fray and then being the first among storage retailers with it. Additionally, making their first Rocket 5 offering to be fully reviewed its highest capacity, most over the top 4TB model, is exactly what Sabrent has done historically".

KIOXIA is attending the Future of Memory and Storage (FMS) conference in Santa Clara, California. The creator of flash memory and the innovative BiCS FLASH 3D technology is showcasing a new prototype broadband SSD with an optical interface designed for the next generation of data centers.

Replacing electrical wiring with an optical interface allows KIOXIA to create a greater distance between the compute and storage devices, paving the way for more flexible designs without sacrificing efficiency or signal quality.

In fact, an optical interface makes it possible to aggregate components like an SSD and CPU that can "efficiently utilize resources according to a specific workload" by placing them in different rooms or locations separated by up to 40 meters of optical fiber (up to 100 meters in the future). In a data center, optical SSD storage could be located in one room with fewer cooling requirements, lowering the energy footprint.