Storage News - Page 65

CES 2015 - We learned today that Samsung plans to release two small form factor products from the 850 EVO product series. This news comes on the heels of Samsung's new portable USB 3.0 SSD that uses the same 3D V-NAND technology found in the company's successful 3bit per cell 2.5" form factor products.

The 850 EVO series won high praise from product reviewers for performance, endurance and warranty length that are all above other products in the price class.

The mSATA form factor gained popularity in notebook and small form factor systems three years ago. There are a number of existing systems in customer hands, many that shipped with smaller, slower solid state drives from system builders.

CES 2015 -Toshiba has announced a new SSHD (Solid-State Hybrid Drive) featuring Toshiba's A19nm NAND. We actually found the Toshiba SSHD hiding out in another manufacturers booth, so we had the chance to grab a few pictures. Please note that these may not be final production run models. The Drive Revision number AAA indicates that this is likely not the final product. The new series consists of two drive models. The MQ02ABD100H features 1TB of capacity, and the MQ02ABF050H we found comes with 500GB of capacity.

The 500GB model pictured above comes with a slim 7mm z-height, and the 1TB model features a 9.5mm z-height. SSHD's have a small complimentary amount of NAND, and hot data is dynamically placed on the faster NAND media. This provides tremendous performance advantages, while still delivering plenty of capacity. Both models can be used for high-performance computers, but the 500GB model is also an obvious fit for mobile applications.

This new revision differs from previous Toshiba SSHDs, which used separate controllers to manage the HDD and the NAND. On the new models the onboard NAND is also controlled by the drive's HDD controller chip. Merging these functions will reduce design complexity and also likely draw less power, and with the mobile-oriented design of the 500GB this will help to improve battery life. Yes, we asked to remove the PCB for a closer look at the new implementation, but that request was denied. Toshiba is the only HDD manufacturer with NAND fabrication capabilities, they actually invented NAND, and flash will comprise nearly half of their revenue by the end of the fiscal year. It would be natural to assume there will be more refined integration between Toshiba NAND and HDDs in the future.

CES 2015 - Hardware specialist Crucial has shown off its MX200 and BX100 solid state drives (SSDs), with increased storage capacities and faster read and write speeds.

The MX200SD will be available in 250GB ($139.99), 500GB ($249.99), and 1TB (469.99) capacities, with 555MB/s and 500MB/s read and write speeds. In addition, the Crucial MX200 is the only consumer SSD product with Dynamic Write Acceleration, making data transfers even faster.

The BX100 SSD will be available in 120GB ($69.99), 250GB ($109.99), 500GB ($199.99), and 1TB (399.99) storage capacities, promising 535MB/s and 450MB/s sequential read and write speeds. It is the first Crucial drive that will make use of the Silicon Motion SM2246EN controller, helping make the SSD perform better and consume less power.

CES 2015 - Corsair is a company that never disappoints, so when we visited them at CES 2015, we walked away with a great look at what they've been working on lately.

One of the stand out things at CES 2015 for Corsair was their really quite stunning orange and black setup, using a Hydro Series CPU cooler, some Dominator DDR4 RAM and a GIGABYTE motherboard which all matched. The Hydro Series cooler had a tweak to it however, as that orange ring is not standard - maybe Corsair should look into providing different colored rings with their coolers from now on?

This is one of Corsair's newer products, the Neutron XT series SSD.

Samsung announced today that they have begun mass production of their high-performance, low-powered PCIe solid state drives. The SM951 is designed with ultra-slim notebooks in mind, with Jeeho Baek, Samsung's Senior Vice President of Memory Marketing, commenting "we are helping to accelerate growth of the ultra-slim notebook PC market with the introduction of this energy-efficient, high-speed PCIe SSD. We will continue to introduce next-generation high-density SSDs with improved performance and increased differentiation, as we further strengthen our business competitiveness in global SSD market."

Supporting both PCIe 3.0 and PCI 2.0 interfaces, Samsung claim their product can read and write at sequential speeds of 1,600 MB/s and 1,350 MB/s respectively. Being three times faster than SATA SSD technology and 30 percent faster than the Samsung XP941, these products are set to be a real winner.

The SM951 is also the first SSD to utilize the L1.2 low power standby mode, allowing all high-speed circuits to be turned off when a PC is sleeping or in hibernation, marking a 97 percent decrease from the 50mW consumed previously - this new device uses under 2mW of power to function.

CES 2015 - Performance hardware company Mushkin has announced its STRIKER series of solid state drives, with read and write speeds up to 565MB/s and 550MB/s.

The drives will be available in storage capacities ranging from 240GB up to 960GB, but pricing details weren't released. Utilizing the Phison PS3110-S10 controller, the STRIKER SSDs have the following specifications: quad-core, 8-channel, 256-bit AES encryption, SATA 3.0 support, high-speed MLC NAND, 2.5" 7mm form factor, and user-upgradeable firmware.

The Mushkin STRIKER SSD series will launch during Q1 2015 in all size capacities.

CES 2015 -Seagate has managed to fit 500GB into an amazingly slim external hard drive. The aptly-named Seven is only 7mm thick, and is intended for users on the go who require plenty of storage capacity. The Seven connects via the speedy USB 3.0 interface, and is manufactured from premium steel to withstand the rigors of portable use. Even with its rugged exterior the Seven manages to be aesthetically pleasing and feather light.

The Seven is thin even in comparison to a modern smartphone, and below we can see the size of one of the first 500GB HDDs. Storage has certainly came a long way, and with SSD manufacturers beginning to encroach upon the external storage market Seagate is upping their game to compete by offering the highest capacity available in external storage devices, and now also the thinnest.

Storage Visions 2015 -Chris Bross from DriveSavers stopped by the TweakTown booth to discuss the latest in data recovery technology. Increasing HDD capacity presents numerous problems, both with storing data and with recovering it. We also recently had the opprutunity to tour DriveSavers labs, and covered the data recovery process in our DriveSavers Data Recovery Site Tour - Your Data, Recovered article.

New drive technologies, such as helium drives and SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recovery), add another layer of complexity that DriveSavers has to master to continue to offer data recovery services. New types of software layers and filesystems also present more hurdles, but DriveSavers maintains close contact with all storage vendors to enhance their data recovery services.

Storage Visions 2015 -Dinesh Bahal from SanDisk stopped by the TweakTown booth to discuss SanDisk's latest offering, the SSD Plus. The SSD Plus is an entry-level SSD based upon second-generation 19nm NAND.

The SSD Plus comes in 120 and 240GB capacities, and is geared specifically for the entry-level market with a price of $70 and $110. SanDisk also announced the mSATA variant of the Ultra II. The mSATA Ultra II comes in capacities of 128, 256, and 512GB. It will retail for $74, $116, and $221 and will reach the market this quarter. Both SSDs also come wich SanDisk's toolbox, which eases data migration and simplifies drive management tasks.

Following suit of their high performance/high capacity flash drives, Patriot are extending their SSD series - launching the Ignite.

The Patriot Ignite SATA III SSD is claimed by Patriot in their latest press release as "one of the fastest drives available, the Ignite has record shattering speeds and impressive capacities to boost PC performance at a cost efficient value." Being released in 480GB and 960GB versions, these SSDs are Patriot's largest offerings yet.

To help you fill your spacious drive and access your programs as fast as possible, the "Patriot Ignite utilizes the new Phison S10 controller to reach a maximum sequential read and write speeds of up to 560MB/s and 545MB/s respectively and backed by a SATA III 6.0 Gb/s interface." This speed and storage comes at a price however, with the 480GB edition set to cost you $214.99 on release this month alongside it's bigger brother, the 960GB, which will cost users $404.99.