Storage - Page 5

The new WD_BLACK SN8100 Gen5 SSD isn't quite on the market yet, but it has been listed a little early on Amazon Germany with the 1TB Gen5 SSD variant costing around $225 and up to a blistering 14.9GB/sec read speeds.

We should expect a full unveiling of WD's new Gen5 SSDs at Computex 2025 in just a few weeks time, with a launch expected on May 30. Inside, 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.

The company 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) at FMS 2024, with WD's new Gen5 SSDs slowly getting ready for their big reveal, it seems.

XPG, ADATA's enthusiast and gamer brand, has just launched its new MARS 980 Gen5 SSD Series - high-performance PCIe Gen5 SSDs with read speeds of up to 14,000 MB/s and an 'advanced 6nm process controller.' The flagship MARS 980 STORM looks like a tiny cryo or deep sleep chamber from a sci-fi film because it includes a hybrid liquid and active fan cooling system.

With a sequential read/write speed of 14,000/13,000MB per second, the MARS 980 STORM's performance is up there. XPG notes that its blend of liquid cooling and symmetrical dual-fan setup with copper heat pipes reduces temperatures by around 20% compared to a traditional fanless heatsink. The patented design is powered via the M.2 slot, so there's no need for additional cables, and is available in 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB capacities.

The MARS 980 STORM is an SSD built for a high-performance gaming PC, whereas the MARS 980 BLADE is designed for laptops and compact mini-PCs looking to take advantage of the faster speeds PCIe Gen5 SSDs offer. Like the STORM, the BLADE also offers a sequential read/write speed of 14,000/13,000MB per second, using a "highly efficient 6nm controller" for low power consumption and thermal efficiency. Like the STORM, it's also available in capacities of up to 4TB.

Lexar has just launched its new Gen4 and Gen5 SSDs, with its new flagship Professional NM1090 PRO PCIe 5.0 SSD delivering up to 14GB/sec reads and up to 13GB/sec writes.

The new Lexar Professional NM1090 Gen5 SSD packs a new 6nm SSD controller that the company says has optimized heat control for improved performance and customers can pair it with a new AMD Ryzen or Intel Core Ultra 9 series processor for a "next-level game experience". The Gen5 SSD features DRAM cache and SLC dynamic cache to greatly improve data transfer speeds, reduce wait times, and improve system responsiveness.

Lexar also unveiled a new Gen4 SSD with the introduction of the NQ780 M.2 2280 PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD that has been designed with "premium technologies" that deliver read and write speeds of 7GB/sec (7000MB/sec) and 6GB/sec (6000MB/sec), respectively. Lexar's new Gen4 SSD features a single-sided design with Intelligent Power Control that makes it a perfect SSD for your laptop.

Kingston has just silently launched its new Fury Renegade G5 Gen5 SSDs, with speeds of up to a blistering 14.8GB/sec reads, with the 2TB Gen5 SSD starting at $200.

The new flagship Kingston Fury Renegade G5 SSD offers up to 14.8GB/sec (14,800MB/sec) reads and up to 14GB/sec (14,000MB/sec) writes, with up to 2,200,000 IOPS performance. There will be no 512GB variant, with Kingston only releasing a 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB G5 SSD... no 8TB option in sight unfortunately.

Inside, Kingston's new Fury Renegade G5 SSDs are using the Silicon Motion SM2508 controller, which is based on a 6nm chip and uses 3D TLC NAND technology. Kingston's previous-gen Gen4 SSDs in its Fury Renegade family are getting a double up in read/write performance (for the 4TB model, anyway) with IOPS performance skyrocketing by 2.1x to 2.2x, while power consumption is lower at 9.5W for the new G5 Gen5 SSD, compared to 10.2W on the Gen4 G4 SSD.

ADATA has just launched the industry's first SD Express 8.0 compliant card, with a single 512GB capacity and blistering read and write speeds of up to 1.6GB/sec and 1.2GB/sec, respectively.

The new ADATA Premier Extreme SD 8.0 Express memory card will debut in a 512GB capacity, but we should expect higher-capacity 1TB, 2TB, and larger models in the months ahead. SD Express technology was introduced in 2018 with the SD 7.0 standard, but we're only seeing super-fast versions of those SD 7.0 cards recently, thanks mostly to the Nintendo Switch 2.

ADATA's newest Premier Extreme family is being expanded with the new SD Express 8.0 options, featuring a PCIe 3.0 x2 interface, with reads of up to 1.6GB/sec (1600MB/sec) and writes of up to 1.2GB/sec (1200MB/sec).

USB Flash Drives or USB Thumb Drives are still a go-to for many as they offer convenience and portability in a way that is hard to match. The only downside, at least usually, is that this convenience and portability come at a cost - speed. However, that's not the case with the TEAMGROUP X2 MAX USB 3.2 Gen 2x1 Portable SSD, as you're getting SSD technology and speed in the convenient size of a USB Flash Drive.

Available in sizable 1TB or 2TB capacities, the new TEAMGROUP X2 MAX offers transfer speeds of up to 1,000 MB/sec, significantly faster than the 140 MB/s you get from a standard fast USB Flash Drive. With USB Type-A and Type-C connectors, it's compatible with a broad range of devices, from Windows PCs to Macs, iOS devices, and even PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S consoles.

However, when it comes to current-gen games, the speed here is more for backing up games than running them natively, which still requires a dedicated M.2 solution. The TEAMGROUP X2 MAX is fast enough to store and play PlayStation 4 games on a PS5 or Xbox One games on an Xbox Series console, which is impressive.

Dell has just announced that it will be offering Solidigm's massive new 122TB SSD inside of its PowerScale systems, and is the first infrastructure provider to offer storage systems with 122TB SSDs.

Solidigm released its D5-P5336 122TB SSDs in late 2024, offering an astronomical capacity that enabled customers access to close to 6 petabytes (PBs) of storage per server node. Using far larger SSDs is a big business for servers and data centers, minimizing hardware requirements, operational expenses, and energy consumption.

Dell is the first infrastructure provider to offer a storage system with 122TB SSDs. PowerScale's recent updates address key issues related to storage capacity, cost-effectiveness, energy consumption, and system adaptability - helping businesses thrive in a data-centric environment.

Kingston will soon be joining the Gen5 SSD market with the introduction of its new Fury Renegade G5 SSD that will feature up to 14.8GB/sec reads and up to 4TB capacity.

In a new post from VideoCardz, we're learning that the new Kingston Fury Renegade G5 Gen5 SSDs will feature up to 14.8GB/sec (14,800MB/sec) reads and up to 14GB/sec (14,000MB/sec) writes, with up to 2,200,000 IOPS performance. There will be no 512GB variant, with Kingston only releasing a 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB G5 SSD... no 8TB option in sight unfortunately.

Inside, Kingston's new Fury Renegade G5 SSDs are using the Silicon Motion SM2508 controller, which is based on a 6nm chip and uses 3D TLC NAND technology.

The Nintendo Switch 2, like the original, will support microSD cards for storage expansion. However, due to the boost in internal storage and Game Card speeds, microSD cards compatible with the original Nintendo Switch will not work with Switch 2. This is because you'll need one of the new microSD Express cards that supports faster transfer speeds.

During its big Switch 2 presentation, Nintendo confirmed that faster internal and external storage will dramatically improve load times. At the same time, the more rapid transfer speeds will also be critical for streaming things like texture data and other elements when gaming in 4K 60 Hz or 1080p 120 Hz modes.

If this is the first time you've heard of microSD Express cards, you're not alone, as they aren't as widely available as the most standard options compatible with the original Switch. However, if you plan on picking up a Nintendo Switch 2 on June 5 and want more storage, check out the Lexar PLAY PRO microSDXC Express Card - which offers up to 1TB of additional capacity for games.

Chinese manufacturer UNIS has just unveiled its new S5 and S5 Ultra Gen5 SSDs, rocking the fastest Gen5 SSD read speeds of up to 14.9GB/sec, beating out the Gen5 SSD competition.

UNIS's new S5 family includes the base S5 and S5 Ultra, both falling into the M.2 2280 form factor and PCIe 5.0 x4 interface. They've debuted in China and should reach global markets in the future, especially when they're pushing speeds of up to 14.9GB/sec which beats some of the world's biggest and best SSD makers.

The base model UNIS S5 pushes out up to 14.9GB/sec sequential reads and up to 12.9GB/sec sequential writes, beating out the competition -- Samsung 9100 PRO with 14.8GB/sec and Crutial T705 with 14.5GB/sec -- especially when you consider that UNIS is using an older, unknown 12nm controller and a DRAM-less design.

Samsung has just introduced its new 9100 PRO Gen5 SSD with capacities of up to 8TB, and read speeds of up to 14.8GB/sec.

The new Samsung 9100 PRO is a new Gen5 SSD available in 1TB, 2TB, 4TB, and monster 8TB capacities, with close to double the read and write speeds from its Gen4-based 990 PRO SSD. Samsung's new 9100 PRO pushes out up to 14.8GB/sec (14,800MB/sec) read speeds, and up to 13.4GB/sec (13,400MB/sec) writes.

Inside, the new 9100 PRO is using Samsung's in-house V NAND TLC (V8) and eight-gen Vertical NAND, which uses the 1-terabit TLC technology that is capable of reaching up to 2.4Gbps of I/O speed, offering 1.2x the boost compared to the previous-gen SSD. Samsung's new 9100 PRO Gen5 SSD also features greatly improved random read/write speeds with up to 2200K / 2600K IOPS, much higher than the 1400K / 1550K random read/write speeds on the 990 PRO.

PNY has announced the new CS2342 M.2 2230 NVMe, a new PCIe Gen4 storage solution with one of the fastest read and write speeds for a 2230 SSD - 7,300 and 6,000 MB/s, respectively. With fast transfer and read speeds, PNY says it's perfect for portable PC gaming handhelds like Valve's Steam Deck and ASUS's ROG Ally.

Available at retail in late March, in 1TB and 2TB capacities, it offers an upgrade option for gamers, creators, and enthusiasts with devices that feature an M.2 2230 slot for storage or expansion. The 2TB capacity option makes the most sense for gamers as game install sizes in 2025 aren't getting any smaller, and most affordable portable gaming handhelds are sold with 512Gb or 1TB capacities.

Of course, the big selling point here is speed. Having the capacity to store more games is one thing, but having titles load in a few seconds and not run into any throughput issues is key for a seamless experience. PNY notes that the CS2342 has been designed for seamless integration when installed in a Steam Deck, ROG Ally, or MSI Claw handheld.

NVIDIA GTC 2025, the AI conference for developers, is underway this week. The industry is gathering to explore and share what's next in AI, robotics, and accelerated computing. KIOXIA, the inventor of flash memory, a key technology that helped usher in the AI era of computing, is at GTC 2025, showcasing its latest SSD innovations and AI solutions.

This includes the recently announced KIOXIA LC9 Series NVMe 122.88 TB SSD, which is built for the AI era. The 2.5-inch form factor SSD is the first in KIOXIA's line-up built with eighth-generation BiCS FLASH technology, a 2Tb QLC die, and CBA (CMOS directly Bonded to Array) technology. This high-capacity PCIe 5.0 SSD is tailor-made for AI systems training large language models (LLMs) and cloud computing.

At GTC 2025, KIOXIA (located at booth #1811 on the show floor of the San Jose McEnery Convention Center) will also present a live demo of its groundbreaking KIOXIA All-in-Storage ANNS with Product Quantization (KIOXIA AiSAQ) technology. This technology leverages SSD storage instead of expensive DRAM to improve AI RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation) performance dramatically.

KIOXIA, the inventor of flash memory and pioneer in storage solutions, has announced its new LC9 Series NVMe SSD, available in the popular 2.5-inch form factor. With a storage capacity of a whopping 122.88 Terabytes (TBs), it's also the first SSD from the company to have been built with the latest eighth-generation BiCS FLASH technology with a 2 Tb QLC die and CBA (CMOS directly Bonded to Array) technology.

Personally, when I see 122.88 TBs on a single SSD, my mind immediately wanders to being able to install every game in my Steam library, which I accumulated after a decade of seasonal sales. Of course, high-capacity drives are a critical component of building AI systems, training large language models (LLMs), retrieving data for inference, and designing generative AI applications that will drive the future of local and cloud computing.

The KIOXIA LC9 Series NVMe 122.88 TB SSD is an enterprise-class product compliant with the PCIe 5.0 specification, NVMe 2.0, and NVMe-MI. As a high-capacity QLC-based SSD, it's ideal for deploying in a hybrid cloud or AI server. It's also perfect for pairing with KIOXIA's groundbreaking AiSAQ, which uses SSDs instead of RAM to dramatically improve RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation) performance.

Sabrent has just unveiled its first massive-capacity SSD with the introduction of the Rocket Enterprise PCIe 4.0 U2/U.3 NVMe SSD which has been designed for the enterprise with high-intensity workloads.

The new Sabrent Rocket Enterprise SSD comes in capacities of between 1.92TB up to a huge 30.72TB, with up to 7GB/sec (7000MB/sec) sequential reads and up to 6.8GB/sec (6800MB/sec) sequential writes, with up to 1600K IOPS for 4K random reads. It has everything you need for AI workloads, server applications, and large-scale data management.

Sabrent's massive 30.72TB SSD is built to withstand up to one drive write per day (DWPD) at up to over 56PBW with the 30.72TB model. UBER is at <1 sector per 10^18 bits read with an MTBF of 2.5M hours. The drive is also durable to survive various environments. This is not your usual retail consumer SSD. It supports E2E metadata protection, namespaces, and power loss protection (PLP) as well as NVMe-MI over SMBus and VPD. The drive also has intelligent thermal management to protect data.

Samsung has officially unveiled its next-gen 9100 PRO Gen5 SSDs, with read speeds of up to 14.8GB/sec and comes in up to a monster 8TB capacity. Check it out:

The new Samsung 9100 PRO Gen5 SSD has sequential read speeds of up to 14.8GB/sec (14,800MB/sec) and writes of up to 13.4GB/sec (13,400MB/sec) which is a huge 99% performance improvement over the last-gen 990 PRO Gen4 SSD. The random reads and writes are now also much higher at 2200K IOPS and 2600K IOPS, respectively.

Samsung has designed an advanced heat management solution on the 9100 PRO Gen5 SSD that improves power efficiency by up to 49% over previous-gen models, with its optimized thermal pad integrated 8.8mmT heatsink for 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB capacities, with a thicker 11.25mmT heatsink for 8TB Gen5 SSD.

A new fraud scandal has emerged involving the sale of used hard drives from data storage manufacturer Seagate. An investigation by Heise has revealed that used HDDs have been sold across global markets as 'brand new,' with over 200 cases confirmed worldwide.

Investigations have traced the scam back to several German retailers, including Alternate.De, Wortmann, Galaxus, and Proshop. Similar used drives have also been identified in adjacent European regions, along with cases confirmed across Australia, Japan, and Thailand.

Many of the drives are recorded to have logged between 15,000 and 50,000 hours of use prior to their resale, with affected units traced back to mining operations in China. The units were used to mine Chia, a popular cryptocurrency that led to a surge in HDD demand during the early years of the pandemic.

USB flash drives have been around for decades; however, their convenience has waned in recent years due to the speeds no longer being that great for dealing with media and other large files. This is where PNY's new Ultra-Fast PRO Elite V3 flash drives come in, delivering read speeds of up to 1,000 MB/sec and write speeds of up to 800 MB/sec.

These are the speeds you can expect from SSD storage. They are not the fast PCIe Gen 5 kind, but they are a significant improvement over that draw full of USB flash drives we all have. The big speed increase is due to the shift to a USB Type-C interface and the USB 3.2 Gen 2 interface for the new PNY PRO Elite V3 Type-C USB 3.2 Gen 2 Flash Drives.

Available in capacities from 256GB ($29.99) to 2TB ($144.99), it offers a fast, portable storage solution that is a fraction of the size of a portable SSD. It's also versatile and backward compatible with USB 3.2 Gen 1, USB 3.0, and USB 2.0 ports.

Lenovo has a novel idea for an external SSD that's shaped like a grenade, although clearly this design choice is a potentially troublesome one for travelers.

It's not difficult to imagine that this could be problematic at airport security, where the drive is going to, well, look like a grenade when going through the luggage scanning process. Which could lead to a request to 'step aside' for the owner, and a subsequent grilling from the security personnel on duty, and ensuing delay.

It's also possible that just like toy guns, a grenade-shaped portable drive might be misunderstood in a broader way, outside of the airport, leading to trouble with the authorities in one way or another.

Minisforum had something truly interesting to show off at CES 2025 this year, a new AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX PRO 370 "Strix Point" APU-powered 5-bay NAS. Check it out:

Minisforum's new N5 Pro NAS features the Strix Point APU from AMD, up to 96GB of DDR5-5600 ECC RAM, supports up to 144TB of storage, has ultra-fast 10GbE ethernet, and even an OCulink port. The Strix Point APU has 12 cores and 24 threads of Zen 5 processing power, while the 96GB of RAM arrives in SO-DIMM modules -- not pre-soldered LPDDR5X -- meaning it can be upgraded.

On the storage side of things, the Minisforum N5 Pro NAS supports up to 8 storage devices through 5 x 3.5-inch SATA 3.0 bays, 1 x M.2 2280 / 22110 Gen4x2 slot, 1 x M.2 2280 / 2210 Gen4x1 slot, and 1 x M.2 2230 / 2280 Gen4x1 slot. There's 10GbE and 5GbE ethernet ports, 2 x USB 4 ports, built-in HDMI, and more. The HDMI pot allows the Strix Point APU-powered Minisforum N5 Pro NAS to be used as a Mini-PC, too.