Items tagged with Storage
Toshiba on Tuesday announced it has developed a new XFMEXPRESS form factor for "removable PCIe attached, NVMe memory devices," otherwise known as SSDs. These are not like any traditional SSDs, however, but smaller and lower-height ones to enable fast storage in increasingly thinner and lighter devices, including ultrabooks and things like VR headsets. "With a new form factor and an innovative connector, XFMEXPRESS technology delivers an unparalleled combination of features designed to revolutionize ultra-mobile PCs, IoT devices and various embedded applications. Recognizing the need for a new class of removable storage, Toshiba Memory leveraged its extensive background in single-package memory...
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Kingston has been a dedicated stalwart of the memory, storage, and peripheral markets for many years. The company’s products target virtually every type of user, from entry-level first-time PC builders to seasoned sysadmins. The products we’ll be showing you here today, the Kingston DC500R and DC500M solid state drives, target the latter type of user, in need of reliable, high-capacity SSD storage for enterprise and data center applications. At first glance – of both their physical design and specifications -- the Kingston DC500R and DC500M drives appear to be similar. The ‘R’ variant, however, is geared for read-heavy workloads, while the ‘M’ variant...
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A few months back, Samsung launched its SSD 970 EVO Plus series of solid state drives, which featured the company’s latest TLC NAND flash memory and an updated firmware optimized for higher performance. When the line-up initially arrived, capacities up to 2TB were announced, but only the 250GB – 1TB models were made available. The highest-capacity, 2TB Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus has just arrived, however, and we got the chance to take one for a spin. At its core, the 2TB Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus is virtually identical to the other drives in the line-up, save for a larger DRAM cache and, obviously, more NAND storage capacity. Here’s how the full line-up compares to the original...
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A few weeks back, we took a look at the WD Blue SN500 SSD. That solid state drive is an affordable NVMe M.2 option, that’s targeted at mainstream systems and budget-constrained users. The WD Blue SN500 offers the benefits of NVMe, with pricing that is in-line with legacy SATA devices. The drive we’ll be looking at today, however, the WD Black SN750 SSD with Heatsink, takes things in a completely different direction. The WD Black SN750 SSD with Heatsink targets enthusiasts and gamers, and offers much higher performance in some scenarios. It is also priced higher, but not exorbitantly so. The WD Black SN750 SSD with Heatsink is by no means a mainstream drive, as you’ll see shortly,...
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Like many hardware companies, Intel is using Computex to showcase a bunch of new products and technologies, such as its Core i9-9900KS Special Edition processor, 10-nanometer Ice Lake CPUs, and Project Athena laptops. In addition, Intel has unveiled a new and faster Optane Memory product that improves upon the performance of the previous generation offerings. The new Optane Memory M15 drives consist of Intel's 3D XPoint memory plopped onto an M.2 form factor module, with a PCI Express 3.0 x4 interface. As with the previous generation Optane Memory 10 modules, the M15 is using 128-gigabit (Gb) 3D XPoint built on a 20 nanometer manufacturing process. The major change, however, is the bump from...
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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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The PC gaming and enthusiast realm is RGB-ing all the things it seems. Thermaltake launched a desk with RGB lighting earlier this month, Corsair has its Ironclaw RGB mouse, while Gigabyte launched an RGB NVMe SSD and Razer is developing a toaster with RGB lighting. Enthusiasts wanting another RGB SSD option have a new product from KLEVV to check out. The SSD is the CRAS C700 RGB SSD; and it's an M.2 2280 NVMe PCIe Gen 3x4 SSD. The storage device supports ASUS AURA Sync, is RGB Fusion ready, and supports both MSI Mystic Light Sync and ASRock Polychrome Sync. That support will allow you to sync the SSD with the lighting on your other products if they are all compatible. KLEVV features...
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For the first time ever, you can buy a 1TB capacity microSD card, courtesy of SanDisk (which has beaten Micron to the retail punch). That is provided you have the requisite cash—the asking price is $449.99, and it does not appear that street pricing is any lower than the MSRP at the moment. That may change, though don't expect this amount of microSD storage to be cheap in the near future. For those who can afford it, this is a massive amount of storage for supported devices. That is something you will want to double check before plunking down several hundred dollars, as some devices have a cap on how much storage they support. High resolution cameras and camcorders are obvious destinations...
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Enterprise-class solid state drives used to be rare beasts that commanded heavy price premiums over their more common, consumer-oriented counterparts. As leading SSD and flash memory manufacturers have evolved their processes and technologies, however, availability and pricing for many enterprise-class solid state storage solutions have dropped dramatically. Whereas enterprise SSDs that target mission-critical workstations or data centers used to cost many times that of a consumer SSD, that is no longer the case for some products. Samsung's 883 and 983 DCT drives we’ll be showing you here, for example, are available in relatively large capacities and surprisingly won’t break...
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WD’s Blue family of solid state drives has historically been comprised of nothing but SATA-based offerings, but the company recently updated the line-up with some brand-new NVMe-based drives. The WD Blue SN500 we’ll be showing you here today is the first Blue-branded NVMe SSD from the company, and as has been the case with many of WD’s “Blue” products, it is aggressively priced and pushes NVMe into more mainstream territory. The WD Blue SN500, however, does not target the high-end of the NVMe market; that is the WD Black family's job. As you’ll see in the WD Blue SN500’s specifications below, it’s much more tame than many of other NVMe solid state...
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Intel announced its Optane Memory H10 back during the Consumer Electronics Show, early this year. Just in case you missed the initial announcement, the company's Optane Memory H10 is a new class of products from Intel that combines 3D Xpoint memory technology and QLC (quad-level cell) 3D NAND flash on a single M.2 device. The goal for the product is to offer the benefits of 3D Xpoint and Optane Memory in conjunction with the affordability and speed of a QLC-based NVMe SSD in a single device. Initially, these hybrid drives will find their way into utlrabooks or small form factor systems that may not have the accommodations for multiple drives. 3D Xpoint and NAND flash memory can both be used for...
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You might think you have enough storage space for your tablet or smartphone, but that is rarely the case. An Android device with 128GB or even 256GB of integrated storage fills up quickly when you add a lot of games or take lots of high-resolution photos and 4K video. Gamers who like to play on the Nintendo Switch also need microSD cards for storage. Amazon has a deal going right now on a fast microSD card that may be just what the doctor ordered. Amazon is offering a SanDisk Ultra 200GB microSDXC card that is UHS-I rated and ships with an SD card adapter to fit into card readers. The memory card is UHS Speed Class U1 and Speed Class 10. The 200GB card is on sale for $25, which is $12.95 off...
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Like a handful of other recently-released solid state drives that feature QLC (quad-level cell) NAND flash memory, the Crucial P1 series is designed to be a relatively high-performing, but still affordable storage option, versus legacy SATA-based solutions. When it initially arrived, the Crucial P1’s MSRPs didn’t necessarily reflect this design goal, but now that availability has ramped and street prices have settled, the Crucial P1 could represent a significant upgrade for users still hobbling along with slower storage or planning a new, budget-friendly build, and it won't break the bank. We’ve got the Crucial P1’s main features and specifications outlined in the table...
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When we evaluated the original ADATA XPG SX8200 SSD last year, we found the drive to be a solid value that offered good performance for the money. So, when ADATA mentioned that it had an updated version of the XPG SX8200 available for review that should perform even better, we were eager to check it out. The aptly named ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro is similar to the original drive in many ways, but incorporates a new controller and firmware that cranks performance up a few notches and adds some new features. The ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro’s main features and specifications are outlined in the table below. As you can see, sequential transfers are rated for a healthy 3.5GB/s (reads) and 3GB/s (writes)...
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