Storage News - Page 5

Sabrent has just unleashed its next-gen Rocket 5 Gen 5 SSD, which pushes up and above the 14,000MB/sec (14GB/sec) barrier for next-gen storage leadership. Check it out:

The storage company worked closely with Phison on its new Rocket 5 Gen 5 SSD, which is capable of sequential read speeds of over 14,000MB/sec and sequential write speeds of over 12,000MB/sec. This means it's the highest-performing PCIe 5.0 SSD on the market and should be the top candidate to take a Gen 5 M.2 slot inside of your PC.

Sabrent explains its new Rocket 5 Gen 5 SSD was developed in collaboration with Phison and has "exceeded" their expectations and performance limits to deliver the fastest Gen 5 SSD to the market. Sabrent shared with us a screenshot of its new Rocket 5 Gen 5 SSD running CrystalDiskMark, where you can see it boosting up to 14169MB/sec in reads, and an incredible 12756MB/sec in writes.

If you've been building PCs, upgrading hardware, or consider yourself a veteran PC enthusiast, you'd undoubtedly have heard of Plextor. Or, more likely, you've used a Plextor drive at one time or another. The company was known by many for creating quality CD and DVD drives before pivoting to SSDs. For me, my very first beige-colored gaming PC from the 1990s had a Plextor CD-ROM burner.

With such a storied history and one that is built on performance and quality in the CD and DVD-ROM era, the news that Plextor is being shut down is a little 'sad face emoji.' Well, not exactly shut, as reports indicate that Plextor brand owner KIOXIA is simply retiring the name and will continue to release Plextor SSD products with its Solid State Storage Technology (SSSTC) branding.

The transition is underway; the official Plextor website now redirects visitors to SSSTC.com. At the end of the day, we're talking about a name change, but for veteran PC gamers, Plextor has a lot more weight than the generic Solid State Storage Technology branding.

CES 2024 kicks off next week in Las Vegas, and it will be huge. Everyone will be there, including the inventors of NAND flash and one of the leaders in memory and storage, KIOXIA.

AS CES 2024, KIOXIA will showcase its extensive portfolio of products for virtually any solution that uses flash technology, which covers almost everything that has technology! From enterprise servers to VR headsets, vehicles, cameras, portable smart devices, and traditional PCs - flash memory and SSD storage are key components.

KIOXIA will showcase its scalable KIOXIA BiCS FLASH 3D flash memory for a diverse and dynamic market, including cost-effective and high-capacity 4-bit per cell quad-level-cell (QLC) technology and XL-FLASH. The latter is a low-latency, high-performance flash memory solution that delivers the best performance.

As SSD speeds have increased with the arrival of PCIe Gen5 storage solutions, we've also seen SSD cooling and heat dissipation become major concerns. A fast PCIe Gen5 M.2 SSD with an active cooling solution (a tiny fan) is common.

We've also seen some solutions mimic what we've seen in the CPU space with full AIO cooling with radiators. At CES 2024, ADATA will showcase its XPG Project NeonStorm PCIe Gen5 M.2 SSD with a patented built-in liquid cooling design- a self-contained water-cooled SSD.

With an aluminum structure and front and rear fans, it combines AIO liquid cooling with active cooling via fans. "Project NeonStorm is the first M.2 SSD in the industry to introduce water cooling and fans," ADATA writes. "After the coolant absorbs heat, it transfers the heat to aluminum alloy tubes, which then discharges heat through fans at both ends of the radiator, creating a complete convection system."

A new report by TrendForce indicates that prices will increase dramatically for NAND Flash suppliers like Samsung, Kioxia, SK Hynix, and Micron to return to profitability. The price hike could be as high as 50% for NAND Flash (in the short term), leading to SSD prices increasing dramatically in 2024.

"Major domestic players in the NAND Flash industry indicate that NAND Flash suppliers, driven by the goal of profitability, will continue to aggressively raise prices," the report writes. "It is anticipated that prices will need to increase by over 40% once again for major manufacturers to break even."

Yeah, a 40% price hike to break even is quite something and a reminder that the NAND Flash industry is in a very precarious spot at the moment.

KIOXIA has announced that it has started mass production of its new 2 Terabyte capacity microSDXC memory card, making it the smallest and largest storage solution. If you've put a microSD memory card in a Nintendo Switch, Steam Deck, tablet, digital camera, or smartphone, then you'll no doubt be aware of how impressive this is - these things are tiny!

KIOXIA's new EXCERIA PLUS G2 2TB microSDXC memory cards use the company's innovative BiCS FLASH 3D flash memory with a specialized in-house controller to fit 2 TB of storage capacity within the microSD form factor. According to KIOXIA, it has stacked "sixteen 1 terabit dies of 3D flash memory" while staying within the maximum spec thickness of just 0.8mm - remarkable.

You're probably wondering about speed; the KIOXIA's new EXCERIA PLUS G2 2TB microSDXC memory cards meet UHS Speed Class 3, Application Class 1 (A1), and Video Speed Class 30 (V30). In real-world data, this is a read speed of up to 100 MB/s and a write speed of up to 90 MB/s.

MSI has unleashed its new Spatium M750 Pro PCIe Gen5 NVMe M.2 FROZR SSD, packing up to 12.4GB/sec (12,400MB/sec) reads and up to 11.8GB/sec (11,800MB/sec) writes. Our storage editor, Jon Coulter, writes a detailed review you can read here.

MSI's new Spatium 570 Pro SSD is a new Gen5 SSD that has incredible reads and writes, powered by the Phison E26 SSD controller and MSI's in-house towered FROZR heatsink. It's an enthusiast-grade heatsink that features Core Pipes that silently reduce temperatures of the Gen5 SSD by up to 20C under a stylish cover that ensures you're getting those wicked high reads and writes all day and night long.

You can install the new MSI Spatium 570 Pro SSD into your Gen4 M.2 slot and still enjoy 7.3GB/sec (7300MB/sec) reads, meaning that no matter what M.2 SSD slot it goes into, it'll give you huge speeds. Gen5 board owners in particular, with up to 12.4GB/sec is pretty tasty, if you ask me.

PCIe Gen5 storage is well and truly here, offering up to double the speed of Gen4 across bandwidth and transfer. This massive generational leap delivers a sizable performance boost for all applications requiring huge amounts of data - including in the enterprise and server space.

Today, we've got a new announcement from KIOXIA, a leader in flash memory and storage, confirming that its CM7 Series and CD8P Series NVMe Drives have passed certification for PCI Express 5.0 specification and NVMe 2.0 specification compliance. This includes up to 14,000 Megabyte/s of read throughput for a PCIe X4 lane SSD. KIOXIA notes that the PCIe 5.0 tests were carried out at PCI-SIG compliance workshops and can now be found on PCI-SIG Integrator's List.

This is wonderful news for enterprises and the cloud as the KIOXIA CM7 Series and CD8P Series are available in capacities of up to 30.72 TB in 2.5-inch and E3.S form factors.

KIOXIA RM7 Series SSDs are all about value and delivering high performance with a focus on reliability, lower latency than SATA SSDs, and speeds of up to 12Gb/s using the SAS interface (SAS-3). With capacities starting from 960GB and going up to 7.68TB, RM7 Series Value SAS SSDs are now available in HPE's ProLiant Gen11 servers.

And to make the news just that little bit cooler, KIOXIA has confirmed that in addition to ProLiant servers for enterprise, KIOXIA RM Series Value SAS SSDs are also being used aboard the International Space Station (ISS) in the HPE Spaceborne Computer-2 (SBC-2). SBC-2 is currently being used to conduct scientific experiments in orbit around Earth. HPE's next mission to the ISS is scheduled for January.

"With outer space being the most rugged and the furthest edge environment there is, we are very excited to have Value SAS as the core storage technology supporting HPE SBC-2 over the next several years, targeted for the International Space Station," said Faraz Velani, senior director and head of Go-to-Market for the KIOXIA SSD Business Unit.

The new ADATA SD810 External SSD is a serious contender for being one of today's most rugged external SSD and storage solutions. It features triple IP68 waterproof, dustproof, and MIL-STD shockproof protection - so it can withstand any environment on the planet and keep chugging along.

It's also speedy, with the USB 3.2 Gen2 x2 interface (over a Type-C connection) able to deliver read and write speeds of up to 2000 MB/s. In addition to being compatible with all PCs and modern consoles like the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, it supports Apple's new iPhone 15 smartphones to back up photos and videos while out and about.

The ADATA SD810 External SSD is constructed from aluminum alloy with a design that improves heat dissipation and stability compared to other external SSDs. It's also lightweight and smaller than a credit card.