Items tagged with SSD
One of the best features of Sony's PlayStation 5 is the ability to upgrade the console's internal storage via an empty M.2 PCIe 4.0 slot. Unlike the Xbox Series X, which uses a proprietary port for expanding storage, the PlayStation 5 can use off-the-shelf SSDs if they meet Sony's minimum performance...
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Though cryptocurrency has drawn some ire worldwide, there is some serious market potential, and it would be foolish for tech companies to ignore potential financial gains. Take, for example, a cryptocurrency called Chia, which utilizes unused storage as part of a proof of space and time blockchain. The faster, the...
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Imagine paying a premium for a blazing fast PCI Express 4.0 solid state drive only to discover that it coughs up a hairball on your specific PC platform. Sour grapes, right? Well, that is the situation some owners of X570 motherboards found themselves in when slapping a WD Black SN850 SSD into their PC, but...
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Intel has been making noise in virtually all segments of the storage market as of late. A few weeks back, we took a look at the Optane Memory H20, which combines 3DXpoint media with traditional NAND on hybrid M.2 device to accelerate the storage subsystem in mainstream notebooks and PCs. More recently, we evaluated...
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When we reviewed the Intel Optane SSD 905P back in 2018, despite a significant price premium over NAND-based SSDs, we gave the drive and Editor’s Choice award due to its exceptional performance where it mattered most for consumers, e.g. access times and random transfers at low queue depths. Intel Optane solid state drives typically offer...
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This morning Kingston announced that its latest DC1500M series of enterprise-class solid state drives have begun shipping. Like many of its predecessors in Kingston’s enterprise SSD line-up, the new DC1500M series leverages a hot-pluggable U.2 (2.5”, 15mm) form factor, that’s compatible with common U.2 backplanes. The drives...
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When the limits of the PCIe 3.0 interface started holding back high-performance SSDs, the industry made the logical leap to PCIe 4.0. With that change came the arrival of the first SSDs with 5,000MB/sec sequential reads and similar writes. As SSD controller technology has matured and faster NAND has been introduced...
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The PCI Express 4.0 interface has been around on AMD's Ryzen platform for a long time now, ever since the launch of Zen 2 and the X570 chipset. The new spec has finally gone mainstream on Intel's platforms, as well, with the release of the Rocket Lake-S 11th Gen Core processor family and the accompanying Z590 PCH. That means that neither camp...
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TeamGroup is targeting customers looking for large-capacity SSDs, but don't want to compromise too much on performance. The company's solution is the new T-Force Cardea Z44Q family, which uses the PCIe 4.0 interface along with value-conscious 3D QLC NAND to keep pricing in check.
Although the SSDs are, of course...
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When it comes to storage, the industry has, for the most part, shifted to SSDs for desktop and laptop PCs. Given falling NAND prices and far superior performance, SSDs are the obvious choice for the consumer market. However, when it comes to external storage, HDDs still command the lion's share of the market by...
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Prime Day 2021 kicked off with a bang early this morning, and the deals continue to flow in at a furious pace. We’ve already brought you some discounts on things like laptops and wireless earbuds along with console games. Now we’re zeroing in on solid-state drive (SSDs) for those looking to upgrade their gaming...
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Up until today, there had not existed a solid state driver controller that takes advantage of the PCI Express 5.0 specification. That just changed, however, with Marvell's introduction of the Bravera SC5, the industry's first SSD controller to support PCIe 5.0 and NVMe 1.4b, to potentially double the performance of...
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Waiting for games to start because of a not-so-snappy hard drive is a problem of the past anymore. SSDs are becoming larger and cheaper, and chucking in a PC or console can speed up load times and improve the overall experience. As such, Western Digital has announced three new members in its WD_BLACK lineup so that...
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Extremely fast SSDs are becoming more commonplace in the PC enthusiast realm. As such, we regularly see new SSDs announced that have sequential read/write speeds surpassing 6,500MB/sec and even 7,000MB/sec. However, the problem arises when these SSDs must throttle performance due to the immense heat generated when...
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A number of today’s best performing, PCIe Gen 4 solid state drives are built around Phison’s E18 controller. If you remember, way back when the AMD Ryzen 3000 series debuted, a number of SSD providers also launched Phison PS5016-E16 based drives alongside the processors to highlight some of the benefits of the platform's PCI Express...
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Intel first showed off its Optane Memory H20 solid state drive late last year. Just in case you missed the initial news, Optane Memory H20 is the follow-up to 2019’s Optane Memory H10, which combines 3D Xpoint-based Optane Memory technology and QLC (quad-level cell) 3D NAND flash on a single M.2 storage device...
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It seems as though enthusiasts just can’t catch a break these days. Finding a current-generation (or even previous-generation) GeForce RTX 30 Series or Radeon RX 6000 Series graphics card in stock is near-impossible. And things on the console gaming side aren’t much better, as both the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5...
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Cryptocurrency mining has been a bane on gamers hoping to score a graphics card at fair market value, but just wait until the storage market dries up, too. Perhaps (hopefully) it will not happen. It depends on the long term impact of Chia, a type of cryptocurrency that is mined with unused storage space instead of...
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As of late, there has been a run on graphics cards due to cryptocurrency miners looking to cash in on mining for whatever coin that is the new hotness on the market. However, the next crypto-driven shortage could very well be hard drives and SSDs with a new breed of cryptocurrencies that operate by "proof of space"...
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The SSD wars are heating up now that both AMD and Intel have desktop platforms that fully support the PCIe 4.0 interface. AMD has supported PCIe 4.0 on the desktop side since Zen 2 (Ryzen 3000), while Intel entered the fray recently with 11th generation Rocket Lake-S processors. Now, Patriot is looking to cater to...
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When it comes to PCIe 4.0 SSDs, the sky is the limit with performance. When the first-generation SSDs landed with sequential read speeds surpassing 5,000 MB/sec, we were impressed. Things have only progressed from there, with SSDs using second-generation PCIe 4.0 controllers like the Adata XPG Gammix S70 delivering...
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When we stumble across PC components deals, they typically come from online retailers like Amazon, Best Buy, Newegg, or various other well-known names. It's not often that the device's actual manufacturer provides the best price to consumers. Western Digital is bucking that trend today with a killer deal on its...
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