SSDs
When Western Digital introduced its Ultrastar DC SN861 SSDs earlier this year, the company did not disclose which controller it used for these drives, which made many observers presume that WD was using an in-house controller. But a recent teardown of the drive shows that is not the case; instead, the company is using a controller from Fadu, a South Korean company founded in 2015 that specializes on enterprise-grade turnkey SSD solutions. The Western Digital Ultrastar DC SN861 SSD is aimed at performance-hungry hyperscale datacenters and enterprise customers which are adopting PCIe Gen5 storage devices these days. And, as uncovered in photos from a recent Storage Review article, the drive is based on Fadu's FC5161 NVMe 2.0-compliant controller. The FC5161 utilizes 16 NAND channels supporting...
Crucial Provides a Firmware Update for M4 to Fix The BSOD Issue
Last week, we wrote about the BSOD issue that Crucial's M4 SSDs were experiencing. After 5184 hours (yes, that's the specific number) of active use, the SSD started to...
15 by Kristian Vättö on 1/14/2012Super Talent: Demos PCIe-based RAIDDrive upStream and RAIDDrive II SSDs
It’s a bit sad, really: SATA 6Gbps ony a couple years old and already we’re seeing SSDs push the limits of the interface. While the SATA spec will eventually...
5 by Jarred Walton on 1/12/2012Some Thoughts on SandForce's 3rd Generation SSD Controller
I spent a few minutes talking to SandForce in between meetings today and got a general idea of what a third generation SF controller might look like. The SandForce...
14 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 1/12/2012Corsair Continues to Expand
Corsair has been making a tremendous number of waves over the past year, as announcements made at last year's CES are beginning to come to fruition. They continue to...
9 by Dustin Sklavos on 1/12/2012Crucial 50GB Adrenaline SSD Cache, Available in Q1
Earlier this week Crucial announced its first SSD caching solution: the Adrenaline SSD. The drive will be available in a single capacity: 50GB with 64GB of 25nm MLC NAND...
15 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 1/11/2012Mushkin's 1.8", mSATA & PCIe SF-2281 SSDs at CES
The SSD market is continuing to grow and we're seeing no slowdown in the number of players trying to get in on the action. Mushkin, one of the first...
4 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 1/10/2012Patriot SSDs, Flash, and Large Memory Applications
Patriot has been supplying memory products for some time now, and they had the usual assortment of SSDs, RAM, USB, and other Flash products on display in their suite...
4 by Jarred Walton on 1/10/2012OCZ Scores an Ultrabook Design Win for Everest: LG Super Ultrabook Z300
OCZ is on a roll at CES this year. It just announced LG's Super Ultrabook Z300 will ship with a 256GB mSATA Indilinx Everest based SSD. I'm still trying...
4 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 1/9/2012OCZ Z-Drive R4 CloudServ (RM1616) Features Sixteen SandForce Controllers
The Z-Drive R4 is a PCIe SSD available in 4 and 8-controller versions targeted squarely at the enterprise. Apparently some of OCZ's customers wanted an even beefier version, which...
6 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 1/9/2012OCZ's 4TB 3.5" Chiron SSD
Take four Indilinx Everest controllers, put them behind custom OCZ FPGAs that implement its own VCA (RAID-like) architecture and you've got the Chiron. The complete enclosure provides support for...
9 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 1/9/2012OCZ's Portable Thunderbolt SSD: Lightfoot
I mentioned earlier that we'll be seeing more Thunderbolt devices at CES this year, but what I wasn't expecting was for one of those devices to be made by...
12 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 1/9/2012OCZ's Indilinx Everest 2 Launching in June 2012, Features Vastly Improved Random Performance
OCZ has a lot to show off this year at CES/Storage Visions, but the most exciting product from a client standpoint is its new Everest 2 controller. While the...
11 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 1/9/2012OWC Mercury Aura Pro Express 6G 480GB SSD Upgrade for MacBook Air
OWC released a SandForce SF-2281 based 2011 MacBook Air SSD upgrade earlier this year in 120GB and 240GB capacities (the Mercury Aura Pro Express 6G). Using Hynix 2x-nm NAND...
5 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 1/8/2012Crucial to Fix M4 BSOD Issue in Two Weeks
Here we go again. Pretty much every SATA 6Gb/s SSD offering has experienced some issues and it appears the Crucial M4 is no exception. There have been threads about...
40 by Kristian Vättö on 1/6/2012OCZ & Marvell Create Native PCIe SSD Controller, Z-Drive R5 to Debut Next Week
Just a couple of months after launching its first SATA based SSD controller developed in-house, OCZ is announcing a PCIe based SSD controller co-developed with Marvell. The controller is...
22 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 1/6/2012OCZ Octane 128GB SSD Review
Earlier this year OCZ acquired Indilinx, one of the first SSD controller makers to really make a splash in the enthusiast community. Ever since OCZ entered the SSD business...
39 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 12/28/2011Apple Acquires Anobit: Bringing NAND Endurance Technology In-House
I'd seen speculation that Apple was going to drop $500M on Anobit over the past few weeks. Ars Technica also published a piece believing the acquisition to be true...
30 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 12/21/2011Updated: OCZ's Petrol SSD: More Affordable Indilinx Everest
Last month OCZ introduced the Octane, its first SSD based on the now in-house Indilinx Everest controller. The drive did reasonably well in our tests and was priced competitively...
18 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 12/13/2011Hard Drive Shortage Hits Intel: Q4'11 Earning Estimates Revised Down By $1B
It has been expected for some time now that the fallout from Thailand’s well publicized flooding and resulting hard drive shortage would have wider ramifications than just impacting the...
26 by Ryan Smith on 12/12/2011Intel and Micron (IMFT) Announce World's First 128Gb 20nm MLC NAND
Earlier this year, Intel and Micron's joint NAND manufacturing venture (IMFT) announced it had produced 64Gb (8GB) MLC NAND on a 20nm process. Most IMFT NAND that's used in...
36 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 12/6/2011