Storage News - Page 4

We had an exclusive first-look at Phison's next-gen E18 SSD controller just a couple of weeks ago, with benchmark results pushing a huge 7.4GB/sec -- but now it's official, check it out:

Phison's new PS5018-E18 (E18) PCIe 4.0 controller is the industry's fastest PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD solution now, succeeding Phison's previous-gen PS5016-E16 that dropped in late 2019. The new Phison E18 SSD controller is on the newer TSMC 12nm node, too.

The new Phison E18 is the world exclusive SSD controller capable of breaching 7GB/sec reads -- right up to the new heights of 7.4GB/sec reads and up to 7GB/sec writes, with capacities of up to 8TB (!!!) and bursting through 1 million IOPS.

Everyone is talking about Samsung's 980 Pro, and Phison's E18 Gen4 SSDs. However, everyone kind of forgot about the WD Black SN850 (reviewed here). Well, everyone will be paying close attention going forward. In our most important metrics, Western Digital's Gen4 Black SN850 2TB SSD is serving up numbers that we've not seen before from a Gen4 SSD. Take a look for yourselves:

Starting with Anvil's, new scoring record for any flash based SSD. MAX IOPS, random read IOPS, new record for any flash based SSD. Gaming, best we've ever seen from a flash based, high-capacity SSD. And consumer workloads, by FAR the best we've seen from any flash-based SSD.

• Sabrent Rocket Q4 4TB NVMe SSD -- 21,040
• Samsung 980 PRO 1TB NVMe SSD -- 23,101

Kioxia has just unveiled its new XD6 SSDs, an industry-first family of SSDs on the EDSSF E1.S 'ruler' form factor on the PCIe 4.0 x4 interface allowing it to have seriously high brute speeds.

The new Kioxia XD6 SSDs have been made to address the specific requirements of hyperscale applications, something Kioxia notes including performance, power, and thermal requirements of the Open Compute Platform (OCP) NVMe Cloud SSD Specification.

Sequential read and write performance of up to 6500MB/sec (6.5GB/sec) and 2400MB (2.4GB/sec), respectively. Kioxia is packing in its 3D TLC NAND flash memory, and a new controller that has everything it needs from an NVMe 1.3c-compliant hyperscale-optimized chip.

Sabrent is throwing a huge sale today on Amazon -- where you can get yourself a super-fast new NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD with some serious discount.

Sabrent's kick ass 1TB Rocket NVMe 4.0 Gen4 PCIe M.2 SSD is just $199, down from $319 -- a large 38% discount. You can read Jon's review on the Sabrent's Rocket NVMe 4.0 PCIe Gen4 x4 M.2 SSD. In the review, Jon gushed on Sabrent's delicious Rocket NVMe 4.0 Gen4 x4 M.2 SSD where he said: "Looking back at our benchmark results leads us to conclude that Sabrent is serving up Gen4 SSD goodness at the same level as the competition, but at a better price than we've seen so far".

He added: "The drive is a quality piece that looks as good as it performs. Even the packaging is of high quality. When you factor in the included copy of Acronis True Image, and five-year factory warranty, you have one of the best values in solid state storage".

You can buy the Sabrent 1TB Rocket NVMe 4.0 Gen4 PCIe M.2 Internal SSD here.

PNY is getting into the PCIe 4.0 SSD game. Today, the company revealed the XLR8 CS3040, a new line of high-speed M.2 NVMe Gen 4 x4 SSDs with up to 2TB of storage capacity and 5,600MB/s read speeds.

PNY's new XRL8 CS3040 SSDs support the latest NVMe Gen 4.0 protocol, enabling extreme data access speeds far faster than previously possible. PNY's new drives can deliver sequential reads up to 5,600MB/s and write data at up to 4,300MB/s. That's significantly faster than PCIe 3.0 drives are capable of.

PNY said the XLR8 CS3040 drives would be available in 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB variants. PNY is also offering each drive with or without a built-in heat sink. The heat sink version includes a 45-gram aluminum heat sink with eight fins for increased thermal dissipation.

Silicon Motion has just unveiled a new set of SSD controllers built on the PCIe 4.0 NVMe 1.4 SSD standard.

The new Silicon Motion SM2264 built for performance, the SM2267 for mainstream, and SM2267XT for value DRAM-less client SSDs. The new controllers, according to Silicon Motion, were built from the ground up with new hardware features, optimized to squeeze everything it can from the PCIe 4.0 interface.

Silicon Motion's flagship SM2264 SSD controller packs a quad-core ARM R8 processor on the 12nm node, with 4 x PCIe 4.0 lanes with 16Gb/s of bandwidth. It packs 8 NAND channels, with up to 1600MT/s per channel. We're to expect up to 7.4GB/sec (7400MB/sec) reads and up to 6.8GB/sec (6800MB/sec).

Exclusive: Phison's new E18 SSD controller is currently being stamped onto some test drives somewhere in the world, and we have an exlcusive sneak peak at some early benchmark numbers. Check this insanity out:

The Phison E18 SSD controller is pumping away here at 7.38GB/sec, with writes of 7GB/sec. We've been teased about this from Sabrent's next-gen Rocket 4 Plus SSD screaming along at 7GB/sec but now we have some real-world results from an actual Phison E18 SSD controller at past 7GB/sec up to 7.38GB/sec.

It's official: SK Hynix is buying Intel's storage business for $9 billion.

Semiconductor titan SK Hynix has purchased Intel's NAND segment in a sweeping $9 billion deal. The South Korean memory-maker will spend $7 billion upfront to acquire three parts of Intel's business: NAND SSD IP and employees, NAND components and wafers including R&D employees, and the Intel Fab 68 plant in Dalian, China. Intel will keep the Optane brand.

SK Hynix will spend the additional $2 billion once the deal closes in 2025, and Intel will continue designing manufacturing flash memory at the Dalian plant until closing.

Intel is nearing a deal to sell its flash memory segment to SK Hynix for $10 billion, sources tell The Wall Street Journal.

Intel's foray into high-performance NAND flash has been a rocky one; The company's 3D Xpoint memory created interesting applications via its Optane SSD drives, but the volatile storage market has led to inconsistent earnings for Intel. Intel's NSG branch (Non-volatile Storage memory Group) has lost money for multiple quarters in a row, and only recently returned to profitability in Q2'20, where the storage business hit all-time highs.

"Q2 was an all time record for quarterly revenue for our memory business. The business also returned to profitability this quarter, generating approximately $300 million in operating income," Intel executive VP George Davis said in a recent July earnings call.

Western Digital is expanding the high-performance WD_BLACK series of storage devices with three new ultra-fast SSD options engineered with gamers in mind. These new storage options offer NVME performance for gamers with new and old PCs alike.

"As game developers move towards creating immersive titles that require higher performance, consumers need to equip themselves with the best tools to stay up-to-speed," said Jim Welsh, senior vice president, Consumer Solutions, Western Digital. "Innovative, high-performance storage solutions are essential to keep up with this ever-changing landscape. Our latest WD_BLACK products have been purpose-built to allow gamers to meet the increasingly high standards of future games and gaming platforms. We've optimized these products to not only provide more storage for gamers but to elevate the gaming experience as a whole."

The WD_BLACK SN850 is Western Digital's new performance NVME SSD. This new drive features PICe Gen4 technology, which enables ridiculous access speeds of 7000MB/s read and 5000MB/s write. The SN850 NVME drives feature a new cache technology with improved low queue-depth performance, which Western Digital said enables smoother loading in applications and games.