Storage
Although Sony's PlayStation 5 game console fully supports off-the-shelf PCIe 4.0 solid-state drives, Sony initially limited the maximum capacity to 4 TB. Recently the company removed that cap as part of the PS5 8.00 firmware update, and now the system can support drives with up to 8 TB. Sabrent, in turn, is among the first SSD makers to offer an 8 TB drive specifically marketed for the PS5. "PC and PS5 enthusiasts have long anticipated the expansion of internal storage capacity, and now, this dream has become a reality with the introduction of the Sabrent 8TB Rocket 4 Plus SSD," a statement by Sabrent reads. Sabrent's Rocket 4 Plus 8 TB is based on a Phison platform and is actually a bit faster than the rest...
Dropbox Shares Preparations for HAMR Hard Drives, Focusing On Reducing Drive Vibrations
Dropbox was among the first large cloud service providers (CSPs) providers to deploy hard drives that use shingled magnetic recording (SMR) to increase storage density of its datacenters. As...
4 by Anton Shilov on 3/13/2023First PCIe Gen5 SSDs Finally Hit Shelves - But The Best Is Yet To Come
This week, consumer-grade PCIe 5.0 M.2 drives have finally hit the U.S. market, well over a year since the first client PC platforms supporting PCIe Gen5 became available. The...
29 by Anton Shilov on 3/3/2023OWC Envoy Pro Mini Review: SSD in a Thumb Drive Exceeds Expectations
OWC has been a key player in the storage industry over the last few decades, particularly for Apple users. Their lineup of portable flash-based direct-attached storage devices has a...
19 by Ganesh T S on 3/2/2023Silicon Motion SM2268XT DRAM-less NVMe SSD Controller: PCIe 4.0 Speeds on a Budget
The excitement in the client SSD space recently has understandably been on the Gen 5 front. However, cooling requirements have made it difficult for vendors to bring effective M.2...
17 by Ganesh T S on 2/16/2023Western Digital Launches 22 TB HDD for Consumers in Updated My Book Portfolio
Western Digital's 22 TB hard disk drives hit retail in July 2022, with a trio of products catering to the prosumer and business / enterprise markets. Today, the company...
13 by Ganesh T S on 2/15/2023Western Digital Unveils Dual Actuator Ultrastar DC HS760 20TB HDD
Without much fanfare, Western Digital this week introduced its first dual actuator hard drive, a 20TB drive that is designed to offer SATA SSD-like sequential read/write performance. The Ultrastar...
35 by Anton Shilov on 2/1/2023Samsung Portable SSD T7 Shield 4TB Review: IP65 PSSD Gets a Capacity Upgrade
Samsung has been enjoying market success with their lineup of portable SSDs, starting with the T1 back in 2015. The company has been regularly updating their PSSD lineup with...
13 by Ganesh T S on 1/31/2023Seagate Confirms 30TB+ HAMR HDDs in Q3, Envisions 50TB Drives in a Few Years
Seagate this week confirmed plans to launch the industry's first 30+ TB hard drive that uses its heat assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) technology, as well as reaffirming its commitment...
70 by Anton Shilov on 1/27/2023Micron Launches 9400 NVMe Series: U.3 SSDs for Data Center Workloads
Micron is taking the wraps off their latest data center SSD offering today. The 9400 NVMe Series builds upon Micron's success with their third-generation 9300 series introduced back in...
18 by Ganesh T S on 1/9/2023WD_BLACK P40 Game Drive USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 Portable SSD Review: Balanced Storage
Western Digital had announced new products in the WD_BLACK lineup back in May 2022 to augment their offerings in the gaming market. The WD_BLACK P40 Game Drive SSD was...
6 by Ganesh T S on 11/18/2022Best Internal Hard Drives: Holiday 2022
Data storage requirements have kept increasing over the last several years. While SSDs have taken over the role of the primary drive in most computing systems, hard drives continue...
44 by Ganesh T S on 11/4/2022SanDisk Professional PRO-G40 Thunderbolt / USB Dual-Mode Portable SSD Review
Western Digital is introducing a new flagship portable SSD today under the SanDisk Professional brand. The PRO-G40 dual-mode PSSD ticks all the right boxes for prosumers, content creators, and...
13 by Ganesh T S on 10/6/2022SK hynix Announces 238 Layer NAND - Mass Production To Start In H1'2023
As the 2022 Flash Memory Summit continues, SK hynix is the latest vendor to announce their next generation of NAND flash memory at the show. Showcasing for the first...
9 by Ryan Smith on 8/4/2022Solidigm Announces P41 Plus SSD: Taking Another Shot at QLC With Cache Tiering
Although Intel is no longer directly in the SSD market these days, their SSD team and related technologies continue to live on under the SK hynix umbrella as Solidigm...
44 by Ryan Smith on 8/2/2022Compute Express Link (CXL) 3.0 Announced: Doubled Speeds and Flexible Fabrics
While it’s technically still the new kid on the block, the Compute Express Link (CXL) standard for host-to-device connectivity has quickly taken hold in the server market. Designed to...
4 by Ryan Smith on 8/2/2022Phison and Seagate Announce X1 SSD Platform: U.3 PCIe 4.0 x4 with 128L eTLC
Phison and Seagate have been collaborating on SSDs since 2017 in the client as well as SMB/SME space. In April 2022, they had announced a partnership to develop and...
15 by Ganesh T S on 8/2/2022Akasa AK-ENU3M2-07 USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 SSD Enclosure Review: 20Gbps with Excellent Thermals
Storage bridges have become an ubiquitous part of today's computing ecosystems. The bridges may be external or internal, with the former ones enabling a range of direct-attached storage (DAS...
15 by Ganesh T S on 8/1/2022Intel To Wind Down Optane Memory Business - 3D XPoint Storage Tech Reaches Its End
It appears that the end may be in sight for Intel’s beleaguered Optane memory business. Tucked inside a brutal Q2’2022 earnings release for the company (more on that a...
70 by Ryan Smith on 7/28/2022Silicon Motion Announces SM8366 PCIe 5.0 x4 NVMe Controller and MonTitan SSD Solutions Platform for Enterprise Storage
In the lead up to the Flash Memory Summit next week, many vendors have started announcing their new products. Today, Silicon Motion is unveiling their first enterprise-focused PCIe 5.0...
3 by Ganesh T S on 7/28/2022Micron’s 232 Layer NAND Now Shipping: 1Tbit, 6-Plane Dies With 50% More I/O Bandwidth
Ahead of next week’s Flash Memory Summit, Micron this morning is announcing that their next-generation 232 layer NAND has begun shipping. The sixth generation of Micron’s 3D NAND technology...
18 by Ryan Smith on 7/26/2022