Items tagged with SSDs
Samsung finds itself in a braggadocios mood over the continued development of its vertical NAND flash memory chips, and in a blog post spanning nearly 1,400 words, the company talked about what makes it so special, and where it is headed. To that latter point, its 7th generation V-NAND flash memory chips are punching their ticket to both PCI Express 4 and, eventually, PCI Express 5.0 solid state drives. The chest-thumping is not unwarranted. Three-dimensional (3D) chip stacking is what has enabled higher capacities on increasingly fast storage products, at acceptable thickness levels for today's electronic devices, like smartphones and PCs. It's pretty remarkable when you take a moment to think...
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Is cryptocurrency mining the reason why we can't have nice things? You could make that argument in some instances, even with solid state drives (SSDs). Case in point, PNY has significantly reduced the endurance rating on its high-performance XLR8 CS3030 SSD family, and by extension, potentially slashed the warranty period. That's because when it comes to SSD warranties, most manufacturers (including PNY) typically guarantee a drive for a set period of time or when a certain write threshold has been reached (labeled as terabytes written, or TBW), whichever occurs first. For most people, it is the former. But for people who mine Chia, which taps into unused storage space, the latter happens much...
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It may seem hard to believe, but storage makers are already approaching the limits of the PCI Express 4.0 bus in a typical NVMe drive, with the latest controller designs pushing transfer speeds in the neighborhood of 7 gigabytes per second (GB/s). That being the case, Silicon Motion is already at work developing controllers that leverage the PCI Express 5.0 bus. Before we get to that, let's go over the bandwidth limits of each PCI Express specification to date, starting with PCI Express 1.0... PCIe 1.0: 2.5GT/s transfer rate, 250MB/s per lane bandwidth, 4.0GB/s x16 bandwidth PCIe 2.0: 5.0GT/s transfer rate, 500MB/s per lane bandwidth, 8.0GB/s x16 bandwidth PCIe 3.0: 8.0GT/s transfer rate, 1GB/s...
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Amid all of the hoopla surrounding AMD's next-generation Ryzen processors based on its Zen 2 CPU architecture is an interesting technology that complements the launch. We are talking about PCI Express 4.0. This is part of AMD's accompanying X570 chipset for Ryzen, and it doubles the bandwidth of PCIe 3.0. One of the immediate benefits we will see from this is the introduction of faster NVMe solid state drives, such as Gigabyte's newest AORUS model. The caveat is that, on the consumer side, the only combination that supports PCIe 4.0 right now is an X570 motherboard paired with a third-generation Ryzen processor, both of which you will be able to get your hands on in July. In the meantime, we...
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While some companies have begun trotting out PCIe 4.0 NVMe solid state drives, Toshiba on Wednesday announced an updated version of its XG6 series from last year. The new XG6-P still shuttles data through the PCIe 3.0 bus, but ups the ante over the previous generation drives with faster sequential and random read and write speeds. Toshiba also doubled the capacity of the new drive series. The previous generation XG6 series made waves for being the first NVMe SSDs to incorporate 96-layer BiCS 3D NAND flash memory chips. Compared to its 64-layer predecessors, the then-new 96-layer tech allowed Toshiba to increase the capacity per unit chip size by 40 percent. As a result, that drive line topped...
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An interesting thing is happening in the solid state drive (SSD) industry. We are in the midst of a transition from SATA to speedier NVMe SSDs, the latter of which are more costly. At the same time, NAND flash memory prices continues to fall, pushing down the costs of SSDs. So, it's interesting whenever a company announces a new NVMe SSD line, and the first thing we look at is the price. Case in point, Kingston today introduced a new KC2000 family of NVMe SSDs starting at around $62. We'll circle back to pricing in a moment, but first let's talk a bit about the new drive series. Kingston's latest SSD family pairs 96-layer 3D TLC (triple-level cell) NAND flash memory built by Toshiba and SanDisk...
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Solid State Drive (SSD) prices are falling, which is good news for consumers. As seen in our review of WD Blue SN500, prices for NVMe PCIe SSDs are coming down to the 13 cents/GB range with superior performance than what's available with garden variety SATA SSDs. Even more promising is the fact that 512GB and 1TB SSDs are expected to dip down even further to 10 cents/GB mark before the close of 2019. But for those that need a new SSD right now, we're got a roundup of some incredibly cheap NVMe PCIe SSDs that won't break the bank, and will still give you a significant performance advantage over traditional HDDs, or even SATA SSDs. The following NVMe PCIe SSDs available from Amazon...
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In case you have not noticed, prices for solid state drives have fallen off a cliff over the past year. At this point, there is really no excuse to go with a mechanical hard drive over an SSD as your primary storage, unless you must have oodles of capacity for your boot drive. Otherwise, grab yourself a speedy SSD and never look back. If that is in fact your plan, one of the best deals right now is for a Kodak-brand 2.5-inch 480GB internal SSD (EKSSD480GX150K). We don't see Kodak's name pop up in the storage space all that often, so it's interesting that the lowest price 480GB-class SSD belongs to a company that is best known for cameras and photography. This specific model falls under the Power...
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The SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD we'll be showing you here today is the follow-up to the SanDisk Extreme 510 Portable SSD. This new drive fully embraces USB-C while retaining USB Type-A compatibility for older Macs and PCs. It promises speedy storage (up to 550 MB/s claimed), a wide range of capacities (250GB, 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB), and an IP55 rating against dust and water intrusion. The drive’s slim body looks more like a portable charger for your cell phone than the bulky external hard drives of old, and it fits in a shirt pocket easily. It feels rugged, with black soft-touch material covering its back, textured hard plastic on the front panel (also black), and an orange-accented...
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We have come a long way from the days of using bulky CRT monitors that were power hungry, heavy, and dominated our desktop real estate with their large footprints. As if to underscore the progress that has been made in the monitor market since then, among the many items Dell is showing off at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas are a pair of new gorgeous looking ultrathin displays. Dell is pitching these new monitors as the world's brightness ultrathin displays in their class. There are two models—the 23.8-inch S2419HM with a 1920x1080 resolution and the 27-inch S2719DM with a 2560x1440 resolution, each at 60Hz. Both have a curved backside that is similar looking to Apple's all-in-one...
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SanDisk has announced the release of third-generation Fusion ioDrive PCIe and Mezzanine flash cards, in doing so marking the first integration of SanDisk NAND flash and Virtual Storage Layer (VSL) software into the ioMemory product line since the company acquired Fusion-io in June 2014 for $1.1 billion. Flash technology has moved significantly forward since the SanDisk's acquisition of Fusion, with smaller geometries and denser dies, all of which mean more flash capacity can now be placed on a PCIe flash card with performance raised and/or prices cut. Which explains why SanDisk is saying that their new products — built with SanDisk NAND — will offer a four times price performance improvement,...
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In an effort to help making upgrading to a solid state hard drive more affordable, Kingston Technology is announcing the SSDNow V Series solid-state drive (SSD) upgrade bundles. Designed for mass-market consumers and small and medium businesses, the Kingston SSDNow V Series upgrade bundles are the first products in Kingston’s series of low-cost, value-driven SSD solutions for existing desktops and notebooks. The new drives are available in 128GB and 64GB capacities. "The SSDNow V Series upgrade bundles are a terrific solution - given the current economy - for cost-conscious consumers who want an instant performance increase on an existing computer at a very reasonable price point," said Ariel...
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Although there is no mention that the product even exists on Corsair's own Website, U.K.-based online retailer, Scan, purports to now be selling a 128GB solid-state drive (SSD) from Corsair. As a matter of fact, Corsair's site makes no mention that the company has even entered into the SSD market; albeit, such a move is a logical choice for a memory manufacturer, as other memory makers, such as Crucial, Kingston, and OCZ, have already made the plunge into SSDs. This new mystery drive is listed on Scan as the "CMFSSD-128GBG1D." The drive is a 2.5-inch, SATA-II-based SSD with a stated maximum sequential read speed of 90MB/Sec and a maximum sequential write speed of 70MB/Sec. The drive is based...
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Solid State Drives (SSDs) are very quickly becoming a very popular alternative to traditional, platter-based hard drives. Not only can SSDs read and write data quicker overall, but since they have no moving parts, they can withstand a lot more abuse than traditional hard drives. SSDs are still relatively expensive and available storage capacity limits still pale in comparison to today's traditional hard drive options; but as the technology matures, prices are steadily coming down, and storage capacities are going up. If not for one significant potential flaw, SSDs might appear to be the perfect storage medium. That one potential flaw is in some sense, one of a perception. Because the actual lifespan...
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At a time when many hard drive manufacturers are looking into producing SSDs (solid state drives) as a way to create a new market opportunity, Western Digital is dragging its feet. Claiming the company is open to entering the SSD market when it presents "appropriate opportunity," Richard Rutledge, Western Digital's SVP for marketing, recently shed a bit more light on the company’s position with regards to this segment of the market.According to Rutledge, "Western Digital enters markets that exist, announces products when they are available, and runs a tight model with opportunities greater than resources such that we take a controlled, methodical, sequential, incremental approach to product portfolio...
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Samsung Now Producing 256GB Solid State Drive; Substantial Performance Gains Make it Best Overall Performing SSD for PCs Seoul, Korea - November 20, 2008: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced semiconductor technology, announced today that it has begun mass producing 256 gigabyte (GB) solid state drives for use in notebooks and desktop PCs. With the addition of the high-speed 256GB drive, Samsung now offers the most extensive line of SSDs in the industry with 8, 16, and 32GB SSDs for low-density designs and 64, 128 and 256GB alternatives for the higher densities.The new 256GB SSD more than doubles the performance rates of Samsung 64GB and 128GB SSDs to become the SSD with...
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We recently showed you how Intel was intent on upping the ante in Solid State Disk performance, with our evaluation and performance analysis on the release of their X25-M series SSDs. Though offerings from other SSD manufacturers like OCZ and Samsung have come to market with better performance since then, there was no question Intel's SSD flat out smoked the competition in the cost-effective, consumer grade MLC (Multi-Level Cell) SSD market. With an average sustained throughput of ~225MB/sec for reads, around 74MB/sec observed write performance, and blistering fast sub-millisecond random access, we were left thoroughly impressed by Intel's first consumer-ready effort in SSD technology. However, at...
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Super Talent Launches SSDs for Asus Eee PCsUp to 64GB Mini PCI-Express Cards Give Eee PC Users New Upgrade Options San Jose, California – October 7, 2008 – Super Talent Technology, a leading manufacturer of Flash storage solutions and DRAM memory modules, today announced a new line of mini PCI-Express SSDs, available in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB capacities, that were designed explicitly for the Asus Eee PC. Standard Eee PCs have maximum 20GB of storage. These cost-effective upgrade cards offer up to 64GB of solid state storage. Super Talent’s Mini PCIe cards have been tested extensively with Asus Eee PCs to ensure performance and compatibility. Super Talent Director of Marketing, Joe James mentioned,...
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Super Talent Launches Dangerously Fast New SATA-II SSDsSupport up to 170MB/sec Read and 130MB/sec Sequential Write Speeds San Jose, California – September 16, 2008 – Super Talent Technology, a leading manufacturer of Flash storage solutions and DRAM memory modules, today added two new series of SSD products in their MasterDrive family that deliver substantially faster performance than existing SSDs.These new SSDs are based on a sophisticated new multi-channel SATA-II (3.0 Gbits per sec) controller. The MasterDrive OX uses MLC NAND Flash to transfer data at speeds up to 150 MB/sec (sequential read) and 100 MB/sec (sequential write). The MasterDrive OX is offered in capacities up to 128GB, and...
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As we've recently told you, SSDs will be the storage technology of the future. In addition, we're also quickly coming to a close on the launch of our first comprehensive SSD round-up here at HotHardware, that will give you a good sense of where SSD technology stands today in the mainstream and where it's going in the future. Gazing into the crystal ball for a minute or two, typically, if you track "big iron" storage companies, eventually what is adopted there often times trickles down to the end user market. Fittingly, if IBM's recent achievement in high density SSD technology is any foreshadow of things to come in SSD storage, you could perhaps project that, at this time next...
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"Smaller, faster, less expensive," might just be the motto over at Samsung these days. At least that's what it feels like with Samsung's announcement today that it has started sampling low-density, multilevel cell (MLC)-based solid state drives (SSDs) that are "only 30 percent of the size of 2.5-inch SSDs," "higher performance," and "highly cost-efficient to manufacture." Samsung is aiming these low-capacity drives at the burgeoning low-cost PC market. Starting next month, Samsung will start mass-producing 8GB, 16GB, and 32GB SSDs using this new manufacturing technique:"We've refined our manufacturing techniques and redesigned our low-density SSDs to get what the low-priced PC market is looking...
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If there is any doubt that Solid State Drives (SSDs) are the next medium for laptop storage, then don't tell the folks over at Samsung. They probably won't have time to take your call anyway, because they're busy ramping up production of Samsung's 128GB SSDs in both 1.8-inch and 2.5-inch form factors. This is in addition to the 64GB SSDs that Samsung ramped up production on only a few days earlier. The Samsung SSDs use Multi-Level Cell (MLC) technology, which according to Wikipedia is:"MLC NAND flash is a flash memory technology using multiple levels per cell to allow more bits to be stored as opposed to SLC NAND flash technologies, which uses a single level per cell. Currently, most MLC NAND...
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