Storage News - Page 6

KIOXIA has announced that its next-gen PM7 Series of enterprise SAS SSDs are "available for customer evaluation", further cementing KIOXIA's dominance as the SAS market leader.

The new KIOXIA PM7 Series SSDs are aimed at enterprise applications, high-performance computing (HPC), artificial intelligence (AI), caching leader, and financial trading and analysis. KIOXIA is pumping in more speed, reliability, and security with the new PM7 Series SSDs.

KIOXIA's new PM7 Series is FIPS 140-2 certified, and currently under testing for its FIPS 140-3 certification. The 24G SAS connectivity joined by KIOXIA's 5th Generation BiCS FLASH 3D TLC flash memory means we can enjoy sequential reads of up to 4.2GB/sec (4200MB/sec), 720K random read IOPS, and up to 355K random write IOPS. KIOXIA is making the drives available in up to a huge 30.72TB capacity, the industry's highest 2.5-inch SAS SSD.

Sabrent has just unleashed its new Thunderbolt 3 16TB NVMe SSD Docking Station, which turns your PC into a full-fledged workstation with a considerable amount of power and connectivity for content creators and power users.

Inside, there's a 16TB SSD from Sabrent that pushes out up to 1.5GB/sec (1500MB/sec) and with its huge amount of connectivity, it's almost like a better-than-NUC-style, well, NUC. You've got 2 x Thunderbolt 3 ports with up to 40Gbps of bandwidth, 2 x USB 3.2 Type-A ports, and 1 x USB 3.2 Type-C port which both are capable of up to 10Gbps.

There's also a USB 3.0 Type-A port that's good for up to 5Gbps, and a BC12 5V@2.4A charger for your smartphone, tablet, and other devices. Sabrent includes DisplayPort 1.4 connectivity, which is good for up to 8K30 and 5K30 (as well as 4K60 and other lower resolutions). There's HDR, HDCP 2.2, and VESA Adaptive-Sync (FreeSync).

Can you believe it has been 35 years since the creation of NAND flash technology? We've come a gigantic distance in that time... not just in the cost of NAND flash, but how many more facets NAND flash crawled into when it comes to the foundation of our very lives.

Back when you visited libraries to get information in the 1990s, the cost of storage was $10,000+ per GB (gigabyte) of storage and the die density was 4Mb. There was around 1/16 of a song could be stored on a 4Mb NAND die, and 1/8 of a photo could be stored on the same NAND die.

But today... well, we're looking at around $0.20 per GB (gigabyte) of storage and die density of 1.44Tb. Back in the 90s we had just 1/16 of a song on 4Mb NAND die, we now have 20,000 songs on 1.33Tb NAND die, while 1/8 of a photo was all you could store on 4Mb NAND in the 90s you can store a huge 39,000 photos on a 1.33Tb NAND die.

MSI has just revealed its new SPATIUM M450 series SSDs available on the super-fast PCIe 4.0 standard and using high-quality, high-density 3D NAND flash.

The new MSI SPATIUM M450 PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSDs come in 250GB, 500GB, and 1TB capacities with speeds topping out at 3.6GB/sec (3600MB/sec) reads, and up to 3GB/sec (3000MB/sec) writes on the 1TB model. MSI's new SPATIUM M450 PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD in the 500GB capacity offers 3.6GB/sec (3600MB/sec) reads, and up to 2.3GB/sec (2300MB/sec) writes, while the 250GB model has up to 3.5GB/sec (3500MB/sec) reads and up to 1.2GB/sec (1200MB/sec) writes.

All of the new MSI SPATIUM M450 SSDs use the Phison's E19T controller, arrive in the M.2 2280 form factor, and are -- as always -- backward compatible with PCIe Gen3, Gen2, and Gen1. There's a 5-year warranty on the drives, or once you hit their TBW (terabytes written) which is up to 150, 300, and 600 for the 250GB, 500GB, and 1TB models respectively.

Rambus has joined its competitors in announcing a next-gen PCIe 6.0 controller for next-generation data centers.

The new Rambus PCIe 6.0 controller will allow super-speeds across data-intensive markets, these include not just data centers but also AI (artificial intelligence) and ML (machine learning) as well as IoT (Internet of Things), defense, and aerospace.

Sean Fan, chief operating officer at Rambus explains: "The rapid advancement of AI/ML and data-intensive workloads requires that we continue to provide higher data rate solutions with best-in-class latency, power, and area. As the latest addition to our portfolio of industry-leading interface IP, our PCIe 6.0 Controller offers customers an easy to integrate solution that delivers both performance and security for advanced SoCs and FPGAs".

Micron has just announced it's now shipping the industry's first 176-layer QLD NAND flash (quad-level cell) for SSDs, with the new Micron 2400 SSD PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD now shipping to customers.

The new Micron 2400 SSDs ship in various form factors: M.2 22x30mm, M.2 22x42mm, and M.2 22x80mm with 512GB, 1TB, and 2TB capacities available in each form factor -- even the tiny 22x30mm form factor. The new 176-layer QLC NAND flash inside of the Micron 2400 SSDs has up to 33% faster I/O throughput, and up to 24% less read latency.

Micron's new flagship 2400 SSD in 2TB offers up to 4.5GB/sec (4500MB/sec) reads, and up to 4GB/sec (4000MB/sec) writes while random reads are at 650K IOPS, while random writes hit 700K IOPs.

KIOXIA might not have been physically at CES 2022, pulling out over the Omicron pandemic panic, but the company had some sweet stuff to show off virtually.

KIOXIA teased its next-gen CD7 PCIe 5.0 NVMe Data Center SSD, an industry-first, with PCIe 5.0 rolling out on Intel's new Z690 chipset motherboards and into the data centers and HPC systems of the world. KIOXIA also showed off its new XD6 Gen4 NVMe SSD on the smaller EDSFF E1.S form factor, pushing a huge 7GB/sec reads.

Alex Mei, vice president of corporate marketing for KIOXIA America, Inc said: "The KIOXIA legacy of innovation continues with product introductions such as the latest generation of BiCS FLASH 3D flash memory and our new BG5 Series solid state drives. Whether it is automotive applications or compact high performance-oriented PCs, we are committed to developing flash storage solutions that enable the success of emerging applications and allow existing technologies to reach their full potential".

Phison will be detailing its new PCIe 5.0 SSD controller at CES 2022 this week, with the new PS5026-E26 SSD controller to be finally unveiled. Check out Phison's video first:

The new Phison PS5026-E26 SSD controller can breach 10GB/sec transfer speeds without a problem, with Phison saying that even at these speeds it can maintain the "power requirements of all-day computing". Maybe we're seeing 10GB/sec versus 14-16GB/sec so that we don't need AIOs on our SSDs eventually.

Phison explains: "The E26 SSD solution is the best-in-class combination of performance and low-power using Phison's unique architecture. E26 is a customizable SSD platform designed for PCIe Gen5 that will span enterprise and consumer markets. The company's first Gen5 controller will ship in multiple form factors and features with the ability to scale beyond 10 GB/s while meeting power requirements for all-day computing. Phison will show the E26 for the first time at CES 2022".

Samsung unveiled its next-gen PM1743 PCIe 5.0 SSD a few days ago, and now Ryan Shrout -- who now works for Intel, he used to own and run PC Perspective -- has run the Samsung PM1743 on a fresh new Intel Alder Lake-based Core i9-12900K system.

Intel had planned to show off the Samsung PM1743 PCIe 5.0 SSD at CES 2022 next week, but with more and more companies pulling out of physical in-person attendance at CES 2022, the company decided to get Shrout to work over the holidays. This isn't a bad thing, because I would've (hell, I haven't stopped bar ~24 hours for Christmas or so) especially when it's something this exciting.

The new Intel Core i9-12900K processor was installed onto an ASUS ROG Maximum Z690 APEX motherboard -- don't worry, it's not the one that can catch fire -- with an EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 graphics card installed. The motherboard has 2 x PCIe 5.0 slots (x16 and x8) so with the GPU occupying the first PCIe 5.0 slot, the second slot had an AIB installed that allowed Shrout to install the Samsung PM1743 SSD -- the adapter, converts the enterprise-tier (or any other 2.5-inch drive) into the PCIe slot on a x4 interface.

COLORFUL has just introduced 2 new entry-level PCIe 3.0 NVMe M.2 SSDs, with the new Warhalberd CN600 NVMe SSD being offered in 256GB and 512GB capacities.

The new Warhalberd CN600 NVMe SSDs are the first PCIe 3.0 NVMe SSDs that COLORFUL has made, with the Chinese manufacturer teaming with Yangtze Memory (YMTC) and Maxio Technology for its new CN600 SSD. The collaboration between the 3 companies allowed COLORFUL to ensure the quality and performance of the flash components and the NVMe controller.

COLORFUL's new entry-level Warhalberd CN600 NVMe SSDs are available in the low-profile form in the standard 2280 M.2 form factor, which means it'll fit into virtually anything: desktop PCs, laptops, ultrabooks, and mini-PCs. The PCIe 3.0 x4 interface allows it to reach not-so-entry-level read speeds of up to 3.3GB/sec (3300MB/sec) and writes of up to 2.6GB/sec (2600MB/sec).